“Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.” – Harper Lee
What writing advice has profited you?
20 thoughts on “Reader Friday: Profitable Advice”
“Throw a lot of spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks.” This has helped me reinvent my career more than once when my favored genres have taken a dive in the marketing cycles. It helps keep your career afloat if you are versatile in more than one genre. Then again, when you start out, you’ll want to build your readership in one particular arena.
There are several quotes that scroll across the top of my website, but one of the bits of wisdom comes from N. Scott Momaday: “I simply kept my goal in mind and persisted. Perseverance is a large part of writing.” Except for the fact that I have multiple goals in writing, I always keep Prof Momaday’s words in mind. r/Steve
Following on Mr. Moore’s quotation about persistence, I heard Mr. John Gilstrap say at a writing conference, “If you try really hard and die before you make it, you didn’t fail, you died too early.” Those are encouraging words.
Well, I’ve gotten lots of good advice over the years and probably even more bad advice but two things come to mind:
1. Try your hand at short stories. I hadn’t written one since 8th grade when I wrote my first “mystery” short. It was chosen for an anthology on blind submission. It really invigorated me at the point when I was feeling dry creatively.
2. The way to have good ideas is to have lots of ideas. This is a quote from Linus Pauling, Nobel chemist. But it told me not to get hung up on one story forever. That you have to sometimes, as Nancy says, “throw spaghetti at the wall.” There is nothing more paralyzing to a writer than chewing one idea over and over.
PJ, What you said is part of perseverance, I guess. I generally pick a what-if from my list and a potential cast of characters and start writing, though. Sometimes it becomes a short story; other times a novella or novel. The only thing I write that always ends as it starts is a blog post–difference between non-fiction and fiction maybe? r/Steve
Steven, Yup…that’s how I have learned to approach the “gift” of an idea…not try to cram it into the book box. Some stories are only 20K words, some need to be 150K. And some are meant to never see life outside your head!
Write, fail, write some more, fail better, write…
Best piece of advice: no one can predict what will sell.
Ha! Would that we could. Esp with the stock market going over 1600…
1. Show Don’t Tell – best advice, although hardest to figure out for new writers.
2. Keep a quota, especially if you’ve got a day job.
3. Don’t quite your day job.
4. No Jim Beam till after quota reached
5. Red does not always mean cherry flavoured
6. Ghost Chillies are red.
7. Naga Jolokia is another word for Ghost Chilli. Don’t be fooled again.
8. Ice Cream doesn’t help the exit as much as you’d think.
9. Jim Beam does take the edge off, but the next day is still a bummer
10. Never let your creativity die, live your life as if you’re imagining the whole thing, and if you stop imagining it ends…never wake up from the dream
my muses must made up that last bit, thanks ladies
Thank God the Jim Bean rule doesn’t apply to the Jack Daniels rule.
On my bulletin board: Take pride in how far you have come and have faith in how far you can go. Christian Larson
Some addictions are more nurturing when attended to. Fighting them make the life miserable. Writing is one of those addictions. Reading is another.
One of Elmore Leonard’s comments on his own approach has always stuck with me: “I try to cut out all the parts people skip over.”
WRITE!
Write every day at the same time every day. Builds a robust habit that’s hard to break.
1. Resist. The. Urge. To. Explain.
2. Your backstory sucks. It really does. The more clever it seems, the more it sucks. I look at backstory like my dog. I love my backstory to death. It is the never-ending movie in my head. My dog is wonderful. My dog will also, if allowed, eat poo and hump your leg, so I keep my dog under control. I do the same with my backstory. I keep it under control and just let you scratch it behind the ears (and hopefully want more.)
3. Show don’t tell. Unless you need to tell and get the story moving. If you must let me know that the character crossed the room, do not share every sensation to me. Just cross the damn room.
