088: Don't Listen to This Terrible Writing Advice

 

There is SO MUCH terrible writing advice out there!

Listen, if some of this advice works for you, that's great! But it's a terrible idea to take these 4 things that we talk about in the episode and say that everyone should do them. Learn what these 4 pieces of bad advice are and what to do instead.

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Don’t Listen to THIS TERRIBLE WRITING ADVICE

Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being here. I believe that this episode is going to come out on July 4. Let me look at what day it is God, I'm like barely, yeah, July 4. So if you are in the US, and you're listening, happy July 4. And if you're not happy Tuesday. I'm excited to talk about this because people get really fired up about writing advice in general and what they consider to be bad writing advice. And I certainly can get fired up about it. Because I've seen a lot of really shitty advice on social media and just on the internet generally. And I think a lot of it is done with good intentions, a lot of people who give writing advice.

 

I want to be careful how we say this. It's not that you can't give writing advice if you're only basing it off of your own experience, like of course share what's helpful for you, I do that all the time I talk about, you know, in my own writing process, what do I do? What have I found helpful? What advice can I give to other people. But the bulk of the advice that I give is not just based on me, it's based on the clients that I've worked with, I've worked with dozens and dozens and dozens of writers, and editing, coaching, teaching workshops, the membership, everything. So it's, it's, it is rare to find a piece of writing advice that just works for every single person out there. There's a lot of nuance that comes with this. And so you know it a lot of times, it's just not possible to capture all that nuance nuance in a 32nd TikTok or, you know, Instagram reel or something. But um, yeah, I think a lot of people have good intentions. But what they do is they take something that has worked for them. And then they say that this is how it has to be that every writer has to do this. And if you were doing this differently than you were doing it wrong.

 

There's no one way to write a book. I mean, it's just, that's just a fact. And even advice that I give that sometimes seems like blanket advice, like I talk, for example, the piece of advice that I talk about a lot, that I really recommend, is to get the first draft out quickly. And to not go back and edit as you write, like, just keep moving forward, get the first draft out, and then go back and edit. But even with that piece of advice that I think works for most people, I know that some people do it differently, and that works for them. And that's fine. They're not doing it wrong. I have reasons that I recommend that advice based on the experience that I've gained as an editor and a coach. And as a writer myself, like, I'm not just recommending that, because it's what I do personally, I have a lot of reasons why I suggest that why that I can back it up. Like I've got receipts of proof. But even that, you know, it's it's never like, I never want to say like if you do it differently, you're doing it wrong. You know, some people, if they just don't have energy on a particular day to write, if they're feeling blocked, sometimes they can edit and it feels like they're still making progress. And that's great for them. That's, that's great.

 

But that being said, I think there is some really just terrible writing advice that I want to talk about in a podcast episode. Because yeah, there's a lot to pick from and I'm going to give you I think I have four pieces of of terrible writing advice in this episode. And what I'm gonna do is talk about what the piece of writing advice is, and then what I think you should do instead, or not what you should do instead, I don't even want to phrase it that way. My take on it, why I think it's wrong, why I think it's terrible advice. And like, how I would reframe it, that's what we're gonna call it, because you you should do whatever you want.

 

But because this is a podcast on writing tips and writing advice, I'm gonna assume that you want to hear what I think and what my thoughts are about this, these writing tips. So that's, I'm gonna give you thefirst piece of terrible writing advice that you shouldn't read at all. While you are writing your first draft. Okay, this is fine. If it works for you. If you have made the decision that you are not going to read any books in your genre or outside of it, while you write more power to you, fantastic go off, don't read great. The problem and why this is terrible writing advice is you cannot tell other people that they have to do this. This makes me want to scream. The idea of not reading a single book, while I'm in the process of writing a rough draft of something is just ludicrous. It feels so restrictive to me. It feels like I'm punishing myself in some way to not do something that brings me a lot of joy and passion. Like, it's just absurd to me. Absolutely not.

 

Now, the reason, you know, we know the reason why this writing advice exists, it exists because people want to be mindful about not accidentally or intentionally, consciously picking up something from another book and putting it in your book, whether it's a plot thing, a character thing, a detail, or even just the writers voice, like the author's voice, accidentally copying that and putting it in your book, like I understand why that advice exists. But I just don't think it's realistic for myself. And I don't think this is something that you can just blanket, say like, no one should should read, this is something that everyone needs to stop doing. Again, if if you have decided just for your own sanity in your own writing process that you don't want to read, then great, I understand it again, I think it makes sense.

