Write a Novel

Wonder if you have what it takes to be a novelist

Most of us think, writing a novel, that's got to be hard work! Just look at the size of those things. Sure, I can write; I enjoy writing; I've written a ton of documentation for this or that; I've got down rhetoric, but a novel? I've read enough of them.

I know what they're about, that is, that they're stories, and, yes, I've got a few stories of my own, but writing a novel? What does it take, I mean, what are the difficulties? Where do you start? What do you need?

To begin with, if you don't feel the need to write, if there isn't something in yourself that isn't propelling you, that isn't urging you to write a novel, then don't. All good art proceeds from a deep need in the artist to express something just as deep, something that is full of feeling, yet undisclosed (that's what writing the novel will do, disclose feeling), something that is full of the world, full of its images, and full of the time, of its concerns and tensions, full of the moment in which you live.

If there isn't something inside you that doesn't cry out, Express me!, then don't write a novel. Writing a novel begins with the artistic urge, an urge that isn't for fame, or wealth - if you can get it - but for a resolution of a conflict between human desire and a world empty of what is desired, opposed to it, perhaps giving rise to the desire by its own character, by its essence of change. If you don't have a need to create something of beauty in the world, something that overcomes its madness and inanity, don't write a novel. Get a job.

Having the artistic urge isn't enough. Like every art, the novel requires a mastery of its technology. Words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, all arranged and ordered by, yes, the principles of style, but also by the feelings you have for the subject you wish to express.

You'll want to look into the rhetoric of fiction, the elements of the novelist's medium, viewpoint, plot, character, and the means by which a novelist creates meaning for those who will read. You'll want to have a sense of beauty, and of the sublime, but you'll also need to know something about man, about his mind, his body, his soul, for the novel is about man in relation to himself, to others, to the cosmos, to God.

A good novelist is not only a thinker, a philosopher, but also a feeler; not only a psychologist, but also a sociologist, an anthropologist; not only a natural scientist, but also, in some manner, a theologian; and yet the novelist is not any of these except as their revelations have conditioned the recognizable reality to which all good novels point. If you will write a novel, as well as being a writer, be a seer too.

Writing a novel that will be a work of art starts with you being an artist. Now you may begin.

Writing Jobs

Writing Jobs Come in All Shapes and Sizes.

I am always interested when I see an online ad for writing jobs because, for one, I am a writer, but probably even more so because there are so many different kinds of writing gigs.

When many of us think about writing jobs, we imagine a newspaper position, or a novelist or short story writer, but there are many other kinds of writing jobs that rarely come to mind.

The other day I saw an ad asking for a writer who could provide 20 articles on food and nutrition for a new web site that was launching in a few months. The person who had placed the ad wanted them all within a month and was willing to pay $1,000 for the job.

What surprised me the most about this particular job was that it paid $500 to start, and $500 when the project was completed. All of the writing jobs I've had paid upon completion of the assignment.

I saw another position for a construction newsletter, which was one of the more interesting writing jobs I have seen because it paid a yearly salary, with health insurance and benefits, but was still considered a largely freelance gig.

One of the more interesting writing jobs I have personally been offered was to write a book on a type of cancer about which there is evidently not a whole lot of literature. That was one of the few gigs I actually ended up turning down, simply because I have mainly been a journalism writer, and did not really know how to approach writing an entire book.

I have seen ads looking for essay writers, poetry, and, of course, the more unscrupulous areas of adult material or college term papers. Writing jobs come in all shapes and sizes, and it is certainly not a one- size-fits-all kind of field.
I have always gravitated more toward newspaper and magazine writing because those are areas where I feel the most comfortable and know that I can do a good job. I have written a number of short stories and have attempted to write a novel, but those have typically not panned out for me the way that other writing jobs have.

The best advice that I can give to a person trying to find writing jobs is to look for something you can imagine yourself actually completing with a certain degree of competence, and then give it your best shot. I can say in all honesty that there is no worse feeling than getting into a writing job where you realize very early on that you have gotten in over your head, or really have no idea what you are doing.