Yeah, Right! 3 Common Writing Myths, Busted
There is so much writing advice out there that it can get overwhelming. Should you open your novel with the weather? Or never open it with the weather?
Should you include a dream sequence or never include a dream sequence?
Are memoirs done? Is publishing done?
Today, I’m going to debunk, as in bust open, the 3 most destructive writing myths that I see causing writers to suffer.
I tried writing for years but I felt like I was never good enough.
I would stare at words I’d written on the screen with absolutely no idea how to make them better.
Does this sound familiar?
One day I realized: a huge reason why I was struggling was that I’d begun following the rules that everyone else had told me to follow in my writing process instead of doing what worked for me.
I want to save you those years of fighting yourself by busting these myths.
Myth #1: A good writer has to write every day
TRUTH: A good writer writes when they can
For years, I believed the saying that if you don’t write every day, you’re not a writer. I thought that taking a day off meant I would somehow lose whatever traction I’d managed to gain when it comes to learning to write well.
I distinctly remember the panicked feeling I would get when, for whatever reason, I didn’t find time to write in a given day.
These thoughts are along the same lines as the kind of diet-thinking that leads you to self-loathing and can even drive you to work against yourself: Caving and eating that chocolate chip cookie means I’ve failed, so I might as well give up.
But gradually, I noticed that the disaster I feared never came. I could skip a day here or there, or even a week or two, and when I came back to writing—I could still write. I could pick up where I left off. The characters hadn’t abandoned me, and my talent hadn’t either.
There is no magic “number of days per week” you must write to be a writer.
Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, binge writes: She goes months at a time without writing a word, then writes obsessively for a while, rinse and repeat.
I fall somewhere in between this and writing every day; I write most, not all days, but take off long stretches between projects to work on other things.
You do what works for you. Yes, you will be a better writer if you write 365 days a year than if you write one day a year. But you will also be a better writer if you write 40 days rather than one.
I do think it’s true that the more you write, the better you get. Don’t put off writing thinking you can improve just by studying writing or reading about writing…that’s like trying to learn to swim any other way than jumping in the water and flailing.
We have to flail. The flailing is how you get better.
But you don’t have to flail every day. Flail a lot…whenever it works in your schedule.
Myth #2: All first drafts are terrible
TRUTH: First drafts need revising
You may have heard the expression “all first drafts are fill-in-your-expletive-here.”
I’ve never liked this assurance. I hate it, actually. Sure, the initial execution of your novel will be imperfect. The first draft will be messy. And that’s not a bad thing—that’s beautiful.
If, in your first draft, you raise more questions than you answer and plant seeds that are unresolved, that’s powerful. You’ve laid the groundwork to bring in more depth in your revision.
I get the intention behind the phrase “the crappy first draft.” It reassures you when you find yourself staring at a blank page.
But for me the notion of the “crappy first draft” doesn’t make me feel reassured. It makes me feel like I’m going to knock myself out working on this draft, which I have now been promised will be terrible no matter how hard I work!
That always struck me as incredibly discouraging.
Yes: You will have to revise. It’s not that all first drafts are crap but that no first draft is done. Everyone has to revise, probably more than once.
The first phase is creating something out of nothing. The second phase is shaping that thing up that so that its message shines brighter.
One of my writers told me, the first draft is you telling yourself the story.
I loved that!
In case it’s also helpful to you to have a different understanding of a first draft—here’s one. Your first draft is going to be decidedly not crap.
It’s just going to be one version of the story…the version you’re telling yourself before you dress it up for other people.
Keep it up: Do your best, show up, commit, be vulnerable, let creativity take the reins, and you will complete a draft full of sparkling gems bursting with potential.
The final myth I want to bust is that writing well is painful and arduous
TRUTH: Writing can and should be fun and joyful
I think we’ve all encountered this idea that writing is always painful, and difficult, and it’s a really ubiquitous idea.
Picture the bitter, wild-haired hermit chain smoking in his messy flat with stacks of paper everywhere, his typewriter dusty, empty bottles of scotch piled in the trash as his editor calls asking the novel he was supposed to turn in 19 years ago.
That’s the tormented genius, right?
In her book Big Magic, author Elizabeth Gilbert does an excellent job of dismantling the idea that writing has to be difficult or painful. Gilbert talks about how it should actually be fun!
You’re partnering with creativity. You’re collaborating with the creative energy of the universe! How can that be anything but fun if we really understand it that way?
Of course, this doesn’t mean we don’t all have hard days—there always will be days where you don’t feel like writing or you doubt yourself, or you feel like nothing is clicking for you creatively. But writing can still be mostly enjoyable—deeply enjoyable.
I love writing. I love the time I get to spend writing. If I’ve set aside a morning to write, I wake up that day and when I remember that I get to write, I feel truly happy.
My body is like, yay! We get to do the think we love today!
If you don’t already feel this way, too, you can. It’s possible for you.
Often, you can break into joy—or rediscover the joy of writing—when you stop forcing yourself to do things that don’t work for you and your process.
If you only can write for 15 minutes every day, or you skip one week and then write for hours over the weekend, or you write your draft in a notebook with a set of fuzzy feather pens, all of that is good as long as it works for you.
Or maybe you need to let go of that book you think you’re supposed to write and write the book you want to write.
Or maybe you just need to let go of the idea that a better book has to be harder to write. Better books do not necessarily take longer to write, they’re not necessarily harder to write.
Some of my best work has been work I’ve written most easily and quickly. Go figure.
The best pace to write is whatever is best for you, and I truly believe that the more fun you let yourself have while writing, the more your enthusiasm shines through on the page, leading to a better book.
Ready to write your book?
If you made it this far, I’m guessing that you are writing a book, or want to write a book. If so, I want to talk to you.
When I’m not writing, my mission in life is to help talented writers write their dream books. I love it. I live for it.
Because before I published my novels, I first had to figure out how to write one. It wasn't easy because none of the writing classes I was taking showed me how to actually write a novel.
Not until I had a newborn and only a couple of hours to write did I come up with a process. The process worked. I wrote my entire novel during my 8-week maternity leave.
Now, I teach it in my program the Book Incubator and it works for dozens of other writers.
If you're curious to know more, I have a free video walking you through my exact process for writing a book.You can get it by clicking below and answering two questions to apply to the program.
You get the video whether you join or not—no pressure to enroll.
Just click below to tell me a little bit about you and your book—you can fill out a form online. I’m so excited to hear from you!
