184: Writing Advice for My Past Self

 

In this episode, I share what advice I wish I could pass on to my younger self about writing. Learn the lessons I'd share for any new writer.

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Writing Advice for My Past Self

Hi friends. Welcome back to your big creative life podcast. Thank you for listening or watching. Just a reminder, if you prefer to watch the video form of the podcast, you can do so on YouTube. You'll find the episodes that way. Before we get into the content of this week's episode, I want to just touch on something else briefly. This week's episode is really for what I wish I could tell my new writer self, like myself, who just started writing in God, what year did I start writing? 2016 2017 something like that. But then also just, you know, hopefully it'll be insightful and helpful to you. If you are a new writer, I'll share some lessons learned, what I wish I would have known then. So hopefully that'll be interesting and encouraging to you as well. But before we get into that, I want to just say I feel like I need to say this on the podcast. I posted about this on my stories, and I've had a lot of good DMS and conversations with people, so I want to bring it over to the podcast as well.

 

A couple weeks ago, I did a an AI episode where I talked about all of my reasons as a writer, a book editor, why I don't think you should use generative AI in the writing process for any part of it, brainstorming, outlining, character development, actually, writing it, editing nothing. Generative AI specifically like chatgpt. It's a different case if you look at tools like speech to text things or Grammarly or pro writing aid. I'm talking about generative AI like chatgpt. So you can listen to that episode if you want a full breakdown of all my reasons why I don't think you should use it. But something I've come to realize is I've had to I'm going to be setting boundaries around how frequently I talk about AI in my content, and I realize I'm doing it right now on the podcast.

 

But I just want to explain this first, it weighs on me constantly, because every single day I see comments on my social media posts, or I get messages from writers about AI. A lot of the comments and messages are people agreeing with me, saying, thank you for talking about this. I'm with you. I don't want AI in the creative spaces at all. But a lot of the comments are writers who are proudly using chatgpt to help them write the book or to write the book for them, and want to tell me I'm wrong. I'm stuck in the past. I need to embrace AI, or I'll get left behind. People had the same response to the calculator in Google. It's just the future and I'm stupid and I'm wrong for thinking otherwise. Or I also have been getting so many messages from writers who are like, can I use AI for this part of the process? What about this? Is this okay? To which my answer is always, I don't know. I can't give you permission. Like, if you're asking because you're going to be querying or submitting your work somewhere, you got to research that yourself. I can't. I'm not going to give you permission because I don't think you should use it.

 

But like, also, I'm not an agent that you're querying. I don't know, but I am spending so much mental energy responding to people and seeing comments and thinking about AI to the point where it is starting to affect my energy for creative output, my mental health, etc. Because, let's just be very blunt here, AI is a threat to my existence as a book editor, to my livelihood. Okay, I've talked already on the podcast about how I've noticed a decrease in clients since chat GPT exploded. I'm not going to get into that too much. I don't want my page to be all negative and like, woe is me, and I don't want the podcast to be that either, but that's just the reality of it. And I so I have negatively been impacted by AI already, and yet I am constantly being asked to talk about it with people who want to tell me I'm wrong and that AI is the future, or, if not, talk with them. Just see responses from those writers who are loudly pro AI, and it is discouraging and it feels heavy. It feels like I can't help but spiral and feel extremely pessimistic when that happens.

 

It is tough and I've every time I talk about this, I get messages on social media from people who have been laid off because of AI, whose companies are not replacing people who leave. They're just having ai do the work, graphic designers, software developers, artists, copywriters, all these people are their jobs are impacted by AI. So we're having all of these. Collective negative experiences, and yet there are so many writers, fellow writers, our peers, who are screaming at us about how we're wrong, and AI is wonderful, and we need to use it, which is so frustrating, and it creates this weird it's like a minor form of gaslighting, is what I said on my stories, because that's honestly what it feels like. But so anyways, all of that to say, if you are also experiencing a weird conflict, conflicting feeling in your body, something that feels just you can't reconcile those two things, I'm with you, and I'm experiencing that as well, and it is really tough, and I would encourage you to put boundaries around anything you need to to protect your peace or mental health. For me, that looks like I'm not consuming any more articles about AI and the future of AI and how AI experts are worried and sounding the alarms like I'm not. I'm not looking into like, oh, there are all of these tools that write fanfic for people.

