192: Hot Takes about Writing

 

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Hot Takes about Writing

Hi. Welcome back to your big creative life. I'm Katie Wolf, thanks for being here. This episode will come out at the beginning of August, which is insane. We're getting I'm getting to that part of the summer. I will say where I'm like, kind of ready. Like, 20% of me is ready for cooler temperatures in South Carolina, the summer just gets the heat is so like stifling and oppressive that by, usually by August. And I love summer to be clear. I would much rather have it be hot than cold, so I'm happy with that. But like, there does get this point by August where I'm just tired, just tired of the heat. I'm tired of it being absolutely disgusting out and, like, dripping with sweat anytime I do anything outside. And I'm like, okay, you know, I'm not like, mad about fall kind of being around the corner. And then, let's be honest, fall in Charleston is, like, late October. It's still hot as hell in September anyways. Yeah, it's just crazy how fast this summer has gone.

 

This episode is one where I'm going to share writing hot takes with you. I have a lot of hot takes that I've sort of developed over the years of working with writers, seeing the social media landscape of writing change and grow and evolve, being a writer myself, just I have a lot of opinions, so we're gonna, we're gonna get into them. And you know, you might disagree with some of these. That's more than okay, but I just want to set that expectation like you might agree with all of these things. I don't know. We'll see that's okay. That's kind of the fun of a hot take. And I'm not gonna do the thing that, like people do on social media. They're like, hot takes with no explanation. Like, I am gonna explain them a little bit, but I think I have six or seven to get through, so I'm not gonna explain them a ton, but, but I will get into why I have that take. Okay, number one, first hot take. The reason that most, most people, won't follow through with writing a book is the mindset. That's the reason. What's the stat that's out there about, like, I don't know, 90% of people say they want to write a book in a vague sort of like, oh yeah, I'd love to write a book someday. Or, like, I had this cool idea, and then they never, they never do it. Or they start maybe trying, but they give up super quickly.

 

And to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that. Like, I, you know, sometimes people get half hearted, sort of like, I should do that, and then they try and they realize they don't actually want to do the thing. I've had that happen to me plenty of times with certain things. I like gardening, gardening. Gardening is one of those things. I'm like, Yeah, I kind of I want to have a garden, but then I never actually want to do the work that's required to have a garden. And that's fine, so at least not in this point, at this point in my life. But the thing about writing a book is like, yes, it's difficult, but there are literally like, 1000s of resources for you in terms of pieces of content, books, podcasts, YouTube, videos, whatever like. There's so many ways that you taking classes. There's so many ways that you could learn about the craft of writing and how to write a book if you really wanted to. But I think that especially, what keeps people from like finishing a book is the mindset piece of it, because anything that requires creativity and like meeting your inner critic is challenging, like that's part of why it's hard. It's not that the actual writing of a book is that difficult. It's sort of a rinse and repeat process once you get into it.

 

But I don't know there's something about the mindset piece that really that's where people run into difficulty, and I've seen this time and time again with coaching clients, especially because when I work with someone in a coaching capacity, I work with them for six months, and they check in with me on this app that we use called Voxer. I check it once a day, Monday through Friday, so they can come to me with anything. If they have questions. They want to do some brainstorming, they're thinking through a character issue, like all of that. And also accountability about, like, you know, hey, I'm gonna write today, or I wrote this many words, whatever. But also, but the mindset, piece of it, like people need guidance, that's part of the reason that they hire me to support them in the process is because it's hard. I often say that, like our brains are our own worst enemies, and I think that's I've just found that to be true over and over, that so many people self sabotage because their brain, their inner critic, rears its ugly head, and their brain tells them, like all these. These, these things that just aren't true, and it's really hard to overcome those things if you're not, first of all, if you're not fully aware of it, like sometimes, this stuff kind of lives below the surface in his inner subconscious. But also, if you don't have the ability to talk it out with anyone, if you can't articulate it out loud, or just get any of that junk out of your head to kind of lessen its impact, that can stop people in from writing a book or finishing a book, like that's just, that's what I have found.