 

But don't tell other people that they have to do this, don't create fear that oh, if you read you're going to accent you're going to copy and you're going to infuse all kinds of things into your book like no, no. What I do when I'm drafting that I just stay away from books that are similar in content or tone to mine. So I don't read any books about a similar subject matter, or that have similar little story. Similar storylines to mine. Like, I don't read that. And that's it. But that's fine. That works for me. Okay, piece of terrible writing advice. Number two, is you have to wait for the muse. And you should only write when you're feeling creatively inspired.

 

Again, like the first piece of terrible writing advice, if that's how you want to do your process. Sure, like go ahead, wait for inspiration, only write when you feel lit up. Totally fine. But I think that is horrible writing advice to give to other writers, and say that you are doing it wrong. If you force yourself to write on a day when you're not feeling it. Writing does not work that way for 99.5% of people, especially if you have a deadline or a goal of getting something done and written and edited. It's just not going to work for you to write this way.

 

If you are self publishing, and you have committed and already started talking about it in marketing and saying my book releases on this day, you cannot sit back and wait for inspiration to strike. And only write on those days when the Muse has struck and inspired you, you have to be on a schedule and write some days, even when you don't necessarily really want to, like some days, you just have to get your ass in the chair, right.

 

Or if you are getting your book to beta readers, or you've hired an editor, or there's some other kind of deadline, or even just a goal, even if you have no actual external deadline, where other people are expecting your manuscript. Maybe you have just decided that by this date, I want to have my rough draft done. You're just gonna have to sit down and write some days when you're not really feeling it. That is so true of every writer that I work with. It is true of my own experience.

 

It is rare. Well, actually, I don't want to say it's rare. I wouldn't I wouldn't go so far as to say it's rare, but there are many days where I'm not sure what to write. I'm feeling kind of stuck. I'm feeling tired. I'm feeling unmotivated. I'm stressed about something in the business and I don't want to sit down and write there like all of these things that can factor into why I'm having resistance to sitting down to write and I'll some days I let those things win and I don't write and I procrastinate but some days I'm like, just I just ignore those voices and I ignore those feelings, and I do it anyway. And then 99% of the time, I'm happy I did. And I get into flow and it's fine.

 

But the other reason why I think this is terrible writing advice is because it paints this picture. It's really easy then to jump to okay, if you're not feeling lit up and inspired and passionate, and, you know, on fire to sit down and write, then there must be something wrong, and you're not passionate about writing, which is not true at all. It's, it's just not true. So I think that it can kind of be dangerous for for that reason, especially for new writers, who are sitting down to write a book for the very first time, or just getting started with brainstorming and maybe have this desire to write a book, but they haven't even started yet. If someone tells them, hey, you only should write when the Muse has inspired you and you're feeling excited and lit up, then they're going to think that if they have a day where they're feeling stuck and blocked, that there's something wrong and they shouldn't write. And that's just, again, it's just not true.

 

The third piece of terrible writing advice is that it's considered cheating. If you use a book editor, or some kind of coach to help you in the process. I was not even aware that this piece of advice was floating around the internet until someone made a comment on a video. Oh, this was a while ago on a TikTok video that said, you know, I've heard someone say it's cheating. If you use a coach, like what do you think? And I was like, wait, what? What?

 

It just didn't even make sense to me. If you were using a, I don't know, I guess a ghost writer, and you're not actually writing your book, then I guess like that could be considered cheating. But it's not even cheating. Because some people that's how they do things like I've even edited a manuscript for a client who didn't write their own book. I don't know that a whole nother topic. But it's not cheating to hire an editor or a coach, because an editor or coach is not writing the book for you. That doesn't make any sense.

 

And if we think about the purpose of an editor, how is hiring someone to either give you feedback and help you make the story better, or cleaning up grammar and punctuation like I was cheating. I think that one of the ways that we improve as writers is getting outside feedback from people and this this doesn't have to be editors or coaches, it can just be a friend that you have read a draft of something or a critique partner or beta reader. Getting feedback from other people. I mean, we we need it, we can't see our own work objectively, I don't care who you are, and how talented you are.

