I have just discovered, and am now hooked on, this website, by author Kate Harrison (gotta love a woman called Kate!). It was recommended in an article in Mslexia magazine (a source of invaluable information to me) in an article on blogging which appeared just about the time I was setting up my blog. This is one of the things I love about writing and creative processes, the synchronicity that pops up out of nowhere and convinces you that you're on the right creative path. There's been a tonne of these recently, and yes I am digressing, but its all very circular, so I'll end up back where I started by the end of this post...

...Anyway, I happened upon the Mslexia blogging article in synchrony with my decision to start blogging as a route to developing a degree of writing rigidity, and since I've started my blog I've been looking at other to see what sort of things other people are doing. Now, I compulsively check Stephanie Klein's blog (Greek Tragedy) , partly because she's become one of the most successful bloggers, with a huge following and a book deal in the bag, but partly also because I am intrigued by the emotional nudity of it. I know it's probably a transatlantic culture gap, but I am sometimes surprised that someone would lay themselves so publicly bare. Sometimes I have to look away. But that's by the by. I noted recently that Stephanie was writing about the many unfinished creative projects she has started, and moves on to say that "I have more books on how to write than books written by actual proper authors. Though this has changed lately. I read more now, not about writing, but actual writing." (http://stephanieklein.blogs.com/greek_tragedy/2006/02/obsession.html). That stopped me dead in my tracks. Read it again: she has MORE books about writing than not about writing!

Then I started to think about how many books I own about writing. At a rough estimate I'd say I have about 20 of them. I have never finished a single one of them, and a fair few of them have never been opened. So why do I keep buying them? I buy them because I remain convinced that somewhere, in one of these books lies the Holy Grail of authorly success, the secret that will catalyse the creation of my magnum opus and catapult me into the literary stratosphere. Obviously as I never read past page 12 of these books this secret will need to be absorbable via a process of osmosis, but my faith in finding this sneaky little short cut has soldiered on unabated. Clearly all published and successful writers have unpicked the lock and gorged themselves on this feast of a secret [mixing my metaphors much?!], and they are jealously guarding it from us "little people".

Since I caught the blogging bug I have been obsessively reading other writer's blogs, thinking this may be an alternative route route to unearthing the big, bad writing secret. So I was relieved to read that Kate Harrison also "spent almost as much time surfing the web reading other authors’ success stories, as I did writing the book. It was an addiction – I felt that it might somehow show me some secret strategy to find an agent and a publisher!" http://www.kate-harrison.com/

And actually, I have discovered the secret to writing success.

But, before I let you in on this tricky little enigma, can i just get you to think of those magazine headlines that scream out dirty promises such as "Weight loss secrets of the stars", "Revealed: the new diet that REALLY works", "Get into that dress! Fool proof slimming tips that blah blah blah blah!"? So you buy the magazine, rush home and tear it open and find that..... that it's your old friend, the "eat less, exercise more" equation? Well, the reason for that is that using up more calories than you take in is the only realistic way to lose weight. sad but true.

Ah yes, the writing secret. It goes like this (drum roll, please):

Write, read, edit. Repeat as necessary.

That's it. Get words onto the page. WRITE! You will never be a writer if you do not write. For what would they publish? Your grocery list? Write! It will be crap to start with. All first drafts are. And that's OK because no-one need ever see it. It is difficult, and embarrassing, but writing is words on a page and they ain't going to get there by themselves.

Lesson over. Now go and do something to make yourself proud.