188: Debunking Common Writing Myths
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There are tons of myths about writing, and in this episode, I debunk 6 of the most common myths I see on social media.
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Debunking Common Writing Myths
Hi friends. Welcome to your big creative life podcast. I'm very excited about this week's episode because I have been taking notes and compiling a list of myths to talk about, myths about writing that we're just going to bust today. Most of these myths come from social media, and so every time I see a video, I like, make a note to myself, like, oh yeah, that's something I need to talk about on this episode. So I'm excited to dive in, because there are so many just bullshit, excuse me, bullshit myths that just continue to exist, and I can get really riled up about some of them because they're so easily disproven. So we'll talk about those myths. But some of these myths are just more like myths in public perception about what we think about creatives and writers and so we're going to get into all that. We're going to bust the myths. I think we have five or six to get through.
Uh, Number one, first myth, real writers write every day. Y'all not true. Absolutely not true. I do not believe this on any sort of level, a philosophical, existential, practical level. And here's why, you could be someone who opens your manuscript and works on it for 10 minutes every single day of your life, and you could get 50 to 100 words written every single day, which is awesome and wonderful. That's great progress. You could also, on the other side of the spectrum be someone who writes once a week and you sit down for three hours and you turn out 7000 words in those three hours. Are you? Are you really going to tell me that that person who write writes once a week for three hours is not a real writer because they're not opening their manuscript every day. That is beyond stupid. We all have different speeds at which we write, so to try to claim that, like, oh, to be a real writer, you've got to write every day so that you're making progress.
That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't now, I do believe there's a small subset of writers where it is going to be helpful for them to develop the habit and the consistency and the routine of working on their book every single day, even if it's just opening up their manuscript and making a comment to themselves about like brainstorming or something, if that's what they're doing, or if they're doing a full on writing sprint every single day, great. I do think there are some people who find that really beneficial, and it's helpful, and it's more helpful for them to have that accountability and for it to be a true routine that's built into their day. That's awesome, but for a lot of people, life is busy. Their jobs are busy. They've got kids, they've got other things going on, and so it's just not possible for them to work on their manuscript every single day. And that does not mean they're not a real writer. I just find that incredibly stupid. So if you write every day awesome, if you don't awesome, it does not matter. Okay.
Number two, second myth, the myth of the Muse, the myth that there is this energetic, spiritual energy, or entity who is coming down and bestowing us with our ideas, and it's all very woo, woo and lovely and warm and fuzzy. And we get bestowed these ideas, and we have to be good stewards of these ideas. And you can only write when you're feeling in flow, when you're divinely inspired, and you're channeling your words from this muse, and if you try to force it when you're not feeling it, that that's harmful and detrimental, and you have to only write when you're feeling inspired by the muse. And it's absolute bullshit. It's bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I love the idea of some divine inspiration. I think there is some woo, woo stuff about creativity and channeling and writing. I absolutely believe that. But to say that you have to wait for inspiration to strike and you can only write when you're in flow or in the mood, is so backwards. If you are on any kind of schedule or deadline, whether that is something external, that is someone else has set for you, like you hired an editor, you have to get your book to them by the certain date. Or you have said, Hey, I'm self publishing this book on this date, and you've talked about it, and you have to publish your book that date.
Or if it's just kind of a deadline that you've set, like, oh, I want to query my book by this date. If you have those deadlines, you are sometimes going to have to sit down and write when you're not feeling it. It's just the reality of it. Today is a great example for me. I'm working on edits to my novel right now, and I don't particularly want to i. Open up my manuscript. In fact, it is 1:45pm as I'm recording this, and I told myself, Okay, I'm gonna work for like, two hours on client work this morning, do some emails, record the podcast, and then work on my book. And honestly, I don't know if it's gonna happen. I'm gonna record this podcast episode and that's it. That's all I have to do for work. For today, I gave myself some time this afternoon, but like, we'll see. I mean, I might just open up the manuscript and, like, make some notes and not actually read anything. I don't know. We'll see how I'm feeling after this. But I don't want, I don't really want to, but I want to get this draft done. I want to get these edits done because I want this book to be on submission. I want to send this draft to my agent sooner rather than later.
