Some days, I feel lucky. Well, actually, a lot of days I feel lucky. But some days I feel lucky that I got through my first manuscript mostly on my own, without all of the noisy advice that seems prevalent online, especially Twitter.
These days, my Twitter feed is full of writerly advice tweets announcing, "Do this!"… "Don't do that!" And I won't even get into all of the wish lists and query do's and don'ts. After all, words are our gift, so we writers have lots of them to share.
I'm not saying advice isn't great or helpful, and I LOVE to see writers helping other writers. Who am I kidding, I LOVE to help other writers too. It's just that sometimes, it's noisy. And for me, I'm glad I didn't discover it was all out there waiting for me until I found my way through my writing process on my own first. I think otherwise, the self-doubt might have won out, and my type-A personality would have worried all along that, "I was doing it wrong" and probably my brain would have imploded.
In my early days on Twitter, I saw a tweet offering the worst writing advice I've ever seen. It announced that writers should "start small" and the blog link attached encouraged new writers to find their process through short stories and/or articles first. My first thought was that I was glad no one had told J.K. Rowling to start small. My second thought was, if I had started small, my mystery novel never would have been written. I was working. I had babies. If I had messed around with short stories during my very precious, and very limited, writing time, the damn thing never would have gotten done. And besides, in my opinion, short stories are actually really hard to write! In other words, it was the worst advice…for me.
I also flashed back to my very first writing class at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. It was a short story class. I was starting small. I had an idea for a mystery, and I didn't know where to start so I decided to start with something more manageable and learn the art of a short story. The first day of the class, the instructor went around the room and asked us why we were there. I explained that I had an idea for a mystery novel.
He looked at me and asked, "So if you have an idea for a mystery novel, why are you taking THIS class?" He told me not to start small, but to follow my idea. If I had an idea for a mystery, then I needed to figure out how to write a mystery. (I still stayed in the class, but I signed up for the mystery writing class the first chance I got.)
Looking back, that instructor's advice was some of the best writing advice I have ever received. (Remember? Limited writing time due to the job and the babies.) I needed to streamline my focus to write exactly what I was inspired to write. That instructor's advice taught me to follow my motivation, and that has served me well.
When I began my writer's blog, it was with a little bit of an eye roll. Because really, does this world need another voice telling writers of the world what they should or shouldn't do? Well maybe, because anyone reading it can always take it or leave it. Also, it's such a tricky industry, it's nice to learn from others who have navigated the many different paths to get there.
But I really like to tell stories. I especially like to tell stories where I've screwed something up, or fallen flat on my face. So maybe, there might also be value for someone else in my missteps. Or at the very least a good laugh. So even though it's a little noisy out there some days, I'll tell a story or two if I have one that fits.
And MY advice about all of the advice out there? Listen to that little voice inside that tells you whether or not something is a good idea…for you. Because in this completely subjective industry, developing that little voice about our own writing is important. You'll need it to make decisions about suggested edits. You'll need it to make decisions about submissions. You'll need it…for a lot of different things. And the stronger it is, the more likely you are to listen to it.
