This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
I feel like thereโs really only one writing tip, which is the same tip for anything youโd like to do well, from tying your shoes to playing Beer Pong: Practice. Write every day. But Iโll try to come up with five others.
1. Donโt deflate your balloon. I try not to talk about an idea to others until Iโve at least started writing something. Once itโs โout thereโ it can be less interesting. Youโve used all the words you wouldโve written down to explain them to your friend, your partner, your agent, whomever โ and suddenly itโs not the gossipy secret you had in your head. Write it down first. See what it is. Is it a short story? A novel? A play? A television show? A tweet? See what youโve got and if it takes you somewhere before you pull all of the fun out of it and abandon it completely.
2. Have a few rituals. Whether itโs a specific mug for your coffee, a particular time of day, a certain playlist, or a special place where you love the view โ do something when you write thatโs the same every time and you will find it easier to get into the zone. Similarly, protect that ritual. Just like some people say you shouldnโt have a television in your bedroom so you always think of that place as where the magic happens, donโt turn your special writing partner into just another part of your life. If you have a pair of comfy pants that says, โIโm about to get some writing done,โ then donโt wear them to the grocery store. Have a relationship with your writing practice, and let it have its own special trinkets and locations. Youโll find it easier to fall into that place where your fingers start flying.
3. Take lots of showers. This doesnโt work as well in a bath, perhaps because when youโre reclining youโre more likely to relax and not think of anything, but I donโt know any writer who doesnโt admit that most of his or her best ideas happen during a shower. Thereโs something about standing still, trapped in a small, hot room, trying not to think about the current condition of your naked body, that tells your brain, โI guess you could work on that piece of dialogue I was having problems with earlier.โ A long, comforting shower lets your mind wander, but not too far. In a shower you canโt have distractions. We donโt usually bring books and cell phones in with us, people we live with tend to let us have a couple of minutes to ourselves, and thereโs really nothing on the agenda other than shampoo, soap, shave, rinse. (Whatever else you do in there is your business, and please keep me out of it.) I bet if we all rode elevators for ten minutes a day every morning weโd have the same kind of epiphanies in those tiny, traveling coffins, but for most of us itโs the shower where we can find the answers to all kinds of storytelling questions.
4. Keep your eyes on your own plate. This one is hard, but itโs important. This is what my mother used to always tell me when I was younger and would worry that my sister might have gotten more food than I did or had a bigger piece of cake or was just generally getting away with something awesomer than I had. โYou have food to eat. Worry about that, and then you can decide if you need more. It shouldnโt matter how much someone else has.โ I use this lesson all the time when it comes to something as big as my career or as tiny as how far along I am in a particular project. In this day and age, when the Internet allows us to basically stalk thousands of other people living out various versions of our dreams, itโs easy to think you are stumbling around in very last place in the worldโs biggest marathon. For every press release or humblebrag, remind yourself that you donโt know the whole story; you donโt know how long it took to get to their announcement day. You donโt know the sacrifices they made, the rejections they faced, the work they put in. You only have your own plate of work in front of you, and you canโt get any more until you clean your plate. Get to work. Mind your own beeswax. (That one Mom said all the time, too, but I never knew where all this beeswax was I allegedly owned.)
5. If you ask someone to give you feedback, donโt be a jerk when you get it. Feedback is important. Itโs critical to get someone elseโs point of view on how your storyโs coming across. In your mind you see everything; you know all the answers. When a reader has a question or is confused about something, it doesnโt necessarily mean that personโs an idiot. (I mean, maybe. But why would you ask that person for feedback?) It means somethingโs not working for him or her. Itโs possible that what your reader is pointing out isnโt exactly the problem, but itโs illustrating where things start to feel wonky. Be respectful of criticism, because that person was generous with his or her time and decided to read your unfinished piece of business in the first place. You can ๏ปฟstomp around about your genius once you get off the phone/away from the computer/pay for the check, but until then listen, really listen, and try to hear the fix inside that note.
I write lots of writing advice when Iโm busy procrastinating from all the writing I need to get done. If youโd like to read more, check out the following: https://pamie.com/tag/advice/
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