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I get a lot of beginning writers asking me what font size I use, double space vs. single space, the mechanics. Other than using a font size that is very readable and clear, and always use double space, plus get a copy of “The Writer’s Guide”, or Writer’s Digest, or The Writer. They will help you find format for professional presentation of your work. But in the end, other than a very few things mechanics don’t matter. It will not help you to know how many words per page I have, because that is wildly dependent on whether it’s a heavy dialog scene, or heavy description. Dialog uses fewer words for more pages, than description. Mechanics are about the only thing that is similar between one selling writer to another, beyond that is where it all gets tricky.

Some writers outline. Some writers never outline. Most fall in between the two extremes, but even in those writers that use outlines what constitutes an outline differs. Some writers do a basic bone outline, I know of a very few that write so much in the outline it can be nearly half the length of the finished book. Some writers never allow their characters to deviate from the original outline. Some use the outline is a jumping off point and quickly leave it behind as the book comes alive. Others deviate from the outline, and then will eventually go back to it in a different part of the book. It all depends on the writer, and sometimes on the book.

Some writers are very anal about their work methods. Every book is done the same way as far as outline, schedule, pages per day, whatever. Other writers find that what works for one kind of book, doesn’t work for another. Sometimes the frame of mind of the writer is what changes everything. You can be too sad to write. You can be too happy. Some writers can turn anger and hurt into fuel for the muse. Other writers find it stops them in their tracks, and they can only write when they’re happy again. You can work through these kinds of issues, and working writers do it all the time, but you do need to at least realize which flavor of emotion works best for you, so that when you are not in the optimal emotional state you know you need to work harder at the writing. Please, do not make yourself miserable just to be able to write more, trust me you’ll adjust to being happy and there will more real emotional angst coming down the pipeline. Patience; no emotional state is permanent. You think I’m joking about people making themselves miserable because they believe their muse likes it better? Nope. I’ve known people that would break up with someone they loved because that person made them too happy, it’s sort of a flavor of those individuals that once happy, they grow uncomfortable with it, and will eventually poke at it until they destroy it, but with a literary flare. Either way, it sucks, and you’re being a bastard to the love of your life, cut that shit out.

Another thing that differs wildly is how much of the writers actual life or personality goes on the page. For some, you’d never know that they write what they write, it’s like camouflage. You’d be surprised how many women at the PTA are closet writers. Some pretty racy stuff can go on the page behind those suburban fatigues. Then you have writers that reflect their writing more either in outward appearance, or just in how they live. Most writers are pretty quiet and retiring sorts, there’s a reason we sit in rooms by ourselves and play with imaginary friends, we’re mostly introverts. But there are exceptions, and some, like myself, are just fine in front of a crowd. Others would find speaking to a group a lower corner of hell. Though, I am an introvert with high social skills, not truly an extrovert. I tend to swing from a need for company and conversation to need for solitude. My writing, and me as a person, needs both to thrive.

Some writers write better at night, others in the morning. Some books and characters like night time and others don’t. Writers will either need absolute quiet or noise. Most writers prefer music of some kind, or silence. On the music, some cannot work to anything but instrumentals, anything with actual singing throws them out of the writing. For others, myself included, I need singing in my music, and don’t like instrumentals at all. I will occasionally listen to some classical for a bit, but it’s the exception rather than the rule. Some writers listen to music they like to write, others listen to music that sets a mood, or reminds them of the character they’re currently writing. I pick an album or a genre of music and will listen to it until the music itself will sink me into the book I’m writing, so with my trusty headphones I can work on airplanes, restaurants, etc . . . Because the music has become the soundtrack to this book for me. Sometimes the music makes sense for the book, and sometimes it’s so opposite of what I’m actually writing it’s like a counter balance to it. I will listen to everything from metal core, to musicals, and even Christmas music. Though musicals and Christmas carols are for when the muse and I are having a hard time of it. Most of the time I do a lot of nu-metal. Current book is Stone Sour, Staind, New Medicine, Rev Theory, and The Sammus Theory; right now. I’ve changed music more on this book than any other I’ve written. Which goes back to me saying that each book can be very different.

I cannot tell the beginning writers the kind of things they want to know, because it all depends. It depends on the writer, the current book being written, and what’s happening in the writer themselves. The same things that effect other people effect us, too. A death, divorce, a break up, a new baby, vacation, overdue for a vacation: the usual stuff that can derail, or energize any of us works on artists, too. Is it easier to muscle through your work if you sit in an office and order widgets when emotions are in turmoil? I don’t know, I’ve never done that kind of job. My brief stint in corporate I found that if I was depressed, it was harder to do anything, not just the job. But emotions can effect the writing, a lot, or not at all.

I use to think that all writers used their emotions as fuel to write, or as idea jumping off points, but I’ve found that’s not always true. For some, their emotions are not reflected, or a reflection of what they write. For others, their emotions bleed all over the book. And then you have still others that find the emotions in the writing bleed back into their real life, sometimes with odd consequences. You can be having a great “real” day, but find yourself depressed because the “fictional” day has had a tragedy. I’m that kind of writer, and I have to be careful to remember that I just write this stuff and it’s not really-real. I have my own emotional issues, I don’t need all the ones I write about on top of them.

The above is just some of the reasons I find it hard to answer some of the writing questions. How to answer you truthfully, helpfully, when it all depends?