 

Hot take number two, short sprints work best for most people. Okay, if you were doing an hour and a half sprint like a writing sprint, that's not a sprint. You don't get to call that a sprint. Sorry, that's a writing session. It's not a writing sprint, a true sprint. It's just like with running, you can't sprint for five miles, that's not a sprint. I mean, unless maybe you're like a world class runner. I don't really understand running. I don't know how it works, but like, for the average person, you can't sprint for five miles that is no longer a sprint, that is a run, okay? It's the same thing with writing. I I say in content like 30 minutes max for a sprint. But honestly, I think it's even less than that, because I think full on sprinting, meaning writing as quickly as you possibly can for 30 minutes, is a long time a true sprint, maybe even Max 2025, minutes. Because what starts to happen for me and for most people, not everyone, but most, is our attention starts to wander. We start to get less effective. We start to go back. We start to question, like just we're not sprinting anymore.

 

So a true sprint is not that long, but it's gonna be effective in my own process. When I'm doing a writing sprint, let's say I do 20 minutes. Okay? I set a timer, close all my other tabs. I only have my document open. I'm only writing during that time. I'm writing as quickly as I can for 20 minutes. By the end of that 20 minutes, I my attention starts to wander. I need a break from that. That is kind of why. Well, that is why the Pomodoro method exists in the structure of 25 minutes of work followed by a five minute break. 25 minutes of work followed by a five minute break, because after that long, you just need a little bit of a brain break. You need to move your eyes away from the screen. You need to stand up and stretching that whatever. So short sprints, you can't have a sprint that's an hour and a half. It's not a sprint. No, not sprint, which is fine writing for an hour and a half is great. That's a writing session, though, again, not a sprint. And I will say too, if I do like a 10 minute sprint, I do this. If I'm early on in the drafting process, and I just do a 10 Minute strength, 10 minute sprint, I go hard and I type a lot in those 10 minutes.

 

So in terms of productivity. It's interesting, like, I've never actually really tested this and compared this, but I imagine if I were to do a sprint, that's, I don't know, 20 minutes, and then I did a writing session that was a full hour without a sprint included, like it was just me sitting down for an hour to write. I don't know that my output would be that much more after an hour, it might be a little bit higher. My word count might be a little higher, but not much higher than a 20 minute sprint, okay, next hot take. A good grasp of grammar is not required to be a good writer, not just because of tools like the auto editing feature in Microsoft Word or tools like grammar Leo pro writing aid, but because writing a perfect, grammatically sent, grammatically correct sentence where all the punctuation is where it needs to be, the subject and verb agree, the verb is in the correct tense, everything is perfect is a different skill than being able to craft really compelling characters and a compelling plot and conflict and dialog and pacing, those are two separate skills.

 

 Okay, I wanted to include this hot take to reassure you if you are just like, not very good at grammar, and you feel stress and some shame and anxiety about that because you haven't taken an English class since high school. Maybe English isn't your first language, whatever the case, those are two separate skills. It is okay. You could still be a really good storyteller, an amazing and an amazing author if you don't really have a good understanding of grammar, it's fine. It's fine. That is why I exist as a copy editor. That is why there's help. It's just Yeah, it's not a requirement. They're two separate skills. A lot of writers do have both, but not all, and it's not needed to be a successful author.

 

Um. Yeah, okay, I just put for my hot take, dictation equals real writing, because I encounter this every once in a while on social media where people think that like dictating or doing something else is cheating, like, it's one thing if you are, if you have some kind of if you need it as an accessibility tool, like, maybe it's not just possible for you to sit and tight because of some condition or disability or whatever. So you use dictation as an accessibility tool. There's, like, an understanding that that's fine, but if you, if you use dictation for any other reason, you're cheating, or it's not legit or something, and I just like, maybe I don't know what it's what it's about. Actually, it's stupid, because you are still coming up with the words. You are still creating the world and the characters and the dialog and the sentences, everything is still you. You are just speaking it out loud and then going through and cleaning it up later. So don't feel any sort of like weirdness about it. I definitely did at the beginning. I'll just be honest, which is maybe why I have this as a hot take.