 

Like, I need to just stop and again, I recognize that I'm, I'm talking about it on the podcast, but I just want to, I don't know. I just want to share this. In case you were also feeling this way, where you get so, um, worried about it, or like, maybe you have been negatively impacted by AI already, and seeing all this content about AI just drags you down, and I have felt this heaviness for weeks about it. So anyways, I am not going to be taught going forward, after this podcast, I am not going to be talking about AI anymore. I'm not going to be responding to comments. If you message me and ask for my opinion about AI, I will gladly direct you to a podcast episode if you want to ask, Oh, well, I've got this use case. Is this okay? Can I still query if I use it? I'm going to tell you, I can't answer that. Don't message me that I put an AI policy up on my website because I was getting questions, some questions from potential clients who were like, Hey, I used AI for this thing. Can I still work with you? In most cases? The answer is no, because I'm not going to, if AI wrote part of your manuscript, I'm not going to edit it for you. But I did explain my policy and the difference between generative AI tools and like non generative AI tools. So I have that linked on my editing page, and I'll refer people there, and that's it. I'm just not going to, I'm not going to talk about this anymore.

 

Okay, now that that's over, let's just take a collective breath and focus on what we can control, which is writing and brainstorming and working on something new and sharpening our craft and all those things, right? We can focus all of that on all those things, and I want us to put our collective energy there, as opposed to continuing to spiral. More about AI, okay, number one, what I would tell my new writer self, you aren't very good yet, but that's okay. You are going to get better by writing. Everything you write will improve like you will just get better and better and better with every single thing you write, whether it's a short story, an essay, a book, whatever. I did not know I was not very good.

 

The first couple of short stories that I wrote, I thought were great. I submitted to literary journals, and I thought it was only a matter of time before I would get published in the Paris Review or some other prestigious literary journal. And then not very long after that, I went back to look at that those short stories again, and realized they were not good, but that's okay. That's okay. They were my first attempts, my first serious attempts at writing as an adult, and I just needed to kind of get the reps in and go through that experience in order to keep getting better. So you're not very good yet. I wish I could just tell my past self that, but that's okay. You can't just expect to automatically be good at something. I had this belief that because I was a reader, an avid reader, since I was a kid, I devoured books, that I would just automatically know how to write a book, that all that would translate and it would be very easy, and that's not the case. Good writing looks easy. Good storytelling looks easy. That is why people always have the thought of like, I can't believe this book was published. I could write a better book than this. And then they go try and realize, oh, it's actually harder than it looks.

 

Or if they don't have that experience, then they think their books amazing. They probably just don't have the skill yet to recognize that their first recognize that their first attempt is probably not going to be very good. But that's okay. That's how it is with everyone. It's just part of it's just part of the process. But you get better by writing. And for me, in my case, I noticed improvement pretty quickly. It did not take me years and years and years of study and writing and craft and all those things before I got better. I mean, if I look at the time between when I started writing and when I got my first agent, it was like a couple years. It wasn't that long, several years, maybe, maybe three years, I don't know. It wasn't a super long period of time. So you can notice.

 

A lot of improvement pretty quickly, but you have to be have to write in order to notice that improvement number two, do not try to edit as you go. I would tell my younger self, I see you. I see you sitting on the couch with your laptop. I see you trying to get words down on the page and going agonizingly slow because you were trying to nail every sentence and get it perfect before you move on to the next sentence. I know it's frustrating. I know writing that way is so hard, and listen, everyone has their own process. I'm not going to tell someone who edits as they go that they're doing it wrong because they're not. It's just that I'm asked all the time, what is my process and what do I recommend? And this is my professional opinion from working with writers, not just based on my own experience.

