Comments on: A Million Bad Words

By: 52 Faces

52 Faces — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:10:55 +0000

Bane and Karen - yes! After NaNo finally got me to finish novels, I now have an inability to write much more than 50,000 words. I fear my novels are too short, but - luckily - I write YA.

Heather - I too have a YA manuscript (my first ever) that has been around for about ten years now. This is draft 7 or 8 (ish) and it’s finally going somewhere past page 50. LOVE that mantra “good writing is lots of writing”

By: Heather Ezell

Heather Ezell — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:19:56 +0000

This is such a wise, zero bull shit entry. I think I’ll refer all of my writing friends to it whenever they ask for assistance!

I’ve been working on my first YA manuscript for five years now - plowing through about twelve different drafts in deep, gut churning revisions. Only NOW after sauntering through millions of bad, dull words is my manuscript starting to appear like something publishable.

My mantra towards the craft is that good writing is lots of writing. Lots and lots and lots of writing and editing and cutting and tweaking. Revisions are my best friend.

Thank you for the inspiring blog post!

By: Kidlit.com · Growing a Thicker Skin

Kidlit.com · Growing a Thicker Skin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:55:25 +0000

[...] Writers are sensitive beings. I say some pretty harsh things. Like that you’ve got to write a million bad words before you can start writing seriously. Or that getting published is easy, if you’re good. [...]

By: Candy Arkell

Candy Arkell — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:26:24 +0000

Oh, and forgive me for adding this quote I just rediscovered, by Elie Weisel: “There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don’t see them.”

By: Candy Arkell

Candy Arkell — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:01:58 +0000

And may I add (for me, anyway) the words I absolutely love, the best words ever written, words I could never, never get rid of–those are almost certainly the worst, most sappy, words of all. Cut those puppies right out. This instant. No mercy. I’ve never been sorry yet.

By: Theresa Milstein

Theresa Milstein — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:22:28 +0000

This is related to Malcolm Gladwell’s theory in his book, Outliers that you need to spend 10,000 hours perfecting your craft before you become an expert.

I wrote a post about my own quest to write, rewrite, and write some more until I achieve my goal:

http://theresamilstein.blogspot.com/2009/09/reading-aloud.html

By: beth

beth — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:25:33 +0000

SO TRUE. And especially good advice to keep in mind as everyone starts NaNoWriMo!

And, I think the real meat of this post is in pointing out that even after 1,000,000 words, it *still* won’t be perfect…but at least it will be better.

By: Karen Collum

Karen Collum — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:41:17 +0000

It’s a great concept to keep in mind and I totally agree that there is never a wasted word, although sometimes it definitely feels like it! But, as you pointed out, Mary, when you write picture books or junior novels it takes an awful lot of books to reach 1,000,000 words. That’s why I do NaNoWriMo every year and write a novel for grown ups. I learn so much by writing 50,000 words plus that gets directy fed back into my next picture book. I’m not sure I’m to a million yet, but I’m definitely creeping up there. Best get back to my NaNo manuscript…

By: Jade

Jade — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:05:12 +0000

I’m well on my way then. I wanted to hit 1 000 000 just because it would be a cool thing to be able to claim. Now I have another reason to aim for it.

I can’t even bare to open up my very first ms. I’m afraid my eyes would bleed.

By: Jessica Capelle

Jessica Capelle — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:57:56 +0000

great post- I definitely am finding that my older writing that I thought at the time was pretty good is not as great as I thought