Advice to Writers

The featured image is just one of the little promo ads I made. I’ve been enjoying playing with the app and getting some promo out of it.

This is my last week of teaching for a little while. I love teaching, but I’ve been going at it non stop for almost 4 years now. And by that I mean that I had no breaks except for a week at Christmas and four days at the end of each term. For this particular job, I end my term on a Wednesday, and begin again on the Sunday. I’m feeling a little burned out and really want to get focused on my own writing. I have to finish the grading by Wednesday, but then I’ll have some time.

This was my last thing that I posted for this term and I thought I’d share it here. I promise I will be answering recent comments very soon. I’m just trying to get done with the grading on time.

I love Baz Luhrmann’s Wear Sunscreen. If you haven’t heard it, go listen.

So here I am. If I could tell you one thing….

1. Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the writing. Remember you love it and if you don’t, don’t do it.
2. Save versions of your drafts and revisions as you progress so you can go back and recover if you screw up.
3. Protect the work. Don’t waste time, and take care of yourself.
4. Don’t read reviews.
5. Don’t respond to reviewers if you read the reviews.
6. Not everybody will like your work. Write for your readers.
7. It doesn’t matter how or where or when you write, as long as you do
8. Sometimes writing will frustrate the hell out of you and you’ll want to delete it all, or burn it.
9. Your work is never as bad as you think it is.
10. Don’t compare yourself to other writers.
11. Celebrate the wins.
12. Hydrate
13. Remember you can’t wait for life to stop being hard before you get to living it. You can’t wait until you’re ready to write something, or have the time, or anything else. Just write.
14. Don’t obsess.
15. Finish your work, revise it, move on. Start something new.
16. Don’t equate a rejection of your work as a commentary on your abilities or talents.
17. Keep writing.
18. Believe in yourself.
19. Nobody cares about your career as much as you do.
20. Writing is not a zero sum game; other people’s success doesn’t take away from yours. Your success doesn’t take away from anybody else’s.
21. Make a point of writing what you enjoy and what entertains you.  Life’s too short to spend the time doing something you hate.
22. Don’t try to fit into someone else’s writing box. Every writer’s journey is different. Find what works you for you and do it. Then do it again. And then again. And again.