 

I just think if you focus on getting the first draft out as quickly as you can, and not editing as you go, it's a much better experience. Because when we talk about skill as a writer, part of the skill, one of the skills that you need to learn is how to finish something. Okay. Finishing a book is a huge part of the process. And if you continually edit as you go, you're always going back to the beginning. You're polishing it, pushes off that whole finishing thing. And that is why you have people who have been working on a novel for three decades and it's not done yet. So my advice to my younger self and to you if you're new, is just focus on getting the first draft out quickly. Let it be super messy. It doesn't matter no one's going to read your first draft, but you have to get to the end.

 

So number three, speaking of rough drafts, stop comparing your rough draft, your first attempt at writing a book, to a published book that is in bookstores. I had never really questioned this belief. I guess I had never really articulated out, out articulated the thought out loud to my like, to myself, I mean, but I guess I just had this assumption that books that I saw in bookstores that the rough draft kind of came out like that. I just didn't really understand how editing worked. I didn't understand that most writers go through a ton of revision, especially if their book is being traditionally published. Some indie authors as well like it's just there is revision. Your first draft does not look like your published book, whether you are writing your first book or your 15th book.

 

So it's not a fair comparison to look at your rough draft of your first book that you are ever attempting to write and something that is available in bookstores, because the book that's available in bookstores has gone through so much editing to get to that point and polishing, and you have no idea what the state of that draft look like? It could be a hot steam pile of hot garbage when it comes out, but that's okay. You have to get it out first before you can shape it and make it better.

 

Number four, please, for the love of God, let someone read your book before you publish it, before you query it, whatever, I wish I could tell this to myself with those short stories that I submitted to those literary journals, I mean, nothing bad happened in the sense that wasn't like catastrophic. I just got rejected over and over and over from all of these literary journals that I was submitting these short stories to because they weren't good. They were just not they weren't terrible. I guess I shouldn't.They just were not where they needed to be in terms of quality. I just was not a strong enough writer when I first started and again, it's okay going back to point one, like, you get better by writing, but I didn't have the awareness to see that they weren't good or they needed to be, yeah, oh my gosh. I wish I could just tell myself, like, let someone else read them before you some before you submit. Get some outside feedback. Get some outside perspective. I did after I submitted a few places. I can't I can't remember the timing exactly, but I did eventually let my husband read two short stories that I had already been submitting places, and it was so scary and vulnerable to put myself in that position. Felt like I was gonna throw up, and I went, I went to hide in a different room while he was reading. I just like, curled up. I was like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my God. And he was very kind, but he didn't have a great reaction to to them.

 

He gave me a couple of constructive notes. He's a reader as well. He and he has a degree in English, so I trusted his feedback, and I also learned my lesson. I will just say it was too raw for me to ask my husband for feedback. Now I will talk out things with him. I'll brainstorm with him a bit, but I don't let him read early drafts of things. I wait until it's really polished, and then I'll have him weigh in. I've just learned my lesson. I can't it's too emotionally charged for me to get feedback.Back from him. So I don't, I learned my lesson there, but, but I didn't know that in the beginning. And that's not that's not always the case with people's partners, your partner, you might be able to do that with your partner, just personally, I couldn't do that with Sam, and it's nothing against him. He was great, and he gives me good feedback, but it's just too again. It's too emotionally charged. So I would say, let someone else read your work early on, Katie, let someone else see it.

 

And this is going for you. If you are a new writer who's gonna query, who's gonna publish their book themselves, you gotta let someone read it. Doesn't mean they have to read a first draft. And in fact, I would encourage you not to show them a messy first draft. Go through some self editing first, but you do have to do that.Number five is, I would tell myself, writing is an absolute roller coaster. You are going to have days where you feel so in flow and lit up and inspired, and like everything you're putting on the page is magical. And of course, it's only a matter of days before you finish the story and get a book deal, and everything's wonderful. And you're also going to have days where everything you write is a piece of shit, and you're a piece of shit, and you feel stuck and you don't like your story and you don't want to work on it. It feels like pulling teeth to get yourself to sit down and write.