 

Now, I don't know that I ever thought it was cheating, because it's not, but I just had this, had a little bit of weirdness. That's what it was. I guess, like this feels like a shortcut, and it feels like something is this okay? But it didn't last long. I got over it very quickly, because yeah, and before anyone comes at me for AI, yes, I know that if I use Microsoft Word and I use the dictation button, and I talk at my computer and Microsoft Word, like it writes it, it dictates it for me. I'm aware that that is AI, but again, the difference here is I'm actually between that and like generative AI, like chatgpt is I'm still everything is still me. In fact, like it is messy as hell. When I dictate something onto the page, it's not like Microsoft Word is cleaning it up for me. It just dictates. It spits out exactly what I'm saying or exactly what it thinks I'm saying I should say. That's why it's all over the place. There are fragments, there's missing punctuation. It misunderstands words like it is just what it thinks I'm saying. It's not interpreting it at all. It's not adding in punctuation. It's not cleaning up my sentences. For me, it's doing no polishing at all. I have to go in and do all of that later. So Okay, number five, people aren't ready. The writing community is not ready for unapologetic ambition, especially from women, and there's a big portion of the writing community that resents success.

 

Part of this, I think, is left over from this old belief and idea, I say old, but it still exists for some people, unfortunately, of the starving artist syndrome, that if you are a real artist or a real writer, that you must suffer for your art. You must be penniless, you must be broke, and you must do it only for love of the written word, and not think about money or success or acclaim at all, which, as we know, is fucking bullshit. And I just want to. I just want to, if any of you listening, especially women, if you feel some sort of internalized guilt or shame for wanting success, for wanting to make money as an author, embrace that and claim that and own that. That does not make you less of an artist, less of a writer. It doesn't mean you don't care about writing. It doesn't mean that you're only in it for the money. None of that is true. I have called myself on this podcast like I'm unapologetically ambitious. I want to be a New York Times best selling author. I want to sell lots of copies. I want to have a long author career where I am writing multiple books.

 

My books are getting turned into TV adaptations and film adaptations and like, I want that, and I don't think that makes me less of a writer. I don't think I'm just in it for the money, but I want those things, and I don't feel any sort of like, oh, I shouldn't say that I'm gonna get pushback for saying that. If I do, it's because it's triggering something in someone who feels that way? Maybe there's a part of them that hasn't let themselves admit that they want that too. And so when they see someone saying publicly that they want that, it feels wrong to them. They they're passing judgment on it, but it's just silly. Yeah, and also the resenting success element of it, I think, is important. I've thought about this a number of ways, and I'm not sure exactly what to pinpoint it to, but there's sometimes this, this feeling that I get from social media, from the writing community, where, if someone finds success, me. Meaning they get an agent, they have a book deal, they sell a lot of copies, they get some acclaim.

 

There's like an element of envy or jealousy or resenting that they're taking away something from other writers by achieving that which I can understand, that being your first thought or your first feeling, because sometimes that, I'll just be very honest, sometimes that is my first feeling, like I I don't know, seeing someone that is that I kind of know on social media, or feel like I know because I follow them. I've watched their content for a long time, if, if I feel like we're on a similar trajectory, and they get a book deal, or they get a ton of acclaim and sell a ton of copies, and whatever else happens there is that small twinge of like, I wish that were me. You know, when is it gonna be my turn? But that lasts 4.5 seconds, and then I'm like, Whoa, that's so cool. That's amazing. And then my action is not to comment something and say, like, must be nice. You know, I'm not like, commenting something passive aggressive on their social media, or being like, Oh, can you believe so and so got a book deal? Like it's only because of x, y, z, it's only because of this, like you're not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible for your first action.

 

Okay, so if you have a thought or feeling of jealousy, that's okay. It's normal. You're human, but then it's what you do with that. And I feel like that's where the writing community is failing sometimes, where it's like, people resent that something is being taken from them. Yeah, it just, it doesn't make any sense. And I when I do think about this, sometimes I'm like, is it because the writing community feels young? I don't know. Maybe that's a piece of it. At least on social media, I feel like a lot of the people on social media in the writing community skew younger, so maybe they like haven't quite learned that lesson yet. I don't know. I don't know what it is. Okay. Next hot take. All right, men listening, I need you to keep an open mind this. Okay, 95% of men can't write women, and it's a big fucking problem. Okay, I am not just speaking out of my ass at this because of Oh, I hate men and Bull. I love men. I'm married to a man. I have wonderful men in my life. I've had wonderful male clients that I've worked with a few, a handful of male clients that have been wonderful. Their books are incredible. They're talented writers. They've been a pleasure to work with. Everything has been great.

