Nicole Chung
- Give yourself deadlines. If you can't, make someone else give you deadlines.
- I personally always think you should write the thing that feels most urgent to you RIGHT NOW. This may sound obvious, but as an editor it is surprising to me how often I am pitched several ideas at once and find that only one comes across with true urgency. As a writer, you know what's there, always tapping you on the shoulder, haunting your thoughts and keeping you up at night. You know the thing that gets you most excited to return to your writing each day or each week. Try to write THAT thing, and don't worry if it's not the most marketable thing or the thing that gets everyone else excited. You'll write it well and do it justice, and then everyone else will catch up.
- Find people who appreciate and believe in your work—one and then another and another. Great if they're also smart readers, smart critics, but make sure the people you routinely turn to/share with understand what you are trying to do and want you to succeed beyond your wildest dreams.
- Put yourself out there and seek opportunities to be edited well, by someone who cares and wants to help you improve, as often as you can.
- Be kind to yourself, always.
- A teacher said this to me once, and now I say it to every class and anyone else who asks: Don't be afraid to follow the fun sometimes. I know that might sound a little weird because I wrote a super serious book. But it WAS fun to write. It was what I WANTED to write. And a lot of my other writing is just about what I find amusing or interesting. We all have a tendency to write about things that hurt us—for good reason—but don’t forget to follow the joy, too.
- I personally always think you should write the thing that feels most urgent to you RIGHT NOW. This may sound obvious, but as an editor it is surprising to me how often I am pitched several ideas at once and find that only one comes across with true urgency. As a writer, you know what's there, always tapping you on the shoulder, haunting your thoughts and keeping you up at night. You know the thing that gets you most excited to return to your writing each day or each week. Try to write THAT thing, and don't worry if it's not the most marketable thing or the thing that gets everyone else excited. You'll write it well and do it justice, and then everyone else will catch up.
- Find people who appreciate and believe in your work—one and then another and another. Great if they're also smart readers, smart critics, but make sure the people you routinely turn to/share with understand what you are trying to do and want you to succeed beyond your wildest dreams.
- Put yourself out there and seek opportunities to be edited well, by someone who cares and wants to help you improve, as often as you can.
- Be kind to yourself, always.
- A teacher said this to me once, and now I say it to every class and anyone else who asks: Don't be afraid to follow the fun sometimes. I know that might sound a little weird because I wrote a super serious book. But it WAS fun to write. It was what I WANTED to write. And a lot of my other writing is just about what I find amusing or interesting. We all have a tendency to write about things that hurt us—for good reason—but don’t forget to follow the joy, too.
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