The 10 Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned in 17 Years of Writing

1. If you wrote yesterday, write again today.

This is the mindset I’ve settled on over many years of hearing “write every day” so many times.

It puts an emphasis on yesterday, which is of crucial importance: It makes you feel like you’re not writing today because you didn’t write yesterday. That puts the impetus all on you. (It’s always been up to you.)

But phrasing it this way puts that fact into sharp focus. It doesn’t promote putting off writing until tomorrow; It implies the moment you break your combo, you might not get another string of days started for a very long time.

It discourages writing one day a week, or month, or whenever the heck you feel inspired enough to do it.

So don’t just write every day. Write today because you wrote yesterday.

2. Trust in God’s plan.

There’s only so much one can do as a creative.

But you were called to this vocation for a reason. It’s a beautiful gift to have stories enter your head, stories you want to share with the world.

You owe it to your creations, and yourself, to at least keep trying.

God will help you see it through. But don’t leave it all in His hands. Sometimes you have to help out, too. God works through us, and if we’re stubborn and refuse to do anything with our lives, God could end up using us as an example of what not to do.

Don’t let that be your legacy. Don’t squander your talent.

3. There’s no good or bad writing advice, there’s only advice that works for you … and advice that doesn’t.

Your main job as a writer is to find the process that works best for you.

Which means your top ten will look much different than mine. And it will keep changing over the years.

Discovering your process will be a continuous journey until your dying day~ There’s infinite things to learn about writing, and infinite ways to improve.

But my advice is to never confuse shortcuts that are bad for you with techniques that work for you.

For example, refusing to read any books and using only movies and video games as your sources of inspiration is probably bad for you in the long run. Likewise, using AI to write for you is even worse.

You might convince yourself these are merely tools, but don’t rely too much on crutches. Be suspicious of Easy buttons. Overcome your weaknesses and you’ll not only grow as a person, you’ll be on the true path to great storytelling.

4. Use adverbs sparingly.

Everyone cheekily points out how they used an adverb in this advice, but I’ll spare you that moment.

I’ll be blunt: The choice to break this rule and use lots of adverbs isn’t part of your voice, and it isn’t a wise artistic decision. Sometimes an adverb is the best choice, but most of the time it comes off as lazy and shows readers you couldn’t think of a better way to phrase it.

Excessive adverbs will ensure your work stays on the slush pile. Use them all you want in the early drafts, but at some point in the editing phase, at least search for them and ask yourself if there isn’t a stronger way to phrase the sentence that is less telling and more showing.

Your writing–and your voice–will come through much stronger as a result.

5. No one is coming.

This is perhaps the biggest black pill about being a writer.

The early warning signs are there: If you’re an unknown quantity, finding other writers who want to join a writing group with you can be like pulling teeth. Unless they want your money. You’re not likely to get much support from friends and family, either.

You can work your ass off and become a great writer, but unless you query and publish and put yourself out there aggressively, you may very well bring that secret with you to your grave.

No matter how great you might get at writing and art and singing and other talents, no one will approach you. No one will come seeking your talents.

Chances are, you’ll have to put yourself out there and put on a sleazy marketing hat. You’ll have to become a brand.

“Be so good, they can’t ignore you.”

-Steve Martin

This quote sounds good, but it’s aspirational. This advice doesn’t tend to work. At least not directly.

You aren’t likely to get recognized in the noise of the crowd. For better or worse, at some point you have to step into the arena where blood is shed.

6. Hiring an editor can actually make the final product worse.

There are just as many hack editors out there as there are hack writers. And it’s getting no better, thanks to the advent of AI.

Some editors go too far and edit out your voice, removing the uniqueness and quality from your storytelling style.

You might even hear guarantees that your work will get published if you pay editors to do their magic. But I can tell you from experience – don’t bank on those guarantees.

Also, just because you’re an editor doesn’t mean you don’t need an editor. Even the best editors have blind spots, especially within their own writing.

For that matter, you can revise your own voice out of your own work from over-revision. Take care not to do that.

