Today marks the halfway point of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This November, writers from all around the world have been racing to complete a 50,000-word novel in just 30 days.
If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, maybe you’re one of those writers who’s already finished their novel or is right on track to have it completed by November 30. If so, congratulations! But maybe you’re like me: terribly behind in your word count and feeling a bit overwhelmed.
I jumped into the challenge excited to begin working on a new story. But soon my schedule became busy. I kept writing when I could, but I started to fall behind in my target daily word count. Today when I checked my stats, I realized I was over 10,000 words behind.
When you’re working on a huge writing project and start falling behind, it’s easy to feel frustrated and even consider giving up. That’s how I’ve felt at times, but I’ve kept moving forward, thanks in part to some wonderful advice from John Steinbeck.
Steinbeck was an expert at finishing long writing projects. The Grapes of Wrath is over 500 pages long while his marvelous epic East of Eden (one of my favorite novels) runs about six hundred pages. In a 1962 letter to his friend Robert Wallsten, Steinbeck shared his six strategies for successfully making it through the first draft of a book.
Whether you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, writing a nonfiction or fiction book on your own, or just tackling a huge writing project, John Steinbeck’s six tips can help you get back on track to bringing your project through to completion.
I’ve taken his tips and presented them in a helpful infographic. Check it out below.
6 Writing Tips From John Steinbeck
Here is the text from the above image below:
- Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
- Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
- Forget your generalised audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theatre, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
- If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
- Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
- If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
The Takeaway
John Steinbeck’s six tips are relevant for both fiction and nonfiction writing. In fact, they make an excellent guide to follow even if you’re working on smaller writing projects like a blog post or a short story.
Steinbeck’s first tip focuses on the importance of not obsessing over the length of your project. When you fall behind and start calculating how many pages are left to write, you will only discourage yourself and might even be tempted to quit. Instead, break your project down into smaller, daily goals. Focus on the words that need to be written today.
The second and fourth tip will help you avoid writer’s block and perfectionism. That’s something I found out the hard way. One day, instead of pressing forward with my story, I decided to try and go back and edit several scenes. Just as Steinbeck observed in tip #2, this ended up interfering with the flow and rhythm of my writing. The next day, I slammed straight into writer’s block.
I’ve found this also happens when I try to edit my blog posts as I’m writing them. From now on, I’m going to try to save all my editing until after I have all my words on the page. Of course, Steinbeck reminds us in tip #5 that editing is still essential, and we should never become too attached to any part of our writing that we may later need to cut.
I love Steinbeck’s third tip to write to a single reader. It is exhausting and intimidating to try to write a story or a blog post that will please everybody. There will inevitably be someone who doesn’t like the fantasy genre or the thriller genre or whatever type of story you are writing.
Instead, when you write to a single person, it gives you a sense of purpose and direction. I also find it motivating since I am now eager to share my completed work with that person.
Finally, in his sixth tip, Steinbeck urges us to read our work aloud. I find this is an important step not only for dialogue but for the entire piece. It is an excellent method to use to catch typos and awkwardly worded sentences.
(Want more writing advice from John Steinbeck? Make sure to check out Steinbeck’s advice on overcoming self-doubt in my post here.)
My Bonus Tip
I’ll be following Steinbeck’s six tips as I race to complete the rest of my story. I hope you will find them helpful as well! However, there is one tip I’d love to add to Steinbeck’s list. When you are working on the first draft of a book or any kind of intense writing project, make sure you have an accountability partner.
One of the reasons I haven’t given up on NaNoWriMo is because of the wonderful, encouraging writing community in our Facebook group. Being surrounded by other writers who are all working towards their writing goals is incredibly inspiring. Thank you so much to all of you!
If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo too or just working on a writing project, please come join us. I’d love to see you there.
What do you think of John Steinbeck’s six writing tips? Is there any tip you would add? If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment and share with someone you would like to inspire.
gfaseed says
Thanks for sharing. Useful tips! 🙂
Nicole Bianchi says
So happy to hear you found them helpful! 🙂
Jessica says
Great tips!
Also, I like to read not only dialogues out loud but all text. I tend to make sentences too long and too crooked.
Thanks for sharing, Nicole!
Nicole Bianchi says
Thanks, Jessica! Yes, reading all of the text aloud is a great way to catch typos and awkward sentences.
