How do you write a book?

I think people like to read stuff that they can connect/identify with - I also have a book idea along similar lines....I say write it all!!

Writing book = k-hard. Due to need of systematic pages 1 through 300 to all join up. And time. And you probly get bored at page 5, so you need to want to do it, love to do it, or need money/fame/sex/socks/wood/ahfuckitwhatdoyoualllooklike?/tea. I would read it 'cos its by you. But if it wasn't, then honestly, I don't think I would read it because I don't tend to read those books but I'm sure there would be lots of interest in it.

Best way to start = either one of two paths I do when I'm writing, though I am not writing a book of sorts - a) plan what you want to write, say etc then write it. or b) just try writing it. B is normally more successful cos then you don't get bored with the sound of your own dissecting head and it means you're not double writing.

I think you could do it. But whether you should do it at this point? This is just me being Frank Wheeler ("Anyway, he remembers the biogs of all great men containing this ambling and milling around, packing books, and swigging beers, before settling at 27 to write their life") So yeh, fucking hurry up and write it Ronan. God.

haha er look!! over there!! a pony!!

Yeah, go for it Ronan. David H's two approaches don't seem exhaustive to me, and I'm not sure either fits what you are writing. I'd say that what you are writing is more like a clubbing/nights out diary, so just write down, with as much discipline as you can muster, if any, your thoughts on each night. When you feel like it, write down more general reflections. I suggest typing this into a computer (in case anyone writes any other way nowadays) because you'll have loads of editing to do. There will be plenty of dull entries (no offence!), and plenty that say nothing of interest not already said in an entry from a month or two back. There will be threads that only start to stand out over time, so might need expansion, and threads that seem promising but fizzle out, and will need pruning. Write loads and loads. As for getting a publisher, I'd suggest that after you have a reasonable amount of material, try knocking some of it into a sample chapter or section of moderate length, and send it off to loads of publishers with an explanation of how you see the whole book.

haha of course I am a systems analyst slash programmer, so there is no reason to listen to a word I say.

Writing a book is freaking EASY. I've written 7 or 8 in the past five years. Now, SELLING a book is the hard part. I'm trying to do it right now. Can you encapsulate 110,000 words in a one-page synopsis/proposal? Fuck me, it's hard.

Anyone with any advice about getting pre-existing books published, please feel free to offer help. (both my housemate and my ex-boyfriend have done it, it can't be too hard...)

one page synopsis="rave on feel the vibe".

I tried to write a book once by after about 1000 word everyone had died and been eaten by cats. I decided not to continue.

as a professional editor i think that to sell it needs the full paddy doyle/father jack inflection

well it'll be national novel writing month again in November! I'm getting ready early this year.

I'm writing a story about a boy who is bought up his parents (they are mentalists) to believe that he is a robot. It's kinda of a warped version of Pinochio (sp?). There will also probably be more dead people in freezers, and long passges about the weather. And I sorta want to make it like the premise of an anime series.

so my approach is: just write, write, write.

okay. writing a good book is freakin HARD. for good read great.

Like those things on the backs of books? Those are never remotely good at praising the book. If it is the best the publishers can come up with, you shouldnt worry. Just completely mis-describe your plot to make it sound like the thing that happens on page 20 is the plot point. The publishers must will like it.

blurbs are often written by the author!!

also if they WERE good then there'd be no need to read the book: its work wd already be done!!

My favourite book is Sam Delany's Dhalgren. On the edition I have, it's a struggle to make any sentence of the blurb mean anything, but to the extent you can it's all untrue.

This is rather derailing this thread, of course. I don't think writers generally write the blurb first, exactly.

I'm gonna write a cryptic relpy here, and maybe if alext is around he could probly explain it, but it's really just an extension of 'a writer = reader with a pen': So to write a book:

"...an attempt to show you the space in the kailyard, between the bonnie brier bush and the house with the green shutters."

