Writing Advice: Don’t Bother – Unless it’s this bit

I call myself a writer. I don’t know if that’s true, or if I’m just some wannabe trying to convince people I know what I’m doing. I mean, the latter would be true for most aspects of my life, after all.

But, if we take it as a given that I am, in fact, a writer, then maybe I’m qualified to give the following piece of advice.

Don’t listen to advice about writing.

WHAT? How very dare you? What on earth do you think you’re doing saying such heathen things. Get back in that amateur cave from which you slithered, fiend!

Whoa there, pleasant folk. Hold your horses. I come from a good place, I swear to thee. What I’m simply saying is this. There is so much ‘advice’ to be found, lurking behind dark corners of the interwebs, waiting to pounce on poor unsuspecting writers in training, slashing their throats just as they think they might actually be good at their favoured craft. It makes no difference if you try to avoid it, it will find you. It stealthily swoops (and swooping is bad) down upon those with a book or two in them and cuts through their confidence until there’s nothing left but the tattered remains of an ego.

Yet, it doesn’t have to be so. Not everyone can be a writer, and writing is not for everyone, but if you think you have it within you to write, then follow your own instincts, carve your own path, and those demonic words of wisdom some ‘in the know’ fling about will bounce off you like you’re wearing your very own, made-to-measure suit of advice-repelling armour.

“OK, I’m ready. Where’s that keyboard?”

Now, I’m not saying I, or you, know more than anyone else. That would just be an exercise in vanity. I’m simply urging you to believe in yourself enough to take in what you need and discard what you know/feel you don’t. Trust yourself to write how you see fit. Know that your voice is important in writing and realise that too much advice can lead you away from it. There is no right or wrong way to write, no magic set of rules to perfection. Your work will be judged, there’s no doubt about that, but let it be for the words crafted within it and not for how much advice you did or did not heed. There’s self-respect in that.

I’ve been writing for most of my life. It took me three years to write my fantasy novel. I’ve come across my fair share of advice in that time. At first, I wanted to follow it all. I put aside my feelings of confusion over conflicting wisdoms and I seriously tried to write the way people said I should. I attempted various methods and abided by various ‘rules’, all the while finding the creative craft of writing becoming, well, less and less creative. I found I was losing my voice and was projecting the voice of others. In short, it didn’t work. It also made me feel I was constantly trying to live up to a bar I couldn’t reach. The bad part, it could well have put me off writing altogether. And that’s what concerns me when I see young/fledgling writers walking that same early road. Perhaps one or two may come across this blog and choose to only follow one piece of advice – ironically, the one advocated by me.