Weekend Writer: Gentle Writing Advice: How to Be a Writer Without Destroying Yourself by Chuck Wendig
Hey all, Sam here.
At the moment I’m not sure if the writing advice I need is the gentle kind or the harsh kind. I mean, obviously I’m trying to be more gentle with myself when I have multiple days (or weeks) in a row where I’m not getting a whole lot of actual writing down, those days when I’ve maybe only thought about my characters or my world or my plot and tried to untangle some of the knots so I’m ready next time I write.
But I’m also thinking that what I need is to be a little harsher with myself, to be more forceful about setting writing time and then actually doing it…because otherwise it feels like everything else in life gets in the way, and instead of writing, all I do is think about my writing and say that at least I did something with my story.
This month’s Weekend Writer book is one that focuses on that gentle writing advice, and I learned about this book at a time when I really needed it, so I figured it’s time to share that with all of you. Let’s get started.
My Thoughts
Finally–a book of writing advice that accounts for all of the messy, perverse, practical, and inexplicable parts of being a human who writes
The truth is that all of the “writing rules” you’ve learned are bullshit. Sure, they work for some people, but the likelihood that they’ll work for you–unique butterfly of a person that you are–is slim.
That doesn’t mean you’re out of luck! There is meaningful advice to be had in the writing world, and Chuck Wendig is here to deliver it. In this hilarious guide, Wendig will help you discover more about yourself as a writer, parse through your quirks and foibles, and help you figure out the best way for you to get words on the page–without destroying yourself along the way.
With behind-the-scenes stories of Wendig’s own writing struggles, sections on debunking popular advice, self-care tips, and more footnotes than are strictly necessary (or legally recommended by scientists), Gentle Writing Advice will give the unvarnished truth about the writing process and remind you of what’s actually important–taking care of the writer. (That’s you, by the way.)
Rating: 5 stars
I read this book at the end of last year, and I can honestly say that I got emotional many times…not to the point of actually crying, but I did tear up quite a bit…because this book hit me in the heart and mind right where I needed to see them/hear them. Because yes, I did re-read some of this out loud to myself.
Writing is hard, especially lately with everything going on in the world. Most of the time I’ve been able to push aside the chaos of world events and escape into a fantasy world, and things are fine. I can still write productively, whether that’s for a story or for my blog…but at the end of 2022/beginning of 2023, a lot of personal life events happened one after the other and it legitimately knocked me so off course that I thought I was just going to be lost at sea.
There were some people in my life who said and did some things that broke me down and left me in ruins, and a tsunami of depression followed. I spent 6-8 months not really doing much of anything creative because I just couldn’t find that spark.
This book came to me when I was finally pulling myself together enough to think creatively, but was still really struggling with being creative. If I’m honest, here I am in April of 2024 and I’m still struggling with being creative. It’s a process, and I’m trying to be gentle with myself because of everything that happened in early 2023. I’m actually re-reading this book right now, so I can mark up passages that stood out to me. Because when I read this in December, I just read it without marking anything. I simply absorbed the words. And I think I needed it then. But now, I want to read through it again while thinking of it more critically when it comes to the gentle writing advice contained in the pages.
I had only read some writing advice tweets from Chuck Wendig before this. I have not picked up his other writing craft books (like The Kick-Ass Writer), but I want to, because I’d like to compare the advice to see what similarities and differences there are. I don’t think I’ve seen other writers do advice books that have opposing advice….so Chuck Wendig giving us a harsh writing advice book and then coming back years later with a gentle writing advice book is really interesting to me.
Oh, and I should say that there is some profanity within this book…so it might be gentle, but it’s not sanitized. Personally I find that it makes it feel more casual, almost as if the reader is hanging out at a bar with Chuck Wendig just talking about writing. Honestly I really enjoy when a writing craft book feels like a casual hangout rather than a lecture or dissertation. I feel like the advice is absorbed more from a casual setting.
The chapters are relatively short in length, so you can read through a lot of this very quickly, which is what I did in December. But you can also just read a chapter or two at a time and sit with what you read and think over it a bit, which is what I’m doing with this second read of the book. You just have to read it in the way that makes the most sense for you.
For right now, the rating above is based on my first read-through back in December. I’ll let you know in next week’s post if it still stands after reading through the book a second time.
All right, I think I’ve rambled on and on enough for today. That is all from me this time. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content…like the posts I had mostly prepped for this past week and then didn’t finish and schedule.
