How Does a Writer Get Better?

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 | The Writing Life, To Be Queen

How does a writer get better? This is a question I ask myself. I have a few answers that I’ve come up with over the last twelve years, but if anyone else has an idea, I’d love to hear it.

This question is on my mind today because tomorrow I hope to receive the latest batch of notes from my editors. And the question remains: once TO BE QUEEN is back in my hands, how can I make it better?

This is a question I return to, again and again. As a writer and a published author, with all the added pressures of marketing and sales and speaking engagements, how do I continue to bring my focus back to the work, not to maintain the status quo of my abilities but to make them stronger?

Hard work is the only answer I’ve come up with so far. Revising the same work, again and again, until it is better than it was when I started. Taking every note from my editor and my assistant editor, and making sure that I answer the questions they pose, and work on the problems they find, until those problems are smoothed over and gone.

Writing a novel is like honing a jewel…each facet is drawn from the stone itself through hard work and power tools, and the jewel, while beautiful at every stage, finally meets a moment of completion that only a master jeweler can see. A point at which the carving stops, and the jewel exists as a work of art.

Well, I am no master yet, but I have a lot of tools at my disposal. My work ethic, two editors who love my Eleanor as much as I do, the years I have spent honing my voice, the willingness to hone my voice and make it better. I believe all of this will be enough, and that in the final product, when TO BE QUEEN reaches all of you, it will be the best I can make it. There is satisfaction in that. And hopefully, I will keep growing as a writer, and my books to come will be even better.

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