by Caimh McDonnell
LB’S NOTE: As of this particular moment (as opposed to that non-particular moment, I suppose), Caimh McDonnell (“comedian, writer, Irishman,” as his blog tells all who discover it) is my favorite novelist because of his ability to make genre detective stories read like literary fiction.
So imagine my surprise when I discovered that his skill is about as far from accidental as can be. Dood not only knows exactly what he’s doing, he’s happy to share that knowledge with the rest of us grunts.
So listen, listen good. No, not with your ears. He’s a writer, dammit, not an AI voice. Anyway:
At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, we live in interesting times. A lot of people will be isolating themselves or, as in the case of many of my stand-up brethren, suddenly without any work to do. As much as anything in these situations, I guess we all have to stay positive and keep our minds active. I know a lot of my comedy friends have mentioned over the last few years about how they’d like to write a book, so I thought I’d do a quick blog with some advice on getting started. Most of this advice would obviously apply to scripts/plays too but for simplicity, I’ll focus on books.
Novels look like big beasts. For years, I remember thinking that I could never write one. They just seemed massive. I know this puts a lot of people off, it did me for a very long time. With that in mind, here are a few tips to hopefully make it feel more manageable.
1/ Resources
There are loads of resources out there to help you get started. Stephen King’s On Writing is a good read but there are many more. Outside of books, there are podcasts. The Bestseller Experiment is a favourite of mine, as it has a lot of great authors talking about their writing and it is aimed at people who are trying to write that first book.
Stuff like that is handy for tips but also, especially with podcasts etc, it helps to feel like other people are going through what you are….