8 ms·

Writing advice should stop targeting people who hate to write

90 points by enkiv2 6y ago

tayo42 6y ago
I think this is just because most self help/self learn topics focus on beginners or people who like the idea of starting. It's easy for the writer to get a win. You don't need to be an expert to write something targeted at beginners. Like in programming, that's why we have endless "how to write your first todo app in ..." and not "how to maintain and organize a 10k loc application with 5 co workers all trying to fuck it up" If you like to write, you're already writing, you're not a beginner anymore I would think. I think the same thing could be written as we need more intermediate and advanced advice.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  Many topics branch exponentially as they become more complex making it difficult to train on the many variations that may occur. Do you want to get a student comfortable with the concept and get them going and then guide them to a place where they can begin to help themselves. In tech, docs are difficult to use if you don’t quite know what you should be referencing. But after becoming familiar with the concepts, terms, and having gained some practical experience, the docs begin to unleash their power. Saying that I agree that there is often quite a bit of track left even after the basics. At the least, taking the student down an increasingly complex path that although maybe not directly useful, helps build more experience. But, you will probably get fewer views from content that is possibly more difficult and time consuming to build.
marcinzm 6y ago
I feel it's because a beginner is a mostly blank slate so you can give generic advice without need to understand their personal context. Someone who is proficient will have strong context (areas they're strong in, weak in, like, dislike, etc.) so advice should be tailored to them. Writers may also not actually be cognizant of their own context so can't self select specific tailored advice books. Which is why there's historically been writing workshops, editors, proofreaders, etc. Curious how off the mark I am in my thoughts.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  I'm not anything like a professional writer but I was going say something like your point. There's no easy advise list for serious writers. Even more, no being able to write is specific speed bump that many people experience and getting past that is a key thing. Not knowing basic style and grammar "rules" is another common experience. After that, the rules and the choice are much less clear - the style, tone, etc of your writing relates holistically to what you want to say. But the opposite pole is that for an advanced writers, any book you consider great is a kind of advise - it's an example of the choices one writer made to create a text said something well. If you want more here, you can also read an analysis of such texts. And with so much available once someone is at that level, there's also not a lot of reason for people write advanced advise books.
- enkiv2 6y ago
  Perhaps. It seems awfully counterproductive though, even so. Other fields (even ones that benefit from or effectively require in-person guidance -- like mathematics, or martial arts) have books aimed at more advanced practitioners. Theoretically, some writing advice books are aimed at more advanced practitioners. This essay was spawned by my experience reading a book that was literally intended as the textbook for an undergraduate creative writing workshop (i.e., a class for juniors and seniors who are english majors with a focus in creative writing). Surely twenty-five year olds who have already spent three years dedicated to the craft of creative writing are in the same position as their peers who have majored in mathematics, and do not need to be assigned the english equivalent of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Calculus". I've read a number of other writing guides, only one of which was aimed at folks who did not self-identify as writers, and they all had at least one chapter on navigating ego hangups -- even the ones called things like "Creating Engaging Character Arcs" and "Promoting Audiobooks on Kindle" that you'd expect to be highly technical and specifically aimed at professionals.
atoav 6y ago
As someone teaching at art school and who worked and works as a freelancer in all kind of creative professions (VFX, graphic design, programming, sounddesign) I think the best advice you can give to anyone in any creative profession is: Learn to switch hats. When you have your writing hat on, put your critic hat, your editor hat, your publisher hat, etc. down. Make space for the other hats in times when you don't feel like writing. Same is useful for music, film, painting, design, art. The thing is: it is really easier said than done. Most people constantly worry about other domains when they work on their things. Sure, let some ideas of how you want your work to be published flow into your writing, but don't worry about it. You can still worry later when you read the text again with a different hat. Or you could have worried about that before you started writing. Worry about writing, about which phrase to use to convey what, worry about where you want your text to develope and how fast. The mastery of this type of very conscious context switching is hard, because nobody is going to tell you which hat you need to wear when and for how long. Nobody will tell you which hat is more important, and which you better leave to others. It is a very individual thing, but one thinking about really pays off in the long term.