So that means sometimes I'm going to have to sit down and work on my book when I don't really want to. Now, sometimes what happens is you will find you don't have the inspiration, you don't have the motivation. You're just like, Oh, you're dragging your feet. You sit down to write, and once you start writing, you might get in the mood. Inspiration might come then, or like, you might feel lit up and energized and excited after you start, but sometimes even then, you won't like, I don't know, I wrote yesterday. I did work on my book yesterday for maybe an hour, and it was just okay. It wasn't great. I wasn't super inspired or motivated, but I got some stuff done, I felt okay about it like kind of mediocre, and then it was done. So yeah, sometimes that's just how it is.
So don't feel like you have to wait for the muse to hit before you can sit down and write. If you have those deadlines, if you want to be making progress on your book, you kind of just have to treat it like a job sometimes, and just do it even if you don't like feel like it, and it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you, by the way, if you don't feel like it, it's just part of going through the creative process. And like, the fact that that's hard. Like, the reason that I don't want to work on my book today is because it's going to be hard, and my brain wants to choose the path of least resistance, which is to leave my co working space and go home and take a nap, as opposed to working on my book that's easier and more enjoyable. So why wouldn't I want to do that? And I'm also making some changes to the book that require a lot of thought about how I want to handle it, and I'm afraid that it's gonna be a lot of work mentally to do that, so that's why I don't want to work work on it. Yeah? So there's nothing wrong with me, because I'm feeling that it's just part of the process. Okay?
Next myth, you need a big social media following to get an agent or get a book deal in the traditional publishing like world, this is a extremely, an extremely pervasive myth on social media. And I have found when I see a comment like this, or a video like this, a post like this, in 90% of cases, they're trying the person trying to sell you something, they are using fear based marketing to convince you to panic that there's something wrong that you need to buy their course or workshop or whatever to help you get ready to query or get followers or whatever. This is just not true. You can look at the data. You can go to Publishers Marketplace, which is a database that has deals that are being made.And every week, every month, for fiction, there are books being published where the author does not have a social media following at all, or a big social media following. This happens all the time, and yet, people love to claim it's impossible, or that you need a big social media following.
For nonfiction, it does work a bit differently, because in nonfiction, you have to be at least if you want to get a big publisher and you want to get an agent to pitch your book to a big publisher, you have to be a thought leader in your space if you're going to be writing about a particular topic, or you have to have beasts established in some way. People have to know who you are, so that you have a kind of a built in audience of people who will want to read this book. But for fiction, that's not how it works, because people pick up books all the time, who where they don't know anything about the author, they the book sounds interesting. The genre sounds interesting. The cover looks interesting. I mean, I don't know, think about why you pick up a book. Sometimes it's because you encounter the author on social media, sure, but sometimes it's not. So it's just not a requirement for fiction. And really what what bothers me is like the way that people talk about it, in the framing you having 500 followers versus 5000 followers, there's no real, massive, meaningful difference between those things, in a way that, like an agent or a publisher is going to be like, Oh, well, if they have 5000 followers, we should. Absolutely sign them or offer them a book deal. It doesn't.
Followers just don't matter. And if you're thinking about pre sales, and you're thinking about like, well maybe if you get a book deal, you know, publishers would want you to promote the book, and if you have social media followers, then you could promote the book to them and get more pre sales. And yes, that's true. But you also need to look at engagement. If you have 25,000 followers on social media, but your average post gets 300 views. Those 25,000 followers are not all going to see your posts promoting your book and asking people to buy it. So whereas you could have 5000 followers and have 25,000 views on every single video that you do, and your community is, like, massively engaged. So really, engagement is more important anyway. If you are thinking about like, well, they could look at who wants to buy it in pre sales and stuff. I don't know. It's just not, yeah, it's just a myth. Again, 90% of the time, I feel like people are just trying to sell you something, who are claiming this, and if not, they're just uninformed. They just don't know what they're talking about, and they're talking about their ass because they probably see some big person who has 800,000 followers, just got an agent in the book deal.