 

We're so close to the stuff that we write, no one can see their own work. 100% objectively, it's just impossible. So this line of thinking just doesn't make any sense to me. And I never want anyone to feel guilt for hiring an editor or a coach to help them in the process. Yeah, I'm like, it seems it seems silly to even say those words out loud. But ever since I saw that, and other people were commenting. Oh, yeah, I've heard that too. I'm like, Oh, dang I guess I need to like counteract this so people don't buy into this crap. It's not cheating. Don't believe that.

 

And the last piece of terrible writing advice that I'm going to cover in this episode, because there are there are a lot of pieces of terrible writing advice floating around. But we'll see that I don't have a 10 hour episode, we'll cut it off here. Tip number four, is you have to finish everything you start writing. The reasoning behind this that I've heard people say online is that it is good for you it is a skill that you are developing to see something through to the end to finish a book or a piece of whatever it is that you are writing that you learn a lot in the process. So you should always finish something if you start it no hard no completely disagree.

 

Again, I this one is this one is harder for me to understand than some of the other pieces of advice like I think the easiest one for me to understand is don't read books while drafting but this one like I can kind of understand the argument but I just don't - I completely disagree. Now listen, if you have just started writing and you have a couple of days in a row or a couple of weeks in a row where you're feeling frustrated and you're experiencing writer's block, should you quit and jump ship?

 

No, of course not like don't give up at the first sign of trouble. It's normal to experience writer's block, it's normal to hit resistance, it's normal to feel like you are just you hate it and will not hate it. But, you know, you really don't like the direction the story is going, and you just want to like, give up and do something else. That's all normal in the writing process. Now, if this is something that you have been experiencing for a long time, months on end, you've you've given it a fair shot, and you are miserable in the writing process, and you truly despise it, and you really think the story is not working.

 

It is okay to stop writing something and work on something else. You can either come back to it later, you know, you just save a copy on your computer, maybe a couple years from now you come back and you're able to redeem it and turn it around and finish it or maybe not, maybe it's just one of those books that, you know, you learned a lot from writing as much as you did. And then that's it. You know, it's just one of those books that will never be finished. Lots of writers have unfinished drafts on languishing on their laptop, it's fine.

 

I don't think it's smart to force yourself to do something and grit your teeth and just be miserable at every step of the process, out of some misguided belief that it's making you a better writer and teaching you something and you have to see things through to the end, you can quit on things it is okay. Again, I think the most important thing here is just to be mindful. If this is a pattern of yours, where you are continually getting a couple chapters in maybe 678 chapters in and continually jumping ship to start something new, and you can never finish anything, then sure, maybe that's something to look at. Or if you've only again, like I mentioned in the beginning of talking about this tip. If you've only been experiencing frustration for like a week or two, then then don't quit, don't quit. But if it's been a while and you're miserable, like it's fine. It's fine. I just I don't think that that is helpful advice again, especially for new writers who aren't going to know that.

 

Or who might not know that experiencing frustration and disliking the story and feeling blocked are all normal parts of the process. And it doesn't mean that your book idea is bad. It doesn't mean you need to start over with something new, right? Just no, absolutely not. Okay, I got a little riled up about that. And again, there's so much crap floating around the internet. One thing I almost talked about, but I didn't like an honorable mention, I was reading an article.

 

It was from a guy who writes nonfiction. So it wasn't even really applicable to my niche. I'm just talking about fiction. But he was he was saying this was a while ago that I stumbled across across this blog post. And he was saying that like copy editors are kind of bullshit. Like copy editors aren't better at grammar. They're just following a set of rules. So what you should do is you should hire a copy editor and then just ignore 50% of what they say. Because it's not making the writing better.

 

I was like, what? What are you talking about? If you don't trust your copy editor, and you're not going to take their suggestions, why are you hiring them? Why are you forking over your hard earned money into someone to just ignore their suggestions? Oh, it makes me crazy. It makes me so crazy. When people stay say stuff like that, like yes, copy editors are following a style guide. And the reason for that is consistency. Right? Consistency in your novel is important.

 

I just, yeah, I won't get into that one. But that was an honorable mention. So anyways, let me know if this episode resonated with you. You can take a screenshot and share it to social media, share it to Instagram and tag me I love to hear your feedback and what you think if you agree with me, and if you disagree with me, that's okay. If you hear some of these writing tips, and you're like, nope, actually, I think that's great advice and everyone should take it. That's okay to you. You're totally entitled to your opinion. All right, I'll see you next week.

 

Katie Wolf