When giving advice about writing is like chewing gum

Sorry things have been quiet here of late, I've been away on a walking holiday in Wales (last week) and entertaining in-laws (this week), whilst trying to juggle work, writing and audio book recording before, during and in-between these activities. It's busy, but that's just the way I like it. Saying that, I was working 12-14 hour days the week before the walking holiday to clear the decks, and that was a tad too much, even for me.

Something I've been mulling over whilst walking in splendid countryside is a post (probably several) I've wanted to write for a long time, but it's been all tangled up in my head. Extracting what I really want to say has proven to be like trying to get chewing gum out of long hair… tedious, unpleasant and very irritating. Then I thought I'd probably get somewhere if I just sat down and talked about it here. If by the end of it I have that dried up sticky lump of nastiness in the bin and half a head of hair left, I'll be satisfied.

It's all to do with advice, and specifically, advice about writing.

Here are some of strands tangled up in the chewing gum:

1. My extreme aversion to giving advice about writing

2. How damaging reading advice about writing can be

3. Wondering how to help to people asking for advice

Why am I wrestling with this knot? Well, something weird has been happening lately; more people have been asking me for advice on writing.

I have been bemused by this for a few weeks now, but I guess this is what happens when you're about to have books published. For me, however, it's a false assumption that I would know anything worthwhile about writing. Hell, I'm still figuring loads of things out, and what works for me might not work for the next writer.

But it's deeper than that. If I give advice, then I feel I am being false; that I am setting myself up as some sort of expert when I am, quite frankly, far from it.

In the past I have had the urge to share stuff about writing – and I do talk a lot about how I write and what I struggle with here, but always go out of my way to not offer it as advice. That's what the Writer's Rutter category on my site was created for – a way to share my experiences without saying "This is how YOU SHOULD do it" (if you're not sure what a rutter is, the explanation is in this post) but rather "this is what happened to me" with the hope that it's interesting and relevant.

I suspect that what's really going on here is due to my lack of self-confidence. I'm hiding behind rutters instead of being bolder. Openly giving advice is saying I know something, and if I do that, people might start to argue with me. It might bring about conflict… it might *gasp* bring trolls to my site.

Bad experiences…

But I digress. There is another reason for this aversion, which leads neatly onto thread 2: it can be damaging. I have a fear that if I give advice, it will hinder a writer (most of whom are just starting out on the long road) rather than help. This fear stems from personal experience and vivid memories of being at that stage of the journey.

You see, just over two years ago, I was in the doldrums; I had a book but no agent, publisher or, it seemed hope. I had a growing rejection letter pile and I didn't have any kind of online life at all. I had no idea there was all kinds of stuff on the internet about writing. I was lost.

Then I began this blog. Good start. Then I got on Twitter, even better. But then there was a very dodgy patch when I discovered a world of writing advice online, but hadn't yet met all my writer friends.

Cue desperate writer, on the brink of self-publishing, reading post after post of conflicting advice and bolshy tweets from "writing gurus" who seem to be nothing more than bullies. Did any of it help?

No.

All it did was made me confused and depressed. Yes, I was probably reading the wrong stuff and yes, there is good advice out there, but back then, I didn't know enough to tell the difference between them. And the thought that I might contribute to that roiling mass of noise makes me shudder.

But on the flip side, I also want to help filter out some of the crap and offer a gentle alternative, and sometimes just a powerful urge to share a hard-learned lesson. That will go into the writer's rutter for now I guess, but I still feel worried about it.

So what do I do now?

Let's see, I've lost some hair, and most of the gum is out, but there's still a tangle. I don't want to ignore people asking for advice, I want to help. Perhaps the writer's rutter is the only approach I'll ever be comfortable with. Why is this bothering me so much? Oh sod it, there's obviously some scar tissue here and it's too deep for me to see it.

Honestly, writers eh? Neurotic, every last one of us…