About Organic Novel Writer
There are many sources for information about putting words on the page, from personal author websites and blogs to dedicated forums and groups to magazines and educational sites like this one.
Actually writing is central to a writer's very being, and learning how to do so more effectively naturally engages our interest almost as much as our stories themselves do.
Like many other sites, Organic Novel Writer will, of course, contribute my share to our collective "how to write" wisdom.
But there's more to being a writer than the writing itself.
You have a life to live off the page as well.
Everything in your life affects your ability to write. And writing affects how you live every other part of your life.
What you may not have found enough of is advice on how to integrate writing into your life and your life into writing.
- Navigating the mental terrain that makes some writing sessions feel like climbing Mount Everest without an oxygen tank.
- Dealing with the resistance, or well-meaning "help", of your friends and family.
- Making time to write against the demands of your day job and other commitments. Or being able to put writing aside enough to enjoy those commitments in turn.
- Even just handling the physical environment factors that can make writing easier, or make it impossible -- such as reducing distractions or preventing eyestrain.
NovOWLs is about building your human life in concert with your writing practice.
It focuses on the art and the craft and the joy of writing as part of a balanced life -- not on how to get rid of life so you can write.
This is the place for organic novel writers
Novel writers range from the deeply intuitive automatic writers who write without any sort of conscious intention guiding their work, to the hard core planners who would get utterly lost without detailed outlines to guide writing every scene.
I have little to offer those who prefer to leave the process of writing entirely in the realms of their subconscious. I also have little to offer those who need to outline everything before writing anything.
But, if you prefer to write off the cuff while using a reasonable bit of conscious control and intent, then you are an organic writer, and you are in the right place.
Organic novel writers have little use for outlining first, but they still tend to put a lot more control into the process of creating their novels than automatic writers do.
I have been an organic writer all my life. NovOWLs is about sharing everything I've learned over the decades to help other organic novel writers improve both their lives and their writing.
The need for organic-focused writing resources
The internet is flooded with the planner crowd's insistence on working things out ahead of time. Site after site upholds the left-brained idea of "start with an outline, then write your story from that".
The "outline-first" method is easy to describe as a simple system -- and it gets results...
...for those who can use it.
I am a highly organic writer. I cannot write a story from an outline -- not even a little bit. Trying results in utter failure every single time.
Many other writers also struggle to write from outlines, or struggle to figure out any other method to try.
That's not a matter of just needing more training or more practice. It's part of who we are.
Organic writers are naturally wired to work from a different, less analytical process. Our process is not easily described as a coherent system. It takes faith to believe it works at all.
But when we ignore the planner's need for control and give ourselves that trust and faith, we organics get results just as effectively doing it our way as planners get doing it their way.
Writing organically, I turn out page after page effortlessly. I've written well over 10 million words, across hundreds of separate stories.
Organic writers like us need more non-outline-based resources.
We need resources that teach us to embrace our unique organic strengths -- not ones that try to remake us into planners.
I intend Organic Novel Writers to be just such a resource.
Why you care
This site is one of many places on the internet you can access some of the collective wisdom of the writing community.
So, why come here for what you need?
Many Internet sites purport to help you learn to write, or learn to be a better person. They offer articles and lessons, and even live workshops, but few of them make the distinction between their way and your way.
They presume that because it works for them, it will work for you.
Commercially, that's a valid viewpoint. Anyone's success can be copied by doing just what they have done.
But writing is an art form. And art doesn't copy.
Copying someone else's success will make you a clone of them -- not the artist you deserve to become.
Every writer is unique.
Even though you are an organic writer, as I am, my method won't perfectly fit your needs.
So, instead of being just another site teaching you how to do it all my way, I hope to use my knowledge and experience to show you how to bring out the magic in your own fingers, to help you discover and develop your own best methods, so you can choose your own path to writing your own stories and living your own life your way.
I intend NovOWLs to be a comprehensive and in-depth resource that re-explores the landscape of writing and of being a person who writes -- all from a native organic mindset.
I intend to help organic writers like you to not only learn the facets common to all writing, but learn to develop your own personalized and effective system of writing organically and of living as an organic writer.
I intend to help you gain the confidence to insist on using your own system, to continuously seek to refine your system to suit your needs as you grow as a writer, and to always believe in the correctness and effectiveness of writing your way.