7. When you’re freewriting, never look back.

This was a recent discovery.

Pretend like you’re driving a car through the story-fog and have no rear view mirror. To find out why this is so effective, you may read more here.

8. Most critique groups are useless safe space hug circles.

It didn’t used to be this way, but sometime in the mid 2010’s, there was a seismic shift.

Everyone got cozy. Too cozy.

The last thing you need is a hug circle if you want to improve your writing. You need someone who you trust who can provide brutal honesty. Nothing is more valuable.

Yes, critiques can hurt. They can make you uncomfortable and tie your stomach into knots.

But you can either learn from them, or run back to your hug circle.

If someone took the time to read your work and is giving you an honest critique, for the love of God THANK THEM, first of all.

And secondly, realize that they’re sharing their opinions because they believe you’re promising. Otherwise they wouldn’t have wasted their time.

If you find a real, raw writing group that’s not afraid of honesty, and not so rules-heavy as to create a “safe space”, hold onto that group and never let it go.

9. In general, Writing Rules aren’t made to be broken, especially if you’re a new writer.

They’re made to be mostly adhered to and maybe broken eventually.

Don’t be so pompous as to assume you understand all the nuance of advice like, “Write What You Know,” fresh out the gate.

If there’s an age-old piece of advice that you hate so much, there’s a good chance it’s because that advice would actually help you out – But it demands something more of you, so you’re emotionally rejecting it.

Breaking the writing rules that have formed over thousands of years … is something you should only consider much further down the line.

For instance, many amateur writers refuse to use the word said, replacing nearly all instances with “said-isms”. A staggering number of beginners believe this makes their work stand out as more interesting and expressive, but it comes off as amateur hour.

It doesn’t read well and reeks of desperation. If any seasoned editor or agent gets ahold of it, they will immediately notice and not hesitate to set your manuscript on the rejected pile.

10. The most important thing you can develop, the thing that will set you apart from all other writers, is a unique voice.

Things that won’t give you a unique voice include…

• College indoctrination.
• Agreeing with popular consensus.
• watching too much TV/streaming.
• adopting a series of labels, rather than becoming who you were meant to be.
• trusting everything you read on Wikipedia.
• following trends on social media.
• using AI to write.

I’m sorry, but if you’re not at least a little bit “problematic”, you have nothing to say.

Art is a form of emotional self-expression. Writing fiction should aim to create some emotional reader experience that only you can write based on what you’ve lived through. Your stories should reflect a worldview that is unique to you.

If you’re writing something not based on your experiences – or are just creating content for monetary reasons – well, that’s the definition of hack writing.

It’s important to remember that only you can tell the stories inside of you – so don’t outsource it to a ghost writer, or AI, or anything else. If you tell your stories honestly, from somewhere deep within you, you will develop a voice all your own.

So don’t identify as your skin color. Don’t define yourself by your race. Don’t pigeonhole your personality into some lame Myers Briggs personality type, or you’ll find yourself stuck in an echo chamber where everyone’s screaming the same thing. And, somewhere down the line, you’ll find out the hard way you’ve been robbed of your voice.

Things that do give you a unique voice:

• Reading widely so you can develop your own storytelling style and techniques based on what you like–and what you don’t.
• wisdom.
• lived experiences.
• critical thinking.
• understanding who you are.
• actually writing!

PROOF THAT FREEWRITING WORKS

There we have it: Ten of the most important things I’ve learned writing fiction over the years. I’m sure I missed some obvious ones. But that’s all part of the plan.

You see, though I wrote these in no particular order, they are actually in a very particular order.

That’s because I freewrote this list as it came to me; These were my 10 first thoughts, listed in the order they popped into my head.

The results are as organic as you can get – I don’t have to look up other top 10 lists to know this list is 100% uniquely me.

Your stories should be like that. Let freewriting guide you. If you can approach your fiction this way, I guarantee you’ll end up with a unique voice that no one can ever replicate or take away.