- iainctduncan 6y ago
  100 times this. I like listening to podcasts and interviews with great creators in the various areas I work or hobby (music, writing, variety & comedy), and if one thing comes up over and over again in interviews with masters, it's this. It makes you better, faster, and saner. Seinfeld has a great rule for this: never show something you wrote to anyone on the same day you wrote it. It's brilliant in its simplicity. You need to firewall creator from editor from performer.
  - dcw303 6y ago
    do you have any podcasts you could recommend? I'm particularly interested in music, but anything creation related would be useful.
    - iainctduncan 6y ago
      I can't remember on which things I heard them, but Seinfeld, Chris Rock, George Carlin, and Jon Stewart all say some super interesting things in interviews. And one I do remember because it's a recent discovery is Jamie Lidell's podcast, Hanging out with Audiophiles. The session he did recently with producer Damian Taylor was fantastic. HTH!
exolymph 6y ago
Hey you! Nice to see your work on the front of HN. That said, I disagree with the thrust of your thesis :) I'm a professional writer, it's pretty much my only monetizable skill as well as my passion, and writing first drafts is like pulling teeth. It's arduous and I rarely enjoy it in the moment. Very satisfying when I'm done and get to show off the result, though! I am exactly that cliché about "hate writing, love having written." This is not exactly an uncommon sentiment among writers, either.
- jeffwass 6y ago
  I’m curious how you feel about editing. For me, I do enjoy writing the first draft, even when I don’t know how or where many scenes will go. It’s definitely hard work, but enjoyable, especially when I get into the moment. But editing, on the other hand, I don’t look forward to.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Editing is tedious--especially in the later "how did this stupid error make it this far?" stages. But it's definitely easier to start from some sort of foundation for me. That said, this is mostly with respect to editing my own writing. For editing the work of others, I definitely find there's sometimes this uncanny valley where I can't just say "this is trash" but I also can't say this just needs a bit of TLC either. And that's really frustrating because you sort of want to respect the original writer's work, but it really isn't very good.
    - eslaught 6y ago
      The stupid mistakes are easy---just fix them. For me the part that has me pulling teeth is when I know for a fact that something is wrong, but for the life of me I cannot see how to fix it. And with everything I try to do, I'm not honestly sure if the result is better or not. Ironically, this gets harder as your writing gets more polished---there's more to mess up when you change things. Maybe some day I'll find a way around this, but so far I haven't.
  - exolymph 6y ago
solidist 6y ago
Some years into habitual writing, this is all I've got: https://dev.to/solidi/recognizing-remote-romantic-bibliophilia-255f https://dev.to/solidi/recognizing-remote-romantic-bibliophil... It guess what I learned is that each piece is about a "concept." Say it clearly. And enjoy it years later by reading it again. And finally publish something, no matter how small once monthly.
paperwasp42 6y ago
I'm part of a writing group that consists of 10 published authors. Of the 10, 8 absolutely despise writing first drafts. Those 8 constantly groan about having to sit their butts in the chair and get the words down. There's a common mentality of, "I hate writing, but I love having written." But those 8 members have landed several major deals, had movie rights sold, hundreds and thousands of copies sold, etc. And perhaps more importantly, they've gotten letters saying that their work changed people's lives for the better. So although I personally fall into the "I love writing in all its stages" category, I have no problem with other writers talking about how much they hate it. Those people create some of the best work I've ever had the pleasure of reading. If it takes some moaning and groaning to make it happen, then so be it. That being said--I will reserve my right to tease them about their moaning and annoy them with my undying enthusiasm. :)
- SiVal 6y ago
