The Rules of Writing

One of the first reviews of my novel was in a newspaper in Oregon, called The Oregon Writer. In it, the reviewer said "If you're writing novels of any genre, there's a terrific new study guide - Michael McKinney's A Thousand Bridges.
     "A Thousand Bridges is a mystery; but its frontier-of-writing style should hearten every fictioneer. Michael McKinney bent a lot of sacred laws and got away with it. There's hope, he's telling us, that the old steeped-in formula recipes may give way, at last allowing writers to sell individualistic stuff."
     The review goes on and on.

     My point in this blog entry is to explain one major thing in the way I write. I have no idea what the ‘sacred laws' are.
     And, I'm not telling anyone anything. I don't know anything.
     That, to me, is a major point in my writing. There are no ‘Rules,' outside telling a good story that makes sense.
     I didn't go to college; I didn't take writing courses and I don't go to writers' retreats. I have a hard time spending a weekend at a writers' conference with other writers. And that, like church, is limited to about an hour a day as a group. I can't imagine being sequestered with them.
     If that sounds elitist, it isn't. Then again, maybe it is. Of the writers I've met and admired, not one of them is a ‘joiner.'
     I love hanging out with people, talking and drinking and singing and stealing other people's words to use later as my own.
     Because that, I believe, is what makes a writer different. In one of my novels, Bird in Flight (which I hope to release online next year), I have a novelist telling an audience that writers are thieves. And, we are. We'll steal everything you hold sacred, turn it upside down, change the facts (maybe) and reveal it to the world. We can't help ourselves. We need your stories like vampires need blood.
     There are no rules.
     Some, like Saul Bellow, Faulkner and others get to be called Literary Figures. Others, like Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins are known as ‘story tellers.' Hacks.
     I don't care which is me. I just love to write.
     So, maybe there are a few things you need to ask yourself, to tell yourself, before you launch into that book you want to write.
     Does it matter to you which of these you are? Do you have a story you want to tell so much that you'll spend hours, days, months and years ignoring loved ones and responsibilities to write it?
     I do. I always do. Maggie understands.