My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s been awhile since I’ve read Eggers and I’m glad I waited for this one. Philosopher Alain de Botton wrote a really interesting article about work a few years ago which I often think about, asking why we don’t create more art about our jobs.
(See link here: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/our-wor…)

For me, this book was an exploration of work. How jobs define us, how we define the role of jobs in our life, the seismic shifts that have occurred in certain industries, and the effect of globalisation. If that makes it sound dull and theoretical, it’s not. It’s a story about Alan, and the complicated relationships he has with his daughter and ex-wife, and the situation he finds himself inhabiting; a real but almost fictional world in the Middle East. It’s a thoughtful, evocative book, that feels very carefully constructed but not tricksy. And it’s told in the most beautiful, clean prose. I loved it.

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When I think about what I’ve learned in that time, it strikes me that none of it is new. And maybe that’s part of being a writer. You learn something, you think you understand it, you think you’re applying it, and then months or years down the line you can come back to the same revelation and it feels different. There are elements you understand now that you didn’t then. You’ve changed, and the kind of writer you are, and the kind of writing you want to do, has changed too.

A year in, here are some mantras I live by:

You’ve got to be in it to win it

As they say, you can’t edit a blank page. The only way to finish is to keep writing. It’s always the simplest piece of advice to dish out, yet often the hardest to follow. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been scared – physically? or maybe psychically? – of my book over the last 12 months. Sometimes I give it a wide berth, like an angry dog that you cross the street to avoid. But once I pluck up the courage to face it again, I never regret it.

Lack of discipline, not time, is the greatest enemy.

When I did Nanowrimo in 2012, I found ways to meet my daily target of 1667. My life wasn’t any easier than it is now, I just decided to make it happen and I did. But without an anchor, I find it much harder to be productive. Over Christmas, I lost at least a month of writing.Eventually my frustration at not getting ahead overwhelms my logic for having no time. The key for me is creating proxies for the things I need – deadlines, beta readers. Right now, I’m experimenting with “serialising” my novel, so I have to produce complete chapters at a time.

It helps to know you’re not alone.

I’ve practically disappeared from Facebook, but I do love Twitter. Used well, it’s the campus you always wanted to attend – populated by bright stars and people who want to talk about the same stuff you do. Forever. It’s a distraction, but a welcome one. It’s also humbling to see the trials of tribulations of established writers, and to know they’re just (*exceptionally talented*) people too, with families, and personal obsessions, like anyone else.

Do you remember what you were doing a year ago? Have things turned out the way you hoped?

Perhaps the discomfort with this idea is an anxiety over talent: if you can be taught to write,  can you be taught to be a great writer? To write a best-seller, or a prize-winning book? Aren’t these reserved for the select few?

Part of my day job is helping other people write better. This can definitely be taught. You can teach someone who isn’t a very good writer, to be a better one, possibly even a good one. Probably not a great one though. Being great at anything involves mastery of your field, and that’s an immersive and lifelong pursuit that involves hours of practical experience. It’s not something you can acquire in a training session.

But even if you’re a great writer, does that mean you’ll write a best-seller or win prizes? The honest answer is no. There are no guarantees. The article reminded me that a lot of what it takes to write a book isn’t about being able to produce great writing, but about being able to finish writing a book. Skills around time management and motivation are much more likely to help you succeed than being capable of deathless prose. And these skills can be learned. For serious writers, the value of doing a course isn’t necessarily that it teaches them how to write (although hopefully they will learn some tricks to address particular weaknesses in their approach), but that it gives them a gold-plated reason to write: someone else is listening, someone else is expecting them to finish.

Starting is easy. Carrying on is hard. Finishing feels practically impossible most days. If courses help you get there, who can argue with that?

When you write poetry, you learn that the start and end of lines are equally important. A lot of your energy is spent choosing the right first and last words. And the first lines and last lines of a verse. I think of it like a set of scales where you have to toggle the weights to achieve equilibrium. At a poem’s close, you have to leave something behind for your readers, something emotionally satisfying that will continue to linger.

Good endings aren’t easy to do, in poems or novels. Great endings are incredibly rare; they need to simultaneously convince a reader that this particular piece has come to an end, at the right place, while also making them believe that the world it created continues to exist in some special literary realm of suspended disbelief.

As a Post-NaNoWriMo treat in December, I read To Kill a Mockingbird. I know the deep affection many people feel for this book but I honestly can’t remember if I’ve read it before. Chances are I did, many years ago, before I was the writer (or reader) I am today.

Reading it now, I enjoyed it mostly for Lee’s style rather than for its lessons. She writes in an elegant, spare style, punctuated with just enough wit to keep things interesting.

The final chapter is what impressed me most. It’s possibly the most perfect final chapter I’ve ever read. Lee’s writing becomes embued with poetry and metaphor as she distils the heart of the novel. We shift from the perspective of a child who is growing up to an adult who has watched her grow. The power of the chapter is less in its very final last line than in the art of the last chapter that propels us there.Here’s my favourite passage:

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbours give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing and it made me sad.

I’m still some way off writing the end of my own novel, or choosing the right moment to end it. But reading Lee reminded me of the need to set the bar high.

So – aims for this year?

Number one has to be finish the novel (or FTF if you follow Betsy Lerner). Nested inside that one objective are many others: first, I have to finish writing it. Then I’ll need to revise it, probably many times. Finally, I’ll have to make a tough decision about when I’ve reached the point of doing all I can so that what remains is to close my eyes and send it sailing out into the world and see where it ends. Is all that possible in one year? Here’s hoping.

Number two is a bit broader. I want to become a better writer. Finishing my novel will help, but to write the novel I really want to write, I have to be a better writer than I am today. That means I have to be prepared to keep learning, and to keep trying different things. I have to channel my frustration at not being good enough into actions that will help me improve myself. This is a good problem to have; life would be boring if we already knew how to do everything.

So those are my two goals for now. If you’re setting writing goals for yourself this year, best of luck achieving them.