Harsh Writing Advice for (Mostly) New writers

A bad trip to the dentisthttps://www.canva.com/

Journalism is dead. 

That’s what my co-workers declared one month into my job at a local USA Today newspaper. 

It wasn’t my fault. Social media bankrupted the media industry. 

As a recent college grad with thousands in debt, this petrified me. Not only was I uncertain in my ability to write good stories in a newsroom full of veteran journalists, but now I second-guessed my entire livelihood. 

Those dark depressing moments helped strengthen my skills as a professional journalist. I had to dig deep. And it was the harshest advice from my mentors that helped light the way.

Here’s the harshest advice that I still use to this day — 

Snark isn’t wit. Cynicism isn’t wisdom

There’s something lost in translation sitting behind a computer screen.

Courage. 

I once believed deeply personal stories were something only to be shared with close friends and family. Internet writing required austerity, bravado, and an air of cynicism. Vulnerability, on the other hand, was a sign of weakness.

This is wrong especially if you’re creative.

Great albums express the deepest emotion. Legendary writers go somewhere painfully raw. The best creative work incorporates emotion, often embarrassingly so.

Professional artists of all kinds make this look easy. It’s not. 

Yes, some writers will never focus on anything personal and remain within their niche. These same people will never be great writers. It takes laying everything out on the line to get better at this craft, and not everyone has that capacity or skill.

Do you have it?

Your writing is going to suck

“The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.” — Tom Waits

Tom Waits is sick in the head. It’s what makes him a genius writer. He once penned the lyrics, “Come down from the cross, we can use the wood.”

So this is the thing, as Waits points out, your writing is going to suck. But you need to do it anyway. You do a lot of bad writing just for the chance that you can do a little good. 

Writing is vampiric. It isn’t always fun and it’s a slog.

Remember that no one’s always churning out good writing all the time; not even great writers. 

Two tips to turn bad writing good

• Take ZERO offense: Wholeheartedly welcome criticism into your creative work. Start by sharing stories with friends, then strangers, and finally professionals. Ask others to criticize you. The more vulnerable you get the easier it will be to go there again.
• Get The Basics Right: Simplicity reveals truth. Sometimes the answer to our struggles is staring us right in the face, but we believe it’s beneath us. It’s too simple. 

This is to say there’s a reason that fundamental writing guides like “Elements of Style, On Writing, The War of Art,” and many beginner grammar books sit on desks across the world. Revisit the basics and do it often.

No one cares about your writing as much as you do

Writing is cutthroat. 

In the span of three months I decided I sucked as a professional journalist and had zero writing talent. I was shook, as my 13-year-old sister would say (She’s going to cringe when she reads this).

I started to believe that I was roped into journalism. It wasn’t my decision, “I fell into this,” I told myself. 

Many call this “imposter syndrome,” or when someone begins to doubt their own accomplishments — their entire career — and now has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud.”

Imposter syndrome is common. Source: errantscience.com

Understand this, there isn’t a conspiracy to reveal you and your writing as a fraud. Imposter syndrome is a single-player game. 

Yes, you will gain fans and a whole host of critics (I have many of both). But your greatest enemy will always be that voice in your head. It never goes away no matter how successful you get. Like Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill, it’s infinite. Forevermore. 

You can only stave imposter syndrome off.

To do this you have to make writing second nature. Write often. Make it something so seamless, so effortless, that everyone believes you were born to do it from the start. 

Nietzche believed our infatuation with geniuses stemmed from hard work like this. “With everything perfect,” Nietzsche wrote, “we do not ask how it came to be.” Instead, “we rejoice in the present fact as though it came out of the ground by magic.”

All of your excuses are bad

Writer’s block doesn’t exist. 
And neither do any of your lame excuses.

Any journalist will tell you this. When a story is on a deadline you will do whatever it takes to ensure it’s submitted on time. It’s like trying to finish a 20-page paper the night before it's due. Procrastination is a great motivator. 

But there’s something even better. Author of “The Game,” Neil Strauss first revealed this strategy to me in a podcast with Tim Ferriss. 

The key to overcoming writer’s block is to start writing. That’s it. Just start. 

Write one terrible sentence after another, after another, until you get into a flow state and start writing better ones. No one will ever see your first draft except you. Always remember that. 

Those terrible sentences are your little secret. Just try to get a few words on the paper and connect them. That’s your goal.

The second draft is where you bring your work into focus and make it more coherent. And the third and final draft should be you examing your writing like you were another person. How will someone else, who’s not you, perceive your prose?

This process is how you eliminate writer’s block forever. 

Sometimes you’re just not good enough…

But it doesn’t have to end that way.

I like this story by author Neil Gaiman. He had an idea for a book that followed a young boy adventuring through a graveyard. It was aptly called “The Graveyard Book.” Imagine the “Jungle Book” but more haunted. 

Gaiman had the idea for the book in his early 20s but knew he didn’t have the skill to write it at the time. He shelved the idea and would come back to it after writing other books and experiencing more life. 

Towards the end of his 40s Gaiman finally felt ready to write “The Graveyard Book.” It’s a beautiful story because it’s happened to me once before as well with a deeply personal story. 

There’s only one way to end your writing career as someone just not good enough. You have to utter five words. That’s it. Just five.

“I didn’t have the time.”

I didn’t have the time to — 

Develop my creative passion;
Find what I wanted to do with my life;
Become a better writer;
Read more and pick up worthwhile skills;
Find meaning.

Those five words kill your ambition as a human being. Those five words are what many of us regret saying when we’re on our deathbed. 

So please, afford yourself the time. 

Don’t treat your writing career like a hail mary praying that one story or book blows up and makes you crazy successful. It’s possible, but not likely. 

The Takeaway

Friends, family members, and strangers will say there’s no money in writing, your book isn’t good, or journalism is dead. 

Let them.

They might be right for most people, but they could be wrong about you. It’s up to you to tell the rest of your story. 

“This is how you do it: sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”– Neil Gaiman

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