 

You just want to procrastinate all of the all of those experiences and those feelings are valid and a normal part of the creative process. It does not mean that you're doing something wrong. If it feels hard and if you feel resistance. I want to highlight that piece specifically, because I just assumed, because I didn't have any writer friends, I didn't know anyone who was writing, I just assumed that because it was hard, and because I was feeling resistance, and a lot of times I did procrastinate on writing and I didn't want to do it, that I was doing something wrong, that maybe I wasn't telling the right story, or like, I don't know my approach was wrong, when, in reality, writing a book is really hard. And of course, your brain wants to self sabotage and go watch Netflix or scroll TikTok, because those things are fun. Those things are easy. You get the immediate dopamine boost. You get the immediate payoff with those things where you you don't get it with writing, because writing a book takes a long time. It's not like you sit down to write a book and then by the end of the day, you've written a book, and you get that dopamine rush and that reward. It takes a long time to get there.

 

So you just have to be persistent and trust that like it's gonna even out, and you will have days that are really terrible, even weeks at a time that are really terrible. And that's okay. The important thing is just that you keep going. Take breaks if you need them, but just keep going.It is such a roller coaster. Yeah? And remember too, that feelings aren't facts. So if you are feeling some type of way about your manuscript, about your characters, about your writing ability, whatever it is, know that number one, it's going to pass because no feeling is permanent. But also your feelings aren't facts. Just because you feel that your writing is trash or this new scene you wrote is going to have to be scrapped. That doesn't necessarily mean it's true. You might just need to set it aside and come back to it, and then if you come back to it a week later, you might realize actually it's pretty good.

 

So you can't, you can't rely on what your brain is telling you or how you're feeling to guide your decisions, like you kind of just have to ride the wave and know that how you're feeling is going to change, which is a good thing when you're having bad days and you feel terrible about what you're writing, but it's also kind of a bummer when you're feeling in flow and every like, everything's wonderful because that isn't going to last either, but that's okay. Like, now that I have years of experience, now that I've written a few books, I just know, I just know that I'm going to get through it. I know not to give too much weight to those days when it feels hard, or those weeks where I'm procrastinating or I'm feeling blocked or uninspired, like it's it's okay, yeah, and going along with that kind of like 5.5 I guess my point is, like, give yourself so much self compassion in this process, the creative process, is difficult. I think part of, well, never mind. I'm not going to go into AI it, it is hard to do it and there's nothing wrong with you if you're feeling that way and like beating yourself up and making your inner critic, just like, I don't know, yelling at yourself is not going to make the situation any better.

 

We can only rely on self hatred and self flagellation as motivation to a certain extent, it's not always going to work, and it also feels terrible when we do that. So if you can be kind to yourself, give yourself a radical amount of self compassion to get yourself through the process, it's going to be so much better, I promise. So remember that too. You gotta have self have self compassion for yourself in this process, because it's hard. Yeah, and the more that you write, the more things you've written, like the more experience you get under your belt. You start to see that it all. It is just a roller. Poster, and you can navigate those lows with a level of understanding that, like the it'll go back up. So I really wish I could tell my younger self that I don't know if my younger self would fully believe that, like, I don't know if the new writer self would would understand that fully. But I want to, I wish I could drill that into my head, and I I want to tell you that as well. So hopefully this was helpful. Those are the pieces of advice that an encouragement that I would give to my younger self.

 

Yeah, and also, to reiterate, taking a break from Ai content, we're just gonna pretend it's not a thing. I can't control people using it. I can't control people commenting on my videos about it, but I'm not going to engage. And I would encourage you, if you need to place boundaries around stuff like that, please go ahead like AI is not going away. And so I need to, I think we need to just think about boundaries, for our peace, our mental health, not to stick our head in the sand, because it's not going away. And I don't think any of us are under any illusions that it's going to go away, but at least we can protect ourselves a little bit. So okay, you've got this if you're a new writer, keep going. Trust the experiences of people who have been writing for a while and are telling you that it gets easier and it gets better and all those things, because it truly does. Yeah, it does Okay. Thank you for listening, and I will see you next week.

Katie Wolf