Karli says
Fantasy tips! I especially love the idea of writing to just one person! I feel like that will really help me!
Thanks as always for the positivity and insight! 🙂
Karli says
And when I say fantasy I mean fantastic haha! Silly autocorrect!
Nicole Bianchi says
Thank you so much, Karli! 🙂 Yes, I love that tip too.
Sally says
Thank you for your article. I’ve saved it to re-read. I am looking for inspiration to move forward with writing. I had a blog for 3 years but got distracted by life’s issues. However, I really want to write. Thank you again for your motivation.
Nicole Bianchi says
Hi, Sally! So happy to hear you enjoyed the article and found it motivating. 🙂 Thank you so much! All the best with your writing!
Shannon says
Wow – fantastic article & tips. This can even translate to writing blog posts (some days, they feel like books…) – one that really rang true was #5. It’s funny how that bias can come into play. I also love the idea on focusing on one page at a time.
Nicole Bianchi says
Thanks, Shannon! Yes, these tips have helped me a lot when writing blog posts too.
Mark Green says
Almost done with my first book and finding great resources like this only makes life better. Thanks for sharing the steps. The second step is what helped me get through without worrying about the structure at first.
Nicole Bianchi says
Congrats on being almost finished with your book, Mark! 🙂 Glad to hear you enjoyed the post. Thanks!
Elizabeth says
Very helpful tips! I’m focusing hard on tip #1 – I try to go too big, too fast always and then I never accomplish anything. Also I try to use methods that don’t work for me.
Nicole Bianchi says
Thanks, Elizabeth! I often find myself falling into the same trap. It’s so important to take things one step at a time.
Erin says
I love the idea of writing to a single person. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed by the idea of trying to write for everyone…
Nicole Bianchi says
Me too, Erin! It’s such a fantastic tip.
Christine Goodner says
Love these tips! Very timely as I work to finish up my non-fiction book to send off to the editor. I really agree with taking it one page at a time and writing separate from editing. I think the idea of actually sending my book off for others to read is starting to feel scary as my book gets finished – thinking about writing to one person not a general audience is good advice for this!!
Nicole Bianchi says
Congrats on being almost finished with your book, Christine! Yes, I really love Steinbeck’s tip to write to a single reader. It helps you fight those nerves when you’re ready to start sharing your work.
Nicole Parise says
These are really great! I don’t write anything but blog posts, but this helps!
xx nicole
http://www.nicoleparise.com
Nicole Bianchi says
Thanks, Nicole! Yes, I agree. These tips are really helpful for blog posts too.
Kat says
Love these tips as I am trying to complete my first eBook but procrastination and perfectionism are sabotaging my efforts. Luckily I have a coach now that keeps me accountable and that helps a lot!
Nicole Bianchi says
That’s fantastic that you have a coach to help you as you write your eBook! All the best with it! I’m glad to hear these tips were helpful.
Zoey says
Love the tip about writing first and editing later! So true and so important not to get caught up in the little details before the big picture is done. Great article!
Nicole Bianchi says
Love the way you put it, Zoey! Thanks for your comment!
sameer4u says
Hi nicole, glade to read this article, I really learned something today. Also I am newbie blogger and I like to write articles. thanks for sharing this post. You may visit my site http://www.sameer4u.com !! I liked your theme very much 🙂
Nicole Bianchi says
Hi, Sameer! Thanks so much! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the article. I just dropped by your site – it looks great!
Aram says
Great tips, Nicole. I’ve been working a lot on numbers 2 & 5. It’s been hard to stop myself from editing within the first draft. This week, for the first time, I managed to get all the way through a draft of this week’s blog post without editing. Big accomplishment for me, and it did flow a lot better.
Being willing to cut has been a huge improvement for my writing. It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to, and I think I’m getting better at it. My weekly writing deadline has been helping me a lot with this.
Thanks for another great article. I really liked your graphic layout of the 6 Tips.
I’m going to start on number 3 next…
Nicole Bianchi says
Hi, Aram! Thanks for commenting. Tips #2 and #3 can be difficult. With this post, for instance, I’d written up a completely different introduction. I really liked that intro, but it felt like I was trying to squeeze two different ideas into one post, so I had to scrap it and write it over. However, I do like to save the scenes or paragraphs I cut in a folder. Sometimes I find I can use them in future posts or stories.
All the best with #3! I think that one’s a lot of fun.