 

But I have also had male clients who their manuscripts are filled with female characters who are either like one dimensional and stereotypes and just caricatures of what women are, or they only exist to fawn over the man and are some weird sort of, like, manic pixie dream girl thing happening, which just makes me bristle and be like, Okay, we've Got some serious issues here. I did have one man push back, actually two, I think, over the years, to to push back on my editorial feedback about their female characters. And it was clear they were hurt by that, not her. I shouldn't say hurt. I mean, hurt, yes, but like, angry about it. They were angry about about my my feedback. We see this all the time on social media. There are videos where people are like, reading out examples from books of men writing women. And it's just like, comically bad. Some of it is based on a misunderstanding of like, even basic things like female biology, where the woman will have some sort of weird, like, physical response that just isn't based in reality.

 

That doesn't happen for women, but yet, the man thinks it does, and doesn't bother to check. And so it's just in there, or, um, I don't know, female characters where, like, they're just there to boost up the man. They have no agency, they have no personality. They're decorative, they're whatever. So we've all seen examples of videos like that, and if you haven't, I encourage you to check them out on Tik Tok or Instagram or YouTube, because some of some of it, honestly, is hilarious, like rage inducing, but also hilarious, hilariously bad, and some of them are older books. There's certainly been an evolution, and I do think there's been improvement in how female characters are written. So I will say that on record. But some of them are modern. Some of them are from men who are currently alive and are currently authors writing women who just fail spectacularly at it's a big problem.

 

Um, so I, I'm not even gonna get into this episode. In this episode of like tips for men writing women, I did a series back when I first started TikTok like, within the first year, of like tips for men writing women. And it was kind of a funny series, but also it was serious, because I just encountered like issues over and over with with men, with male authors. It was like, Okay, I maybe we do need to have some education on how to rate women. So I'm not gonna get into that in this episode. But like, it's a it's a big issue. Okay, my last hot take, um, oh, I don't, hmm, I'm looking at my list now. I don't know if I really want to claim this one. I'll just tell y'all the hot take and tell y'all why I'm indecisive about it. The more popular a book gets on book talk, especially, the more people love to hate on it. And we touched on this a couple weeks ago in an episode I did about myths and how people loved to just sort of reject any popular book as being, like, unserious, especially books in certain genres like fantasy or romance where, yeah, people just reject it as like, oh, the writing's not good, the author's terrible. They're trash. They don't know what they're doing. It's a trash book.

 

And sometimes that is, maybe that's the case, but like, sometimes it's not, even if their prose isn't the most amazing prose in the world, they're still telling a good story with compelling characters. And so I think some of that is just like dog piling and I guess, I guess that's what I was getting at in this hot take. But I don't know that. Like, I don't want to frame that as a general, as a an absolute, because, and I want to, I want to differentiate here. I'm not talking about problematic books. Like, if there is a book that's popular on book talk that is super problematic, yeah, please dog pile on it. I'm fine with it. If it's racist, if it's got stereotypes, like, whatever, fine. Please tear that apart. I'm fine with that. But it's just, I do sometimes feel the sentiment of it almost being like uncool to claim that you really loved a popular book, that you really enjoyed it.

 

And I've even found myself doing that sometimes I rarely talk about books I'm reading or my reactions to books, just because I'm hoping to be an author one day, hopefully soon, and I don't want to muddy the waters by like, presenting my account as a book review account, where I'm talking about books and then transitioning over to an author. So I'm kind of clear about that distinction. But occasionally I will mention something, and I every time I do, I almost feel this need to add a disclaimer, like, I recognize that so and so. Like, this isn't the best writing, but I loved it because of XYZ. And instead of saying, like, yeah, I really enjoyed this book. It was fun. End of story. So I think that's what I'm getting at. Maybe hot take is too like, final for that opinion, but that's, that's what I'm hinting at. Yeah, it's almost like it's uncool or not acceptable to just say that you really enjoyed a popular book and you don't have to tear it to shreds.

 

And I'm not saying that because I want to protect the author's feelings, like, I don't know, yeah, okay, I think those are double check. Yeah, those are my hot takes. This is really fun, if you again, if you don't agree with them, completely fine. We can all have different opinions about things. That's a wonderful thing about writing and about opinions and all that. But yeah, I'll stand by those even, even the one I was kind of iffy on the last one, like, I'll even stand by that, generally speaking. Okay, well, thank you for listening to this, and I will catch you next week. Thank you so much for listening for more tips, advice and motivation.

Katie Wolf