“There are only four stories: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power, and the journey. Every single book that is in the bookstore deals with these four archetypes, these four themes.”
“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”
Paulo Coelho (FB/TW: @PAULOCOELHO, PAULOCOELHOBLOG.COM) has long been one of my writing inspirations. His books, of near universal appeal, include The Alchemist and his most recent, The Spy, and have been translated into more than 70 languages. He is staggeringly consistent as a writer and averages one book every 2 years. As I type this, I am under the pressure of deadlines and often feel as Kurt Vonnegut did: “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” There is much to learn from Paulo.
Few people realize that The Alchemist, which has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide, was originally published by a small Brazilian publisher to the tune of 900 copies. They declined to reprint it! It wasn’t until after his subsequent novel Brida that The Alchemist was revived and took off.
Paulo was born in Brazil but now lives in Geneva, Switzerland, where he recorded the audio for my podcast.
“I sit down, of course. I have the book inside of me, and I start procrastinating. In the morning, I check my emails, I check news, I check everything that I could check just to postpone, for the moment, sitting and facing myself. For 3 hours, I’m trying to tell myself, ‘No, no, no. Later, later, later,’ and then, one moment, I say—just not to lose face in front of myself—‘I’m going to sit, and I’m going to write for half an hour.’ And I do. Of course, this half an hour becomes 10 hours in a row. That’s why I write my books very quickly, because I cannot stop…. [But] I cannot stop [procrastinating]. Probably, this is my inner ritual. I have to feel guilty about not writing for 3 hours or 4 hours. Then, when I’m there, I start writing and it’s nonstop….
“A successful writing day is a day that I suffer in the morning, and I have fun in the evening, fun by writing. [I should] not describe this as fun. It’s also painful … I’m in a kind of trance. When I go to bed after 10 hours of working, well, the adrenaline is still circulating in my blood. It takes hours to sleep. There is this notepad by my side, and I take notes, but I take notes only to take them out from my head. They will be useless the next day. I never use notes that I take … and this has happened since I wrote my first book, The Pilgrimage. I cannot change this process. I wish I could sit and write and not feel guilty for 4 or 5 hours during the day. It is impossible.”
TF: Even the best in the world struggle. I need to relearn this lesson often. For most writers who didn’t start off as journalists (e.g., Malcolm Gladwell, Neil Strauss), writing is hard and continues to be hard. What makes it easier? Knowing that many of the “greats” are going through the same thing. It’s reassuring to know that someone at the top of their game—who has seemingly beaten all of the odds—still has the daily struggle.
• What are the most common mistakes or weaknesses of first-time novelists?
“Keep it simple. Trust your reader. He or she has a lot of imagination. Don’t try to describe things. Give a hint, and they will fulfill this hint with their own imagination. That’s why I am so reluctant to sell the rights of my books for movies because there, you have everything. The [viewer] does not need to think. However, if I say like in Aleph, at the very beginning, ‘I am in my house in the Pyrenees, and there is an oak there.’ I don’t need to explain my house in the Pyrenees. I only needed to put in the elements that are important: the oak, myself, and the person that I’m talking to. That’s all…. Trust your reader. Understand that he or she can fill the empty spaces. Don’t over-explain.”
• How do you capture ideas that might help your writing?
“I strongly encourage writers not to think about writing every time they do something. Forget notebooks. Forget taking notes. Let what is important remain. What’s not important goes away. When you sit down to write, there is this process of purging, this process of cleansing, where only the important things remain. It’s much easier than taking notes and overloading yourself with information.”
• What do you find helpful when you are stuck or stagnated?
“There is only one thing. When I feel stagnated, I promise myself that [even] if I don’t feel inspired, I need to move forward. I need to have discipline…. In the middle of a book, there I am: I don’t know how to continue the story, even if it’s a nonfiction story. But then, I say, ‘You, book, are fighting with me. Okay. I’m going to sit here, and I’m not going to leave you alone until I find my way out of this crossroads.’ It may take 10 minutes. It may take 10 hours. But if you don’t have enough discipline, you don’t move forward….”
TF: Several people in this book, including yours truly, have found Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird a lifeline during book-related crises of faith. One friend was on the verge of returning his advance to the publisher and calling it quits. Instead, I loaned him my copy of Bird by Bird. He regained his confidence, and his book became a New York Times bestseller.
• Do you have a team, or researchers, who help you?
“I don’t have researchers, no. No, no … If you overload your book with a lot of research, you’re going to be very boring to yourself and to your readers. Books are not here to show how intelligent and cultivated you are. Books are out there to show your heart, to show your soul, and to tell your fans, readers: You are not alone.”
Cheryl Strayed (FB: CHERYLSTRAYED.AUTHOR, TW: @CHERYLSTRAYED, CHERYLSTRAYED.COM) is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things, Brave Enough, and Torch. Cheryl’s essays have been published in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Salon, The Sun magazine, Tin House, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
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Every writer in this book has a slightly different process, but they all start with the same thing: a blank page.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a writer (I never did), putting thoughts on paper is the best way to A) develop ideas, and B) review and improve your thinking. The benefits of even 30 minutes a week of scribbling can transfer to everything else that you do.
The following bullets are writing prompts that Cheryl has suggested when asked for assignment ideas for students who’ve read Wild. They are brilliant and make fantastic jumping-off points for any type of journaling or writing, whether Morning Pages (here), a blog post, the beginning of a novel, a letter to a friend, a diary entry, a screenplay, or a too-fast-too-soon Tinder message.
Try one for two pages of longhand writing. Go for uninterrupted flow, and don’t stop to edit. Step one is to generate without judging. Chances are that you’ll surprise yourself.