The secret route to writing success*

First things first: by *writing success, I mean writing that pleases you and communicates easily and clearly to your intended audience.

All the other measures of success – riches, acclaim, publishing contracts, the amorous attentions of beautiful strangers – lie entirely in the lap of the gods, but good writing? That's well within your grasp, and definitely something I can help you with.

That's because the secret is so simple that even experienced writers with successes pouring out of their laptops often forget it.

And the secret is this: Write. Then rewrite until what you've written is as good as it an be.

It's as simple as that, but actually doing it ... that's the tough part, because writing is horrible. Having written is fantastic, a blast, one of the biggest buzzes currently available without a prescription. But writing is a chore, a slog, and – on its worst days – a constant reminder of your own failings.

It's easy to sit staring at a clumsily-constructed sentence for hours on end, feeling those mental cogs slowly rust and grind as easy ideas for improvement fail to arrive, until, finally, you pull up the 'writer's block!' sign and clock out for the day. That's where many writers come undone, and I've spent plenty of time mired in that pointless quest for instant perfection myself.

If you can make the mental leap, though, there's a way around it. Let your writing be rubbish. Leave that clunky paragraph, that stilted line of dialogue, put an asterisk beside it and move on to the next bit. Get that first draft down in all its messy, cluttered, half-formed glory and make it better next time.

A first draft doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be good. It just has to exist.

You can compare any sizeable writing project to a house-building exercise. Sure, you have an idea how you'd like it all to look in the end, but the framework has to be in place before you start the decorating. So don't get lost in the details.

If a perfect turn of phrase comes up first time, fantastic. Write it down and see if you still love it later. If it doesn't, put down the next best thing and move on. You can make it better later, or in the next draft.

Rewriting is where the real work gets done, and that's the real secret to writing success.

All the little details and grace notes I love in 'How Soon Is Now?' arrived in those rewriting sessions, across around eight different drafts of the book. In fact, most of my favourite ideas in 'How Soon..?' and its younger sibling, 'End of a Century', came when I wasn't even writing. Solutions to plot problems, lines of dialogue and even entire characters would pop into my brain when I least expected them (frequently, for some reason, in the shower).

I'd just hold the new arrival in my head and jot it down as soon as possible, and eventually each addition, piece by piece, would make the finished product just a little bit better.

With 'End of a Century', the first draft was just about putting the characters in the right place, pointing them at one another and making them say and do roughly the right thing. After that, draft after draft was focused on making them and their interactions real and believable, adding and refining the details with each pass until everything felt right.

It's a slow process, but it doesn't have to be a tough or dispiriting one. Just get that quick-and-dirty first draft down and then approach each new draft with one clear thought as you apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair and get back to rewriting: 'We're here to make this thing better. Let's go.'