The best writing advice and the worst advice I’ve ever received are the same thing. Now, before I go any farther, I have a confession.
I’ve never asked anyone for writing advice before. Never. Not once.
Until about three years ago, I never considered trying to become published. I looked at authors with the same awe with which I look at professional athletes. I put them on a pedestal. There was no chance that I was ever going to write something that was worth publishing. Getting published was impossible and therefore, it would be a sea of rejection and hurt if I ever tried. (Not that I don’t think I’ll ever get rejected now. Now I think f I work hard to improve my writing, there’s hopefully going to be a yes after a lot of no’s.) Important note: I know I can self-publish, but I don’t want to. I like the traditional route.
Now, back to the topic, writers get asked all the time what advice they give to young/new/amateur writers. Almost all the time, they give the same advice:
Write every day. Read more than you write.
I love writing. I love getting lost in a story or in a character’s head, to the point where time flies by and I forget anything else in the world. Ray Bradbury said, “[y]ou must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
I like to cling to my stories to the point where they become my reality. I can’t think of anything else. Instead of taking notes in class, I write pieces of dialogue. I dream up scenes. I imagine my characters sitting next to me late at night, telling me their dirty little secrets when I can’t sleep.
But I have a problem. I, like many others, like to make excuses for not writing enough. The only time I write every day is during November, National Novel Writing Month. After I reach 50k, I have to take a few days/weeks off to recharge before I dive back in and complete my novel.
I adore writing. But it can be exhausting.
I always feel guilty when I read this advice. Write every day. Okay, seems simple enough. But I rarely do it. I know you can’t get better at things unless you practice them all the time, but this advice makes me feel so guilty. And that guilt makes me want to write even less. Because I start to feel as if I don’t care about writing. Like I don’t take it seriously enough. As if I don’t want it enough.
I think I’m still stuck in the mindset that only a precious few can be published.
Which is absolutely ridiculous considering I know personally know five published authors. As in, I’m friends with them. I’ve gone to lunch with them, housesat for them, drank with them, and stayed up late into the night with them to dream up new plot twists.
I do try to read a lot. But that becomes a problem too.
I’ll read great books and think, “I want to write something as beautiful as that sentence.” Or, “I want to write something as heart-wrenching as that scene.” “I wish I had written this book.”
You absolutely should read more than you write. Books are the greatest textbooks for learning how to write because you get to see how other writers do things that you’re struggling to figure out.
But sometimes I read a book and it gives me the same guilty feeling that not writing does. This isn’t because I think my time could’ve been better spent writing than reading. It’s the same guilt that thinks I’m not trying hard enough. If I want to be a better writer, if I ever want to be published, if I ever want a shot at writing something as brilliant as this book, I have to keep writing.
I have to write more. Maybe not every day, but close.
Write every day. Read more than you write.
It’s the best advice I’ve ever received because it’s simple and to the point. You’re never going to get any better if you don’t write and you’re not going to learn how to get better unless you learn how others write.
It’s the worst advice I’ve ever received because it’s caused so much guilt that leads to an endless cycle of not-writing and self-loathing.
It’s a good thing the good in that advice outweighs the bad.