If you’ve ever listened to my podcast, DIY MFA Radio, you know that at the end of each interview, I would ask the same question: “What’s your #1 tip for writers?” As I was thinking of what to write for today’s newsletter, I asked myself that same question, and I came up with not one, not two, but three top writing tips to share with you.
Tip #1: Find your own “best practice.”
Once upon a time, when I was an itty-bitty baby writer, I read the book On Writing by Stephen King. This is a wonderful book, with a ton of great insights. I highly recommend it to any writer because it gives a window into the life and practice of one of our craft’s greatest giants.
But there is one spot in the book where I have to quibble with Mr. King. You see, about two thirds of the way in, he says that to be a writer you have to write 2,000 words per day and read 80-100 books per year. I don’t know about you, but I can’t rack up those words like clockwork. My process is a lot more erratic, with 500 words on one day, 3,000 the next, and so on. (Lawyer hubby lovingly calls this the “feast or famine” approach to writing.)
And when it comes to reading, I’m a ridiculously slow reader. I can read maybe 30-40 books in a year, but 80-100… there’s just no way. Plus, I’ve got two kids (Little Man and Lady Bug), a full-time job with DIY MFA, and—you know—other life stuff. For me, this advice was completely unreasonable.
But I didn’t know that at the time.
You see, when I first read that part of the book, I thought to myself: “Oh my gosh! Stephen King just gave me THE ANSWER. All I have to do is follow his advice exactly and I’ll be set for life.” After all, if Stephen King said it, it must be true. Right?
Well…
I’ll tell you how I lasted following Stephen King’s advice: three days. The first day, I knocked out those 2,000 words like a boss. The second day, it was a bit more of a grind. By day three, I could barely eke out 1,000 words, much less 2,000. After that, I quickly lost momentum and after another couple of days, I gave up altogether.
Here’s the problem with taking advice or hearing people spout “best practices.” Writing 2,000 words per day might be the best practice for Stephen King, but for me it was a disaster. In writing there’s no such thing as “best practices;” we have to find what works best for us.
The key isn’t to copy-paste someone else’s advice onto our own lives. Rather, it’s our responsibility to weigh out that advice, try it on for size, and then make adjustments accordingly. We need to find our own best practices, rather than simply following someone else’s.
Tip #2: Honor your reality.
This has become something of a catchphrase in the DIY MFA ecosystem. What it means is that we have to honor and respect both our writing life and our non-writing life (AKA “reality”). It’s very easy to beat ourselves up for not writing enough, or not reading enough, or not doing enough work for our platforms, and so forth.
But sometimes reality rears its ugly head and we have to shift our focus away from our writing. During those times, we have to give ourselves grace and recognize that “life stuff” needs to come first, and our writing will be there for us when we’re ready to come back.
A lot of people talk about how we have to “find our writing-life balance,” as if it were as easy as finding items on a scavenger hunt. Creating balance between our writing and our life is a complex, nuanced concept.
When we think of balance many of us imagine scales, like the kind that Lady Justice holds in her hand. This image implies that balance is all about rigid equality. The scale is in balance when the two sides are perfectly level, and to keep that balance we can’t move a millimeter.
But balance is fluid, not rigid. When I think of balance, I imagine being on a boat. Now, if you try to stand rigidly upright on a boat, what happens? You fall on your face. The way to stay upright on a boat is to lean from side to side. If the waves raise the boat on one side, we lean into that. Then, when the waves raise the other side of the boat, we lean in that direction. And we keep leaning to and fro until we achieve what appears to be balance but is actually kind of wobbly.
The same is true with writing and life. If writing and life are like waves outside our boat, we have to lean into whichever side is calling to us in that moment.
For example, sometimes an aspect of our life demands our attention. Maybe we have a sick family member we need to care for, or maybe there’s a big project for our day job, or maybe it’s summer and our kids are home from school, throwing a wrench into our usual schedule. During these times, we have to set our writing aside and focus our attention on the “life stuff” that’s tugging on our sleeve.
But there are other times when our writing demands attention. Maybe we have a big deadline looming from our publisher, or maybe we’re gearing up for an important book launch. In these moments, we forgo things like doing laundry or cooking meals. Instead, we rewear the same T-shirt and order take-out everyday for a week.
And that’s okay.
Honoring our reality and finding balance is about the ebb and flow. It’s not something rigid like Lady Justice’s scales, and it’s not a one-and-done proposition. Instead, we constantly have to choose between writing and life, and shift our attention from one to the other.
Tip #3: Move from instinct to intention.
If you’ve taken any DIY MFA course or workshop, you’ve probably heard me talk about instinct to intention, but this is such an important topic that I had to include it in my top three writing tips. The idea of instinct to intention is simple. DIY MFA word nerds already have good instincts. I say this with utmost confidence because I know the kind of writer DIY MFA attracts.
If you’re here, reading this email, you are likely self-motivated, focused on the craft, and driven to creating excellence on the page. You’ve also probably read a fair number of books in your lifetime and you’ve learned all those writing “rules” through osmosis, just by immersing yourself in stories.
Whether you plan your story down to every detail or you write by the seat of your pants, you know the essentials for how to put together a good story. And when you write by instinct, the result is probably pretty good.
But writing by instinct alone is not enough. Our goal at DIY MFA is to help you get to the point where every nuance, every comma, every turn of phrase is in your story because you put it there on purpose, not because it just happened to come out that way.
I believe that the purpose of a workshop is to move writers from instinct to intention. When you understand the craft concepts and you can identify components in your own work, you are much more likely to make that shift from instinct to intention.
This is why when we critique writers’ work in DIY MFA courses and programs, the focus is always on reflecting back to the writer what we see in their work and what our impressions are. This way, the writer can make an informed choice and go from writing on instinct to writing with intention and purpose.
One of the best ways to make that shift from instinct to intention is to get feedback on your writing, but be careful. Not all feedback is created equal. Many workshop environments ascribe to the notion that we should “tear writers down so we can build them back up.”
Poppycock.
Ripping a writer’s work to shreds is not an effective way to help them move from instinct to intention. All it will accomplish is letting that writer feel miserable and making it more likely that they will give up and stop writing altogether.
At the same time, if all a writer’s group does is wave pompoms and go “rah rah,” that’s not an effective form of critique either. Giving feedback isn’t about making value judgements about what’s “right” or “wrong” with the work. It’s about helping the writer see their work in an objective way.
An effective critique group or workshop is like a mirror. The group reflects back to the writer what it sees and helps the writer identify what’s going on in their work, both in terms of technique and meaning. Once the writer has that objective viewpoint, they can easily make intelligent decisions about what to change (or not change) in their work.
Ultimately, the purpose of moving from instinct to intention is not to force writers to “fix” their writing. A writer might decide not to change a single thing, and that’s okay because now that choice has been made with intention, rather than just through instinct. That’s the goal: to help facilitate those decisions and give the writer agency with their work.
So, there you have it: three top tips for writers. You might be surprised that all three of these tips are mindset-based. I didn’t include any craft techniques or talk about the importance of reading like a writer and building community. Yes—craft, reading, and community are important, but if we don’t have the right mindset around our writing, no amount of technical know-how will help us get those words on the page.
If you do nothing else in your writing practice but work on making these key mindset shifts, you will grow as a writer by leaps and bounds. That’s because mindset is the thing that differentiates the dabblers from the doers. Work on your mindset and everything else will fall into place.
Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!
P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.