4. A gunshot does not blast you off your feet.
“Just get it written. You can fix it later.” — Professor Rooney, 2012
“Throw a lot of spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks.” This has helped me reinvent my career more than once when my favored genres have taken a dive in the marketing cycles. It helps keep your career afloat if you are versatile in more than one genre. Then again, when you start out, you’ll want to build your readership in one particular arena.
There are several quotes that scroll across the top of my website, but one of the bits of wisdom comes from N. Scott Momaday: “I simply kept my goal in mind and persisted. Perseverance is a large part of writing.” Except for the fact that I have multiple goals in writing, I always keep Prof Momaday’s words in mind.
r/Steve
Following on Mr. Moore’s quotation about persistence, I heard Mr. John Gilstrap say at a writing conference, “If you try really hard and die before you make it, you didn’t fail, you died too early.” Those are encouraging words.
Well, I’ve gotten lots of good advice over the years and probably even more bad advice but two things come to mind:
1. Try your hand at short stories. I hadn’t written one since 8th grade when I wrote my first “mystery” short. It was chosen for an anthology on blind submission. It really invigorated me at the point when I was feeling dry creatively.
2. The way to have good ideas is to have lots of ideas. This is a quote from Linus Pauling, Nobel chemist. But it told me not to get hung up on one story forever. That you have to sometimes, as Nancy says, “throw spaghetti at the wall.” There is nothing more paralyzing to a writer than chewing one idea over and over.
PJ,
What you said is part of perseverance, I guess. I generally pick a what-if from my list and a potential cast of characters and start writing, though. Sometimes it becomes a short story; other times a novella or novel. The only thing I write that always ends as it starts is a blog post–difference between non-fiction and fiction maybe?
r/Steve
Steven, Yup…that’s how I have learned to approach the “gift” of an idea…not try to cram it into the book box. Some stories are only 20K words, some need to be 150K. And some are meant to never see life outside your head!
Write, fail, write some more, fail better, write…
Best piece of advice: no one can predict what will sell.
Ha! Would that we could. Esp with the stock market going over 1600…
1. Show Don’t Tell – best advice, although hardest to figure out for new writers.
2. Keep a quota, especially if you’ve got a day job.
3. Don’t quite your day job.
4. No Jim Beam till after quota reached
5. Red does not always mean cherry flavoured
6. Ghost Chillies are red.
7. Naga Jolokia is another word for Ghost Chilli. Don’t be fooled again.
8. Ice Cream doesn’t help the exit as much as you’d think.
9. Jim Beam does take the edge off, but the next day is still a bummer
10. Never let your creativity die, live your life as if you’re imagining the whole thing, and if you stop imagining it ends…never wake up from the dream
my muses must made up that last bit, thanks ladies
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Check out my new Kickstarter project: ICE HAMMER
Basil: Amen to the Jim Beam rule. 🙂
Thank God the Jim Bean rule doesn’t apply to the Jack Daniels rule.
On my bulletin board:
Take pride in how far you have come and have faith in how far you can go. Christian Larson
Some addictions are more nurturing when attended to. Fighting them make the life miserable. Writing is one of those addictions. Reading is another.
One of Elmore Leonard’s comments on his own approach has always stuck with me: “I try to cut out all the parts people skip over.”
WRITE!
Write every day at the same time every day. Builds a robust habit that’s hard to break.
1. Resist. The. Urge. To. Explain.
2. Your backstory sucks. It really does. The more clever it seems, the more it sucks. I look at backstory like my dog. I love my backstory to death. It is the never-ending movie in my head. My dog is wonderful. My dog will also, if allowed, eat poo and hump your leg, so I keep my dog under control. I do the same with my backstory. I keep it under control and just let you scratch it behind the ears (and hopefully want more.)
3. Show don’t tell. Unless you need to tell and get the story moving. If you must let me know that the character crossed the room, do not share every sensation to me. Just cross the damn room.
4. A gunshot does not blast you off your feet.
“Just get it written. You can fix it later.” — Professor Rooney, 2012
Keep it tight. The tighter, the better.
It seems almost obscene, so I like it.