Love words. Love sentences with your whole heart. Love novels. Love books. Love the smell of books and bookstores.
Read. If you don’t love to read, you’re probably trying to be a writer for the wrong reasons. Read everything. The good stuff teaches you to reach high, and the bad stuff makes you feel a whole lot better about your own work.
Go long. The writer’s life is a marathon, not a sprint. Think journey. Think pilgrimage. Don’t take short-cuts. You’ll only reach a dead-end and have to go back to where you started.
Honor the rhythm of your particular creative well. Pour out, then refill. Big life upheaval is like one huge out-pouring of creativity. It will kick your butt. Find your best ways of filling your personal creative well, but then start pouring. If you are a writer, you must give your words away as gifts. Or you’ll lose them. Fill, then pour. Fill, then pour. Repeat, for the rest of your life.
Respect the greats who have gone before you.
Creativity is weird beast. Don’t kill something before you see it through. Wait it out. Sometimes, the best things I’ve ever written came from the garbage can. Use whatever you want for your work. If it inspires you, it’ll probably inspire someone else. If it doesn’t inspire you, but you think you’re supposed to write about something because it in vogue, it’ll fall flat. Your work must move you before you can ever ask it to move your reader.
Stick to a project, and finish it. Move on. Some projects take five minutes, some take five years. Anthony Doerr took ten years to write All the Light We Cannot See. We are all thankful he was willing to sit by himself in a room for ten years and write a hundred drafts. He wrote a masterpiece. The writer’s life can be a very lonely life. Make your peace with that.
There’s nothing new under the sun. Don’t try to be original. Write as honestly as you can, with as much integrity as you’ve got. Come at your work from your own slant, your own worldview, your neighborhood. It’ll be original because it’s your work, not because you tried to be original.
Built your own platform, but share it. Lift your other writers up and praise the heck out of them. Make that call for your friend. Recommend a fellow writer to your agent. It’ll be okay. No one will blame you if it doesn’t turn out, but the writing community is a community. We’re in this together.
Beware the green-eyed monster. I can’t tell you how many times I have to fight envy. Lately, I find myself envying other people’s beautiful platforms filled with thousands of followers. But I have envied book advances, book ideas, viral blog posts, and everything else…. at then end of the day, envy only divides and tears down. Get back to work. Learn from the ones you’re jealous of, and get back to work.
Tell the truth. Words matter. Don’t fake it. Don’t tell your mother’s truth, or your father’s truth, or your pastor’s truth. Don’t stand on someone else’s revelation. All you’ve got is what you’ve got. Own it and work it. Tell it slanted, but it best be true. If it doesn’t cost you something, you’re probably only grazing the surface. Dig until it makes you feel uncomfortable. When your words out in the world make you feel like you’re walking around naked and exposed, you have found your voice, and that is a great day.
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