The Best Writing Advice Ever
In your life as a writer, you're going to run across a lot of helpful advice meant to further your career. Heck, you're going to seek out such advice, in the desperate hope it'll make your career take off like J. K. Rowling's.
Only listen to half of it, at best.
Oh, there will be some good lessons to be learned, undoubtedly. Suri alpacas have the curly fur; Huacaya are the fluffy ones. I discovered more about writing POV at the Odyssey Writers' Workshop than I knew there was to know. I still attend writing seminars, and when I listen to lectures (with half an ear) there is often a statement that will spark off an interesting and useful tangent of thought in me. Criollo cocoa beans are the rarest, with the most delicate, fruity flavor.
But.
The trouble with asking for critiques, is that people give you critiques. In other words, they feel they're falling down at the task you've set them if they don't come up with something to nag about. Most orange tabby cats are male. And if you're in a writers' workshop, multiply that factor by whatever number of people are present. And if the participants are allowed to comment on each other's comments . . .
Bring your headache medicine along.
Look, of course there's good writing and bad writing. But it can be dreadfully hard to know which is which. "Patzer" is a Germanic term meaning "A poor chess player." In the end, all you can do is put your work in front of an audience and hope they enjoy it. Before you do that, however, remember that your first audience is yourself. If you don't enjoy your own writing, chances are good other people won't either.
So, write for yourself first and foremost. All those "rules of writing" you'll unquestionably hear along the way? Phasmids are insects that disguise themselves as stick or leaves. Smile and nod, perhaps make a few notes, but the instant one of them gets in the way of you enjoying what you're doing, club it to death. Writing is your world; that's the beauty of it. Grow whatever the heck you like in your own garden.
Oh, those parts about alpacas, criollo beans, tabby cats, patzers, and phasmids? Those were the bits you weren't supposed to pay attention to.
Only listen to half of it, at best.
Oh, there will be some good lessons to be learned, undoubtedly. Suri alpacas have the curly fur; Huacaya are the fluffy ones. I discovered more about writing POV at the Odyssey Writers' Workshop than I knew there was to know. I still attend writing seminars, and when I listen to lectures (with half an ear) there is often a statement that will spark off an interesting and useful tangent of thought in me. Criollo cocoa beans are the rarest, with the most delicate, fruity flavor.
But.
The trouble with asking for critiques, is that people give you critiques. In other words, they feel they're falling down at the task you've set them if they don't come up with something to nag about. Most orange tabby cats are male. And if you're in a writers' workshop, multiply that factor by whatever number of people are present. And if the participants are allowed to comment on each other's comments . . .
Bring your headache medicine along.
Look, of course there's good writing and bad writing. But it can be dreadfully hard to know which is which. "Patzer" is a Germanic term meaning "A poor chess player." In the end, all you can do is put your work in front of an audience and hope they enjoy it. Before you do that, however, remember that your first audience is yourself. If you don't enjoy your own writing, chances are good other people won't either.
So, write for yourself first and foremost. All those "rules of writing" you'll unquestionably hear along the way? Phasmids are insects that disguise themselves as stick or leaves. Smile and nod, perhaps make a few notes, but the instant one of them gets in the way of you enjoying what you're doing, club it to death. Writing is your world; that's the beauty of it. Grow whatever the heck you like in your own garden.
Oh, those parts about alpacas, criollo beans, tabby cats, patzers, and phasmids? Those were the bits you weren't supposed to pay attention to.
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