  That's fascinating. Are they writing what they want to write, or are they only writing for the money or adulation? I've written commercially, but not at the rarefied level of your cohorts, and I've never wanted to make a career of it. I've always wanted to write well, but I've never had to rely on it to make a mortgage payment, much less to establish my place in the world, and I've often wondered if that explained the fact that I don't hate writing first drafts. If I need to fix a toilet because a fixed toilet is needed, I like having fixed the toilet but might not enjoy fixing it. But if I'm creating what I want to create--writing or painting or a software project--then I feel like creating it, not just having created it. But for some it apparently is more like fixing very valuable toilets.
  - paperwasp42 6y ago
    > Are they writing what they want to write, or are they only writing for the money or adulation? A mixture. A lot of authors write in multiple genres to make ends meet (even a "major" contract pays way, way less than most people think). So for example I have one friend whose true passion is mystery with a literary bent (not a super popular niche), but also writes contemporary romance (the highest selling genre) to pay the bills. There's also a constant conflict in publishing of writing what you love vs writing what you know will sell (not to mention what your editor will allow). So even if you pour your uncensored soul into a manuscript, your soul is going to take a beating with a red pen before it hits shelves. :) That being said--everyone in this group writes at least one genre they're genuinely passionate about. > I've always wanted to write well, but I've never had to rely on it to make a mortgage payment, much less to establish my place in the world, and I've often wondered if that explained the fact that I don't hate writing first drafts. I would say this is a huge factor. Deadlines have a magical ability to kill joy in a craft. I think a lot of the "I hate writing" mentality comes from "I'm a perfectionist who feels I don't have enough time to make this manuscript as good as I want it to be." That being said--a lot of people feel this dread even before they're published, so I think there's more than one factor at play.
Spooky23 6y ago
If you write, and like to write, why would you seek advice about how to write?
- Veen 6y ago
  For the same reason people who like to paint seek advice about painting and people who like to program seek advice about programming. Writing is a craft. You can learn how to do it better (although not usually from books about how to write well).
tunesmith 6y ago
Any general advice on how to find a writing group, for intermediate writers that are past the beginners stage? I'm thinking of people that are perhaps beyond the nanowrimo and fanfic stages, that are comfortable with dialogue and characterization, that can string together some fun scenes and short stories, but aren't published writers. I personally have been having fun over the past year writing a branching novel with some friends. I know I've personally written more than 50k words with all sorts of characters and twists and turns and satisfying conclusions, but I feel like I'm plateauing. I've thought about joining one of my local meetup.com writing groups but I get the sense they'll take anyone and I'd rather be the weakest writer in the room. Well, maybe second-weakest.
- cableshaft 6y ago
  My wife had some luck taking a couple of courses by established writers, who had their own private Facebook group you can join afterwards. Seems like most of the people who are willing to pay a few hundred dollars for the course are more serious about wanting to make a career of it. I belong to a local writer's group, and except for a short story anthology that gets put out every year (and I participate in sometimes), it's pretty clear that 90% of the people in the group are never going to put forth the effort to probably ever even get a self-published book out there. And they definitely aren't serious enough to spend any money to have any success. Can't even get them to chip in $15 apiece to pay to get a decent looking book cover so the anthology might grab some eyeballs and their stories get more readers.
datavirtue 6y ago
This guy likes writing too much. "bryonic??"
- User23 6y ago
  Sounds like he's a fan of the Count of Monte Cristo.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Count of Monte Cristo is perhaps one of the best revenge stories ever written. Though I'd say Titus Andronicus is up there pretty high as well.
  - enkiv2 6y ago
    I haven't read it, though I've read some Byron (and Polidori's ripoff).
    - User23 6y ago
      It's absolutely marvelous. It also inspired some fun derivative works like Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (Tyger Tyger in the UK).
- HWR_14 6y ago
  It's the most precise word and also is readily understood by his target audience of writers. A correct term of art can replace swathes of text. Compare using the abbreviation DAG as opposed to trying to explain the same concept without appealing to shared knowledge.
  - bopbeepboop 6y ago
    I’d say “Byron-esque” has the same meaning while being more readily understood.
