Becca Syme > Quotes

“The things we often call “procrastination” are, for most of us, the energy producing activities that we actually need in order to maintain our pace.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You In Burnout?

“It’s your job to be the expert in yourself and your fit, and to leave behind (as quickly as possible) the advice that doesn’t work for you.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block?

“There are no hard and fast rules in this industry, so everyone has opinions about what authors should and should not do. (Including me, and I am aware of that.) But each individual person needs to have the tools to make their own choices when there is no industry standard. Literally every “rule” you could come up with, there are outliers that have very good reasons why they don’t follow that rule.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?

“Yet, as authors, we get fixated on weakness-fixing. On negative reviews. Like somehow, if we can remove every objectionable weakness from our writing, the readers will come a-runnin’. That’s not how this works. In order to stand out, you have to stand out. Which means that you have to be better than everyone else at something. Something. But not everything.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, You Need to Quit

“So what we find are a lot of inner-driven writers trying to force eternal boundaries on their creativity.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?

“If you’re going to persevere in something that will only cause you negative consequences, and won’t move the needle, then quitting is the best option.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, It's 2020: Coping, Strategizing, and Writing When The World Is On Fire

“Writer’s block is anything that stops the forward progress in a manuscript. It’s sometimes not being able to see what happens next in a book. It’s sometimes not being able to fix the problem (or knowing there’s a problem, but not knowing what it is or how to make it go away). It’s sometimes an external situation. It’s sometimes overcommitment.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block?

“[Side note: if you go to your reviews, two caveats. Number One. Do. Not. Read. The. Negative. Reviews. They do not matter to you. Reviews are for readers. Not for authors.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, You Need to Quit

“The only sure path to failure is not to”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, It's 2020: Coping, Strategizing, and Writing When The World Is On Fire

“In fact, many writers who only need the spark will try to outline to get faster and then find they can’t write the book. What”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?

“There is no such thing as plotting vs. pants-ing. There is only explicit plotting and intuitive plotting.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?

“the ways in which one behavior could have a cascading impact on apparently disconnected things because they happen to be part of a related system.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, It's 2020: Coping, Strategizing, and Writing When The World Is On Fire

“Being an intuitive writer is like having access to an autopilot computer, but being the pilot and not the engineer. I know, as a pilot, how to put the right information into the computer. I do not know how to take the computer apart and re-program it.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?

“If success was predictable, then every single person who works hard and has talent would hit. And they don’t.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, You Need to Quit

“No one knows why they’re on Facebook.” Again, interested, I asked, “What do you mean?” “Everyone just does it because everyone does it.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?

“You want 1-star and 2-star reviews. You want people to say bad things about your book. This is a signal that it’s being read by more than just your pet people. Bad reviews are book legitimizers, in the era of five-star-review-buying and small-team-review-padding. Celebrate those one-stars like a trophy,”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, You Need to Quit

“But why is writing fast the most important metric of writing?”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block?

“As writers, we use words to craft people, places, situations, and actions which come together to deliver feelings, themes, and ideas too complex to be captured by mere statements.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?

“When you have an intuitive brain, you have an autopilot computer. You put the data in, and the computer shows you the story. The computer gets honed over the years by consuming great stories and becoming aware of what you love about storytelling.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?

“Writing whatever you want to write because you love it. Or because you can’t not write it.”
― Becca Syme, Dear Writer, It's 2020: Coping, Strategizing, and Writing When The World Is On Fire