So therefore, oh, that must be the only reason why. Or that must mean you do need a big following to get an agent in the book deal. And that's not, of course, there are people like that, but the vast majority just, it's just not true. Next up, this is kind of similar, but I want to, I want to talk about it. It's another thing with agents that you need connections or an in you have to be in the industry somehow to get an agent or a book deal. I don't know what I can say to disprove this, other than, like, it's just not true anytime there's like, some big, splashy book deal, people say, Oh, it's because she's an insider. She's an industry plant, or she knows so and so, or whatever. And sure, some of the time, that's true. But like, again, if you look at the stats, if you look at the data, most of the time, this isn't true for, like, debut authors getting book deals. No, they don't work in publishing. They don't live in New York. Their best friend or their mom is not a literary agent who has connections. That's not how, yeah, that's not how this works. There's proof, like all the time, of the fact that this is not is not true, and yet people still love to claim it.
And I think the reason that people love to claim it, honestly, is because it's like people who want agents or want book deals but aren't getting them, resent it, and then make up a story about why they're not finding an agent or getting a book deal, and they make up the story that, oh, well, it's because I don't have a social media following and I don't have any industry connections. That's why I'm not finding an agent. But that's not that's not true. Next myth that we have is that traditional publishing is always, quote, unquote, better, meaning the books are always better. It's always the best career path or decision for an author. You always make more money, just that it's always like the better choice. And I think this is a lingering belief from the time before the internet, honestly and like social media marketing, where I don't know, and there's also an element of because there are gatekeepers in traditional publishing, meaning that a lot of the big five publishers, all of the imprints under these big five publishers, will not accept your manuscript unless it's submitted by an agent.
You can't just query them. You can't just send your book to them. They won't look at it. You need to have the agent first. And so there is a level of prestige, and it can be a feather in your cap of like, well, I got an agent, someone put a rubber stamp of approval on my book and my writing, so I understand that. But like, honestly, it's 2025 y'all, things have changed so much over the last 10 to 15 years in the publishing landscape, there are small presses now that are not vanity presses. They're actual reputable presses. Being a self published author, in some cases, makes you more money because you don't have to pay royalties to an agent. You get to keep the money. You get creative control over final say in things like your release date, your cover, your title, etc, how your book is positioned like it actually makes more sense to self publish, particularly if you are writing in a genre or you have a type of story that just does well in that and if you. Feel confident like you can promote it and do the social media marketing and all of that. It might make so much more sense to do that as opposed to traditional publishing.
So I just want you, if you are thinking about if you're a new writer, and you're thinking about publishing paths, and like you feel this obligation to try to get an agent and go down that road, because that's like, automatically better, and you should try that way first. If you don't want to do that, don't do that. It's not automatically the best option for people. It is so much more valid to look just Just look at all your options, whether it is indie publishing, whether it is like a hybrid press, small press, or maybe querying to get and try and get an agent who knows it's just there's so many options now, and to claim that traditional publishing is always the best way that it's always going to the way that's going to make you the most money, it's just not true in this day and age. So, yeah, um, okay, this last one I have this is, I feel like this could be treacherous territory to get into on social media, which is why I'm putting it on the podcast and not and on on its own social media. But there's this myth that, like popular novels, meaning they're popular on book talk, or Bookstagram, aren't real novels, or like good novels because the authors just aren't skilled. There's this tendency, anytime a book gets really popular, where people will just tear it down and say that this author is terrible at writing. They're a terrible writer. They're a terrible storyteller.