8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago
Isn't it pretty common for successful published writers to actually hate the process of writing? They enjoy the outcomes, but the actual process of writing feels tortured to many.
- superduperycomb 6y ago
  This is how programming generally feels to me. I love having written a useful / interesting tool or function, but sometimes getting started is like pulling teeth.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
Maya Angelou, one of the great writers of her age, was violently assaulted as a child by her mother's boyfriend. She told her brother who had done this to her and he turned up dead not long thereafter. I think she didn't speak for five years after that. She experienced it as "I spoke his name and it killed him." She learned the power of her words at an early age and it made a really huge impression on her. That no doubt was not irrelevant to her amazing career as a writer. One reason writers agonize is because words can have power and because writing can be like doing therapy on stage while everyone watches. Good writing often contains some piece of the author's soul and that's always a risk to take. It's not neurotic that some people find writing emotionally hard and all that. If you happen to have found your way to writing via a path that didn't leave you fearful of the power of your words, well, nice for you. But "get off my lawn" as they say. (I generally enjoy writing. Get off my lawn anyway.)
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > She told her brother who had done this to her and he turned up dead not long thereafter. For those who don't know, the boyfriend turned up dead, not the brother.
- enkiv2 6y ago
  Writing is powerful and involves a lot of responsibility. Torturing yourself does not necessarily improve your ability to wield this tool responsibly. > Good writing often contains some piece of the author's soul and that's always a risk to take. Ego risk or reputational risk should not be treated the same way as risk to others. It's also easy to avoid. Very few writers are so monumentally important that the world would mourn for them having never published -- and most of those who would have been were, of course, never published. My advice to people is that if writing feels like self-harm, you're better off not doing it & the world probably won't notice. Folks who have something so important to say (or who are so desperate to say anything at all) that they ignore my advice have made their choice :)
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Torturing yourself does not necessarily improve your ability to wield this tool responsibly. A lot of my writing grows out of the fact that my life is torture. Writing helps make it less torturous but it doesn't come without risks. It is rather arrogant and likely comes from a place of privilege to presume that people who find writing torment are in a place to chose to not be tormented. Not everyone has some nice, cushy life where they can decide between "Get X job or write" and choose X job because it comfortably pays the bills without being emotional torment for them. It doesn't have to change the world for it to be monumentally important for that specific writer. Their torment is no less real just because most of the world didn't care about their personal struggles in the face of monumental personal problems, even if solving their own problems only solves it for them and for no one else.
brianjunyinchan 6y ago
What happens to a craft that stops encouraging beginners?
- enkiv2 6y ago
  The article doesn't claim that these descriptions have no place, but merely laments that they form the vast majority of writing advice.
tpoacher 6y ago
I thought it was very "bold" of the author to casually compare writer's block to rape and domestic abuse, in the year of 2021. People have gotten cancelled for a LOT less recently. (such as, saying they prefer "pers" to "they", for example).
- enkiv2 6y ago
  If someone wanted to "cancel" me, I have greater sins than having accurately summarized other writers' descriptions of their emotional relationship with the craft. Since I am taking umbrage at exactly these descriptions, I don't see the grounds.
  - tpoacher 5y ago
    Use of 'forbidden words' typically carries far more weight in such cancel movements than even reasonable assertions of having proper grounds for using them. And you can rest assured that if this material fell in the wrong hands, those greater sins you mention would be revealed fairly swiftly as well, and then some. Hence, bold. (If it was not boldness, it was just recklessness).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cloudsec9 6y ago
I think writing (not short blogs, but longer writing) is a process, and you have to enjoy the process, or at least enjoy the end product to struggle through the process. I think writers can hate a part of the process while enjoying the creating and end part -- and I think we should encourage people to navigate the hard part.

