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What advice has helped you the most as a writer? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Dungeondaddyd20@lemmy.world to c/writing@beehaw.org

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For me it was advice from Dan Harmon: "Don't try to prove you're a good writer, you'll never write anything. Try to prove you're a bad writer and you'll write everything." Not perfect advice but it really does help me write when I'm being overly critical of my ideas.

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[–] Kwakigra@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't recall the specific wording, but the best piece of advice for me was something like this:

Don't try to be a writer. Don't try to be an author. Just write.

Having an ideal identity which I was constantly and very unfairly measuring myself against prevented me from writing anything at all because before I even got started I knew it wasn't going to be to the standards of my imaginary avatar. I now allow myself to write a mess because in that mess is some quality stuff which I can extract and expand on, and writing the mess is a lot of fun. I'm currently totally free of an audience I have to conform to, so my writing is totally free from any kind of restrictions other than what I prefer at the moment.

[–] ImASquirrelYipee@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I agree with this. I used to be unable to write anything because I felt like, if my work wasn't read, it was useless and needlessly written. Now, I love writing and I'm able to do it every afternoon, it's quite relaxing.