Look at this crap that's popular, and I want to push back on that. I think that's a myth, and I'm going to use Twilight as an example, which obviously has been out for decades at this point. But there was such vitriol towards Stephenie Meyer when the books came out, and even still, to this day, on social media, there is so much hatred spewed at Stephenie Meyer for the quality of writing in The Twilight books. And to be clear, I am not going to argue that Stephanie Meyer is the best writer. I think so. A lot of the criticism that gets thrown at her is warranted about messages in her books, characterization in her books, like there are a lot of issues with the books, okay, but Stephanie Meyer knows how to write a story that people will respond to emotionally. Think of how many millions of copies that series sold, and it wasn't just because word of mouth and all. Let's see what the hype is. But like, these books are really overblown, and people went rabid for these books. I consumed these books so quickly. I was shocked at how quickly I devoured these books even. And I remember even when I was reading them, I was like, Okay, I I can see even what 20 years ago, almost 20 years ago at this point, I probably read them. Probably read them like seven, maybe 18 years ago. Even then I could recognize there were some issues with the writing and the characters and like Bella in particular.
But I still that doesn't change the fact that I devoured those books. Something was working in terms of the storytelling, to get people that invested in the series. You cannot deny that something was working, something that Stephanie Meyer was working, was doing, and it was, it's so easy for people to write that off and say, well, like, Oh, her sentences are terrible. As a line level, if you look at line level, her prose, it's absolutely terrible. And people love to do the same thing with a lot of other popular authors now. But I just Just because something is popular and maybe has a bit of a simplistic kind of storytelling, it doesn't mean that number one, the author, isn't talented at some part of writing. Maybe they're not the most skilled writer in terms of their prose, maybe they over rely on em dashes. Maybe they repeat things a lot in their sentences, but their characters are solid. They're, they're they're. Something about the romantic relationship is really compelling to people. The pacing is great. Something else might be really working, even if their sentences aren't the best. Okay?
So people, people tend to look at that and think that, like, they just discount that, and they think that it's, it's there's also a level of looking at something like that and thinking that it's easy, like, well, I could write a better book than this, when really you're not seeing the effort and the time that went into developing a novel. You're just seeing the finished product, which to you, is flippant and looks easy, whatever, but there's still a lot of effort that goes into writing a novel, even if it feels kind of simplistic once it's it's done. I don't know this is just a myth that that really bothers me, because it it. And writing a compelling story that people can connect with emotionally and have that kind of rabid response to is difficult. It is a challenging thing to do. Not every author can do that, and so to just write it off and say that it's terrible, it's a trash book, and the author is trash at writing feels reductive to me and like we're kind of just dog piling on it because it's popular. And again, I want to be careful how I talk about this, because I think in a lot of popular books, there are valid criticisms of the way that the author's portraying something, whether it's something minor, like an em dash or something major, like, I don't know, a stereotype or something, but any sort of book or series that gets people that rabid to the point where they're just like devouring the books, they're doing something right? That's that's working, that's effective in the books.
So yeah, and maybe what this comes down to, for me is my own. I think I get a little bit triggered by that because of my own previous experience of feeling like only literary fiction was worthy of discussion and merit. And again, it's not accurate. I hate saying this, but it goes back to that English Lit degree and feeling like certain genre, certain types of fiction, were just inherently better than others, and I don't think that that's true at all. Even if something seems simplistic, there's probably a lot going on underneath the surface that we could analyze and critique and discuss instead of just writing it off. So okay, those are the myths that I feel like are most common that I encounter on social media. If you have one that you want me to bust, like a myth that you see, please DM me @KatieWolfWrites on Instagram, because I'd be curious to know. I'm sure there are others, and we can always do a part two. Yeah, I feel like there are more that I notice, but yeah, well, stay safe out there, stay smart. Use some media literacy. If you feel like people are claiming these things and they feel something feels off about it, there probably is something off about it, all right, thank you for listening, and I will see you next week.