90 points by enkiv2 6y ago

I think this is just because most self help/self learn topics focus on beginners or people who like the idea of starting. It's easy for the writer to get a win. You don't need to be an expert to write something targeted at beginners. Like in programming, that's why we have endless "how to write your first todo app in ..." and not "how to maintain and organize a 10k loc application with 5 co workers all trying to fuck it up" If you like to write, you're already writing, you're not a beginner anymore I would think. I think the same thing could be written as we need more intermediate and advanced advice.

nemo44x 6y ago
Many topics branch exponentially as they become more complex making it difficult to train on the many variations that may occur. Do you want to get a student comfortable with the concept and get them going and then guide them to a place where they can begin to help themselves. In tech, docs are difficult to use if you don’t quite know what you should be referencing. But after becoming familiar with the concepts, terms, and having gained some practical experience, the docs begin to unleash their power. Saying that I agree that there is often quite a bit of track left even after the basics. At the least, taking the student down an increasingly complex path that although maybe not directly useful, helps build more experience. But, you will probably get fewer views from content that is possibly more difficult and time consuming to build.

marcinzm 6y ago

I feel it's because a beginner is a mostly blank slate so you can give generic advice without need to understand their personal context. Someone who is proficient will have strong context (areas they're strong in, weak in, like, dislike, etc.) so advice should be tailored to them. Writers may also not actually be cognizant of their own context so can't self select specific tailored advice books. Which is why there's historically been writing workshops, editors, proofreaders, etc. Curious how off the mark I am in my thoughts.

joe_the_user 6y ago
I'm not anything like a professional writer but I was going say something like your point. There's no easy advise list for serious writers. Even more, no being able to write is specific speed bump that many people experience and getting past that is a key thing. Not knowing basic style and grammar "rules" is another common experience. After that, the rules and the choice are much less clear - the style, tone, etc of your writing relates holistically to what you want to say. But the opposite pole is that for an advanced writers, any book you consider great is a kind of advise - it's an example of the choices one writer made to create a text said something well. If you want more here, you can also read an analysis of such texts. And with so much available once someone is at that level, there's also not a lot of reason for people write advanced advise books.
enkiv2 6y ago
Perhaps. It seems awfully counterproductive though, even so. Other fields (even ones that benefit from or effectively require in-person guidance -- like mathematics, or martial arts) have books aimed at more advanced practitioners. Theoretically, some writing advice books are aimed at more advanced practitioners. This essay was spawned by my experience reading a book that was literally intended as the textbook for an undergraduate creative writing workshop (i.e., a class for juniors and seniors who are english majors with a focus in creative writing). Surely twenty-five year olds who have already spent three years dedicated to the craft of creative writing are in the same position as their peers who have majored in mathematics, and do not need to be assigned the english equivalent of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Calculus". I've read a number of other writing guides, only one of which was aimed at folks who did not self-identify as writers, and they all had at least one chapter on navigating ego hangups -- even the ones called things like "Creating Engaging Character Arcs" and "Promoting Audiobooks on Kindle" that you'd expect to be highly technical and specifically aimed at professionals.

atoav 6y ago

As someone teaching at art school and who worked and works as a freelancer in all kind of creative professions (VFX, graphic design, programming, sounddesign) I think the best advice you can give to anyone in any creative profession is: Learn to switch hats. When you have your writing hat on, put your critic hat, your editor hat, your publisher hat, etc. down. Make space for the other hats in times when you don't feel like writing. Same is useful for music, film, painting, design, art. The thing is: it is really easier said than done. Most people constantly worry about other domains when they work on their things. Sure, let some ideas of how you want your work to be published flow into your writing, but don't worry about it. You can still worry later when you read the text again with a different hat. Or you could have worried about that before you started writing. Worry about writing, about which phrase to use to convey what, worry about where you want your text to develope and how fast. The mastery of this type of very conscious context switching is hard, because nobody is going to tell you which hat you need to wear when and for how long. Nobody will tell you which hat is more important, and which you better leave to others. It is a very individual thing, but one thinking about really pays off in the long term.