(Paraphrase, 'Sunset Song' by Lewis Grassic Gibbon - I wish they'd stop selling this book in schools 'cos all the Scottish ilxers just heavegroaned with my worn-coin quotage.

haha ok re-read that over and realised Ronan now looking blankly at screen. Ok. It's a literary instab by Gibbon. Kailyard = sentimentalist school of Scottish writers who romanticised the hip and sway of the glens, the still stare of lochs, and the war of the moon and sea. Bonnie Brier Bush = novel in this rosy cheeked view of Scotland. House With Green Shutters = harrowing novel abt 'hard' Scotland, debilitating idolatry and expectation, and the weight of reputation and overly hard on its people and country.

Hence, Gibbon sets out to hedge into the space between these books by attempting, and mastering, beautifully, a synthesis.

So, short answer - how do I write a book? Annotate the ones you've got, and annotate your life. And always carry a scrap of paper and a pen. But don't get too fussy with the paper-pen schmultz or y'll just end up...

And, yeh, Martin is spot on in his first post. Spot on that I wasn't comprehensive, 'cos I wasn't trying to be, I was just mentioning a few things I do, and spot on the furthering of methods.

I am NOT writing a book. Does it make you groan when someone says they are?

it makes me groan when someone finishes one

Depends who it is, David: one divides how interesting you think it might be with how much pressure there is on you to read it to determine how good a thing it is - so if your semiliterate and dull girlfriend/boyfriend is writing a book, it is dreadful news, whereas a Mark S book is fantastic news. Though as we meet more often, I suppose my obligation increases. Mm, my equation is wrong, in that pressure doesn't matter at all if you are really keen to read it anyway.

I had a brief relationship with a novelist, in fact. Fortunately, her second novel (which she had me read first) was magnificent, which was a huge relief. (The Telegraph said she should have won the Orange Prize for it - she had been on their list for her first.)

Can anyone tell me if literary agents are as important a part of the publishing process in the U.K. as they are here in the U.S.?

I'm not writing a book. Just curious, that's all.

I get the impression that a) they aren't so important, and b) it's exceptionally hard to get one at all when you are unknown and unpublished.

Ronan: you could so easily get an agent, it's piss-easy (besides which you're 19 and just Murphia enough to interest them). Make sure you read thart horrible Decca Aitkenhead book first as a lesson in avoidance.

You need to have 3 chapters and an outline to do a book, or in some cases one chapter and a very good outline. The better the outline, the more cash they feel able to offer you. Which reminds me, there's something I'm meant to be working on right now.

Oh, and if I like your first chapter that would help you no end.

oh no!! outline!! OH NO!!

What about with poetry, suzy?

To get poetry published in a book you will either

a) have to pay for it yourself, via one of several well-known vanity presses.

b) impress one of the four or five established poetry publishers (Bloodaxe, Carcanet, Picador, Faber, etc) via publishing regularly in established poetry magazines (Poetry Review, Poetry North, Poetry London etc) or winning a big competition (the Poetry Society's National PoComp) or inveigling your way into the affections of the London Poetry Mafia.

The full quote:

"So that was Kinraddie... fathered between a kailyard and a bonny brier bush in the lee of a house with green shutters. And what he meant by that you could guess at yourself if you'd a mind for puzzles* and dirt, there wasn't a house with green shutters in the whole of Kinraddie."

*Search: "rendition" and read following two paras, spliced by quote.

write your book ronan, it could be the thing that not only brings you bucketloads of MONEY hahahahaha but personal satisfaction as well of course.
how will you ever know, if you dont do it?
books written by people who have actually DONE what they write about are great................regardless of subject matter.
and anyway, we will all probably read it just to be kind :-) even if it IS shit ( not that it would be, mind )

If I were you, Ronan, I'd write a load of articles and then compile/re-jig them into book form. That way you won't get bogged down and discouraged by trying to write a 'book' and also you'll be able to build up an audience and get some feedback. Some people would complain about lack of continuity, but I don't think there's much difference between a series of thematically linked articles and a deliberately coherent narrative. That's what I'd do.

Gibbon = windbag.

Kailyard = sentimentalist school of Scottish writers who romanticised the hip and sway of the glens, the still stare of lochs, and the war of the moon and sea. Bonnie Brier Bush = novel in this rosy cheeked view of Scotland. House With Green Shutters = harrowing novel abt 'hard' Scotland, debilitating idolatry and expectation, and the weight of reputation and overly hard on its people and country.

