Ask the Author: Augustin Erba
Answered Questions (5)
Augustin Erba
It was midnight when he decided that taking the shortcut through the old graveyard would be quicker. He was dead wrong.
Augustin Erba
The best thing with being a writer is that you have the possibility to step out of yourself in any bad situation, watch your misery from above and say to yourself: this humiliation is actually great material.
Unfortunately that is also the worst thing with being a writer - if you're not careful you'll end up being a bystander in your own life.
Unfortunately that is also the worst thing with being a writer - if you're not careful you'll end up being a bystander in your own life.
Augustin Erba
Inspiration is like being struck by lightening. If you are in an underground night-club in the middle of the night, being drunk in a dark corner, feeling sorry for your lousy writing you will not be struck by lightening.
If you want lightening you have to earn it by placing yourself near thunderstorms, you have to climb tall buildings or majestic trees or stand alone in grassy fields or be all by yourself in the middle of the sea. You'll have to take risks and some of your friends will miss you in da club.
I need to be writing so often that I can improve the odds of inspiration striking me when I am actually able to take advantage of it.
If you want lightening you have to earn it by placing yourself near thunderstorms, you have to climb tall buildings or majestic trees or stand alone in grassy fields or be all by yourself in the middle of the sea. You'll have to take risks and some of your friends will miss you in da club.
I need to be writing so often that I can improve the odds of inspiration striking me when I am actually able to take advantage of it.
Augustin Erba
I have yet to meet a writer with writer's block. I have met a lot of writers who did not write as often as they imagined that they wanted, who did not write what they would like to have written and people who call themselves writers who did not write anything at all. None of them suffered from an inability to put down words. They all did suffer from a lot of other things, and they truly suffered.
The inability to write when faced with a blank page when you believe that you will shape the novel of the millennia is not writer's block - it's being an newbie and we all (or most of us) go through that phase before we realise the two things that marks a professional writer:
1. You can't be a writer unless you actually sit down and write for a long time, even if no words come out.
2. Your ability to write will improve the more often that you do 1.
The inability to write when faced with a blank page when you believe that you will shape the novel of the millennia is not writer's block - it's being an newbie and we all (or most of us) go through that phase before we realise the two things that marks a professional writer:
1. You can't be a writer unless you actually sit down and write for a long time, even if no words come out.
2. Your ability to write will improve the more often that you do 1.
Augustin Erba
Some people write to get rich, others write to change the world. Some don't need readers, others want to sleep with them. We're all different and there are as many reasons to write as there are writers. That said you still need to find out why you write.
You can write without knowing why, but you can't rewrite.
If you write just to feel better, you can even skip the rewriting. Just write and be happy (and don't send your script to an agent and get all disappointed, because - remember - you wrote to feel better and you did.)
If you write because you want to be rich, you probably need to rewrite whatever you wrote into non-fiction. Preferably a non-fiction book on how to get rich. Or, even better, start working in a bank or somewhere else where they handle money and become rich by doing that, then you can write a book about it and become even richer.
If you write to make friends, don’t spend your time rewriting, spend time on book fairs, spend time going to writing classes, spend time discussing with your writing friends what kind of writer you want to be.
If you write to change the world, you probably shouldn’t be writing novels at all; my guess is that a couple of well written posts on Facebook, or working as a journalist, can impact more people than you will reach with a novel.
I’m giving you this advice because I want you to be a happy writer. Because if you do what I did, and rewrite your text a million times, you don’t have time to make new friends, barely keep up with the old ones. Because if you do what I did, you will spend countless of hours, non-billable hours, into something that, when all is said and done, will end up paying less than what you could’ve earned working all those hours at your local burger joint. If you do what I did, you will fail and fail again, and you will despair, and you will curse the day you even thought you could write. But if you decide, like I did, that you want to write a novel that would bring hope, if you decide, like I did, that you will give this novel your best, because the story that you’re telling belongs not only to you, but to everyone trying to make it in this world, if that is your decision, then I can tell you something, as I have reached a distant shore: I’m not rich, I haven’t made many new friends lately and I am still not happy. But I watch from that shore my novel sailing through strong waves without me.
You can write without knowing why, but you can't rewrite.
If you write just to feel better, you can even skip the rewriting. Just write and be happy (and don't send your script to an agent and get all disappointed, because - remember - you wrote to feel better and you did.)
If you write because you want to be rich, you probably need to rewrite whatever you wrote into non-fiction. Preferably a non-fiction book on how to get rich. Or, even better, start working in a bank or somewhere else where they handle money and become rich by doing that, then you can write a book about it and become even richer.
If you write to make friends, don’t spend your time rewriting, spend time on book fairs, spend time going to writing classes, spend time discussing with your writing friends what kind of writer you want to be.
If you write to change the world, you probably shouldn’t be writing novels at all; my guess is that a couple of well written posts on Facebook, or working as a journalist, can impact more people than you will reach with a novel.
I’m giving you this advice because I want you to be a happy writer. Because if you do what I did, and rewrite your text a million times, you don’t have time to make new friends, barely keep up with the old ones. Because if you do what I did, you will spend countless of hours, non-billable hours, into something that, when all is said and done, will end up paying less than what you could’ve earned working all those hours at your local burger joint. If you do what I did, you will fail and fail again, and you will despair, and you will curse the day you even thought you could write. But if you decide, like I did, that you want to write a novel that would bring hope, if you decide, like I did, that you will give this novel your best, because the story that you’re telling belongs not only to you, but to everyone trying to make it in this world, if that is your decision, then I can tell you something, as I have reached a distant shore: I’m not rich, I haven’t made many new friends lately and I am still not happy. But I watch from that shore my novel sailing through strong waves without me.
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