iainctduncan 6y ago
100 times this. I like listening to podcasts and interviews with great creators in the various areas I work or hobby (music, writing, variety & comedy), and if one thing comes up over and over again in interviews with masters, it's this. It makes you better, faster, and saner. Seinfeld has a great rule for this: never show something you wrote to anyone on the same day you wrote it. It's brilliant in its simplicity. You need to firewall creator from editor from performer.
- dcw303 6y ago
  do you have any podcasts you could recommend? I'm particularly interested in music, but anything creation related would be useful.
  - iainctduncan 6y ago
    I can't remember on which things I heard them, but Seinfeld, Chris Rock, George Carlin, and Jon Stewart all say some super interesting things in interviews. And one I do remember because it's a recent discovery is Jamie Lidell's podcast, Hanging out with Audiophiles. The session he did recently with producer Damian Taylor was fantastic. HTH!

exolymph 6y ago

Hey you! Nice to see your work on the front of HN. That said, I disagree with the thrust of your thesis :) I'm a professional writer, it's pretty much my only monetizable skill as well as my passion, and writing first drafts is like pulling teeth. It's arduous and I rarely enjoy it in the moment. Very satisfying when I'm done and get to show off the result, though! I am exactly that cliché about "hate writing, love having written." This is not exactly an uncommon sentiment among writers, either.

jeffwass 6y ago
I’m curious how you feel about editing. For me, I do enjoy writing the first draft, even when I don’t know how or where many scenes will go. It’s definitely hard work, but enjoyable, especially when I get into the moment. But editing, on the other hand, I don’t look forward to.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Editing is tedious--especially in the later "how did this stupid error make it this far?" stages. But it's definitely easier to start from some sort of foundation for me. That said, this is mostly with respect to editing my own writing. For editing the work of others, I definitely find there's sometimes this uncanny valley where I can't just say "this is trash" but I also can't say this just needs a bit of TLC either. And that's really frustrating because you sort of want to respect the original writer's work, but it really isn't very good.
  - eslaught 6y ago
    The stupid mistakes are easy---just fix them. For me the part that has me pulling teeth is when I know for a fact that something is wrong, but for the life of me I cannot see how to fix it. And with everything I try to do, I'm not honestly sure if the result is better or not. Ironically, this gets harder as your writing gets more polished---there's more to mess up when you change things. Maybe some day I'll find a way around this, but so far I haven't.
- exolymph 6y ago

solidist 6y ago

Some years into habitual writing, this is all I've got: https://dev.to/solidi/recognizing-remote-romantic-bibliophilia-255f https://dev.to/solidi/recognizing-remote-romantic-bibliophil... It guess what I learned is that each piece is about a "concept." Say it clearly. And enjoy it years later by reading it again. And finally publish something, no matter how small once monthly.

paperwasp42 6y ago

I'm part of a writing group that consists of 10 published authors. Of the 10, 8 absolutely despise writing first drafts. Those 8 constantly groan about having to sit their butts in the chair and get the words down. There's a common mentality of, "I hate writing, but I love having written." But those 8 members have landed several major deals, had movie rights sold, hundreds and thousands of copies sold, etc. And perhaps more importantly, they've gotten letters saying that their work changed people's lives for the better. So although I personally fall into the "I love writing in all its stages" category, I have no problem with other writers talking about how much they hate it. Those people create some of the best work I've ever had the pleasure of reading. If it takes some moaning and groaning to make it happen, then so be it. That being said--I will reserve my right to tease them about their moaning and annoy them with my undying enthusiasm. :)