Half-true: Kailyard = massively popular school of Scottish writers who wrote about small rural town life in the most-part. (glens, lochs, moon etc. = Celtic twilight, but more obviously Neil Gunn). Universally panned by subsequent critics who mistake 'realism' for 'the novel': and who accuse the Kailyard of ignoring 'actual' 'reality' of Scotland. Their target is largely determined by the commercial success of Kailyard, and its popularity with that familiar bane of the critics, women and the literate poor. Over-determined by problem of Scottish diaspora who lap this stuff up, making the Scots critics at home feel a false image is being perpetuated overseas. _House with Green Shutters_ = odd mish-mash of recycled Kailyard tropes and sentiments, a much harder streak (but no more 'real') drawn from Classical tragedy, a version of Zola-influenced naturalism. For many nationalist critics whose judgements are based around the criterion of 'truth', neither Kailyard nor _House_ are successful. Kailyard = well overdue a critical rehabilitation IMHO.

Ronan, what you wrote about music festivals in a thread a while back really interested me, and has stuck in my mind since. There's some encouragement for you, then.

Easy! Pen and paper. A COMPUTAH! Or a WAH-PRO as they say in Japan. A brain might also come in handy.

jerry - what's the rep of those magazines for publishing international poets? which are the (apologies) "edgier" journals & which are elephant graveyards (y'know, the worst poems by the best poets out-to-pasture stylee)?

haha, fair enough, alex - obv, you're the professor! (Note: those memories = cribbed from SCHOOL! NOT book learning.) So.

Schoolyard (really classroom, but the pun is necessary) Propaganda! Bring on the Critical Reevaluation. What are we talking alex, The Well at The World's End?

write three chapters and a synopsis. think hard about structure: it needs to have a reason: a beginning, a middle and an end. think hard about who might WANT to publish it.

they will only want it if they think they can sell it (no matter how interesting 10 people think it is, several thousand are going to have to agree with them). So think hard about markets, too, and find publishers who serve those markets. do this by buying the Writers and Artist's Yearbook and combing it; and by looking out for books that have things in common with yours and seeing who they are publshed by. in other words, a good bookshop is a great research tool. Look inside books to see not only who the publisher is but if they thank an agent or a commissioning editor within a publishing house: if the book is like yours , these individuals may be consciously looking out for similar material. Rather than binning it, which is what is likely to happen to poorly targeted stuff. Agents are just as important as publishers; getting either is hard and the key first step.

Have fun!

Ess Kay - Poetry Review used to be slightly dowdy and mainstream but has just appointed new editors and looks very good now. Poetry North is basically an offshoot of Carcanet/Manchester University and follows the taste of Editor-King Michael Schmidt for European Modernism and American post-Ashbery/Jorie Graham elipticism. Poetry London is a bit in-crowdy. Magma is a pretty lively magazine, open to new writers. You can find lots of links for yourself here . You are antipodean, right? You could do worse than try John Kinsella, an Aussie poet-editor who I think has a position at Cambridge right now, and is very keen on bigging up Aus/NZ poetry over here - you can find out what he's up to here. Probably the most influential poetry magazine right now - certainly with British poetry editors is Jacket run by John Tranter, another Aussie. Good luck!

I like to write my names on books, sticking my tongue out whilst I clench my fingers around a crayon, "PROPERTY OF STARRY SARAH who WOZ ERE 2k2 hahahaha do you see I 0wn j00 l4m3rzzz"...

... and then I get thrown *out* of the public library...

BWAAHAHA do you see what I did?? Do you see??

Jerry - when submitting poetry do you just write a small cover letter, or give an outline, or explanation, or what? Also, do you have the same info you gave to SK but re: Scottish poems (I'm not sure that the England ones are welcoming to it; that is poems in Scots)?

If anyone can help me with the same situation that Kate has, I'd appreciate it. ;-) Actually, Suzy, drop me a line! I wanted to check with you on something...

NaNoWriMo -- yes, my friends. I already have an idea in mind. ;-)

Thanks for the info, jerry - much appreciated.

I already have an idea in mind.
(He's right - it's quite fiendish . . .)
(btw there should be some sort of tagteam ILXor NaNoWriMo megbook written)