SiVal 6y ago
That's fascinating. Are they writing what they want to write, or are they only writing for the money or adulation? I've written commercially, but not at the rarefied level of your cohorts, and I've never wanted to make a career of it. I've always wanted to write well, but I've never had to rely on it to make a mortgage payment, much less to establish my place in the world, and I've often wondered if that explained the fact that I don't hate writing first drafts. If I need to fix a toilet because a fixed toilet is needed, I like having fixed the toilet but might not enjoy fixing it. But if I'm creating what I want to create--writing or painting or a software project--then I feel like creating it, not just having created it. But for some it apparently is more like fixing very valuable toilets.
- paperwasp42 6y ago
  > Are they writing what they want to write, or are they only writing for the money or adulation? A mixture. A lot of authors write in multiple genres to make ends meet (even a "major" contract pays way, way less than most people think). So for example I have one friend whose true passion is mystery with a literary bent (not a super popular niche), but also writes contemporary romance (the highest selling genre) to pay the bills. There's also a constant conflict in publishing of writing what you love vs writing what you know will sell (not to mention what your editor will allow). So even if you pour your uncensored soul into a manuscript, your soul is going to take a beating with a red pen before it hits shelves. :) That being said--everyone in this group writes at least one genre they're genuinely passionate about. > I've always wanted to write well, but I've never had to rely on it to make a mortgage payment, much less to establish my place in the world, and I've often wondered if that explained the fact that I don't hate writing first drafts. I would say this is a huge factor. Deadlines have a magical ability to kill joy in a craft. I think a lot of the "I hate writing" mentality comes from "I'm a perfectionist who feels I don't have enough time to make this manuscript as good as I want it to be." That being said--a lot of people feel this dread even before they're published, so I think there's more than one factor at play.

Spooky23 6y ago

If you write, and like to write, why would you seek advice about how to write?

Veen 6y ago
For the same reason people who like to paint seek advice about painting and people who like to program seek advice about programming. Writing is a craft. You can learn how to do it better (although not usually from books about how to write well).

tunesmith 6y ago

Any general advice on how to find a writing group, for intermediate writers that are past the beginners stage? I'm thinking of people that are perhaps beyond the nanowrimo and fanfic stages, that are comfortable with dialogue and characterization, that can string together some fun scenes and short stories, but aren't published writers. I personally have been having fun over the past year writing a branching novel with some friends. I know I've personally written more than 50k words with all sorts of characters and twists and turns and satisfying conclusions, but I feel like I'm plateauing. I've thought about joining one of my local meetup.com writing groups but I get the sense they'll take anyone and I'd rather be the weakest writer in the room. Well, maybe second-weakest.

cableshaft 6y ago
My wife had some luck taking a couple of courses by established writers, who had their own private Facebook group you can join afterwards. Seems like most of the people who are willing to pay a few hundred dollars for the course are more serious about wanting to make a career of it. I belong to a local writer's group, and except for a short story anthology that gets put out every year (and I participate in sometimes), it's pretty clear that 90% of the people in the group are never going to put forth the effort to probably ever even get a self-published book out there. And they definitely aren't serious enough to spend any money to have any success. Can't even get them to chip in $15 apiece to pay to get a decent looking book cover so the anthology might grab some eyeballs and their stories get more readers.

datavirtue 6y ago

This guy likes writing too much. "bryonic??"

User23 6y ago
Sounds like he's a fan of the Count of Monte Cristo.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Count of Monte Cristo is perhaps one of the best revenge stories ever written. Though I'd say Titus Andronicus is up there pretty high as well.
- enkiv2 6y ago
  I haven't read it, though I've read some Byron (and Polidori's ripoff).
  - User23 6y ago
    It's absolutely marvelous. It also inspired some fun derivative works like Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (Tyger Tyger in the UK).
HWR_14 6y ago
It's the most precise word and also is readily understood by his target audience of writers. A correct term of art can replace swathes of text. Compare using the abbreviation DAG as opposed to trying to explain the same concept without appealing to shared knowledge.
- bopbeepboop 6y ago
  I’d say “Byron-esque” has the same meaning while being more readily understood.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago

Isn't it pretty common for successful published writers to actually hate the process of writing? They enjoy the outcomes, but the actual process of writing feels tortured to many.

superduperycomb 6y ago
This is how programming generally feels to me. I love having written a useful / interesting tool or function, but sometimes getting started is like pulling teeth.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

Maya Angelou, one of the great writers of her age, was violently assaulted as a child by her mother's boyfriend. She told her brother who had done this to her and he turned up dead not long thereafter. I think she didn't speak for five years after that. She experienced it as "I spoke his name and it killed him." She learned the power of her words at an early age and it made a really huge impression on her. That no doubt was not irrelevant to her amazing career as a writer. One reason writers agonize is because words can have power and because writing can be like doing therapy on stage while everyone watches. Good writing often contains some piece of the author's soul and that's always a risk to take. It's not neurotic that some people find writing emotionally hard and all that. If you happen to have found your way to writing via a path that didn't leave you fearful of the power of your words, well, nice for you. But "get off my lawn" as they say. (I generally enjoy writing. Get off my lawn anyway.)

BeetleB 6y ago
> She told her brother who had done this to her and he turned up dead not long thereafter. For those who don't know, the boyfriend turned up dead, not the brother.
enkiv2 6y ago
Writing is powerful and involves a lot of responsibility. Torturing yourself does not necessarily improve your ability to wield this tool responsibly. > Good writing often contains some piece of the author's soul and that's always a risk to take. Ego risk or reputational risk should not be treated the same way as risk to others. It's also easy to avoid. Very few writers are so monumentally important that the world would mourn for them having never published -- and most of those who would have been were, of course, never published. My advice to people is that if writing feels like self-harm, you're better off not doing it & the world probably won't notice. Folks who have something so important to say (or who are so desperate to say anything at all) that they ignore my advice have made their choice :)
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Torturing yourself does not necessarily improve your ability to wield this tool responsibly. A lot of my writing grows out of the fact that my life is torture. Writing helps make it less torturous but it doesn't come without risks. It is rather arrogant and likely comes from a place of privilege to presume that people who find writing torment are in a place to chose to not be tormented. Not everyone has some nice, cushy life where they can decide between "Get X job or write" and choose X job because it comfortably pays the bills without being emotional torment for them. It doesn't have to change the world for it to be monumentally important for that specific writer. Their torment is no less real just because most of the world didn't care about their personal struggles in the face of monumental personal problems, even if solving their own problems only solves it for them and for no one else.

brianjunyinchan 6y ago

What happens to a craft that stops encouraging beginners?

enkiv2 6y ago
The article doesn't claim that these descriptions have no place, but merely laments that they form the vast majority of writing advice.

tpoacher 6y ago

I thought it was very "bold" of the author to casually compare writer's block to rape and domestic abuse, in the year of 2021. People have gotten cancelled for a LOT less recently. (such as, saying they prefer "pers" to "they", for example).

enkiv2 6y ago
If someone wanted to "cancel" me, I have greater sins than having accurately summarized other writers' descriptions of their emotional relationship with the craft. Since I am taking umbrage at exactly these descriptions, I don't see the grounds.
- tpoacher 5y ago
  Use of 'forbidden words' typically carries far more weight in such cancel movements than even reasonable assertions of having proper grounds for using them. And you can rest assured that if this material fell in the wrong hands, those greater sins you mention would be revealed fairly swiftly as well, and then some. Hence, bold. (If it was not boldness, it was just recklessness).

deleted 6y ago

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cloudsec9 6y ago

I think writing (not short blogs, but longer writing) is a process, and you have to enjoy the process, or at least enjoy the end product to struggle through the process. I think writers can hate a part of the process while enjoying the creating and end part -- and I think we should encourage people to navigate the hard part.