Best Writing Advice Ever

I've recently had to write a lot of words each day as part of being a freelance writer. I've realized that I should apply it to my own writing, so that when I have time just push myself to write. As (I think it was) Neil Gaiman said, you can't edit a story to make it better if you haven't written any of it down in the first place. :)
 
Brian G Turner said:
As (I think it was) Neil Gaiman said, you can't edit a story to make it better if you haven't written any of it down in the first place. :)
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My favourite version of that: "You can edit crap. You can't edit blank."

But as has also been said, charging off into the wide blue yonder without any planning can lead to the story foundering in a bog, and the writer becoming exhausted and disillusioned. Everyone has to find what works best for them (which might not be what they originally thought would work best for them).
 
I've mentioned this before, but for Sir Edric's Temple (the first half of what is now The Adventures of Sir Edric) I had a start and end in mind, and pretty much made up what happened in between. It was very creative and mostly enjoyable did lead to some prolonged (for me) writer's block and very significant rewrites (the fourth chapter, the Tower of Uz-Talrak, is amongst my favourite of Sir Edric's shenanigans but took at least a month due to being totally written twice, and it's only four or five thousand words).

Personally, I find at least a vague outline helps to avoid blocks or writing yourself into a cul-de-sac.
 
I aim for at least 5,000 words a week, and I average 1,000 a day.

I stopped writing years ago when it became too much of a fruitless chore. 75 word contests kept my head semi in the game. I also read dozens of different books from unfamiliar authors, scrutinising what worked and what didn't.

I feel like I've got my mojo back and then some. I started a new book and had no idea what I was doing until I'd written the first chapter. Now, a fully fleshed out plot's slapping my brain. My book's good as written.
 
While it's nice to set goals for ourselves in the way of word counts. I would caution that 100 well written words is worth a lot more than 1000 rushed words that you just end up rewriting anyway.*


* (Not that I'm saying anybody who writes 1000 words a day is writing bad prose ;) )
 
52542
 
One of the things I remember the most about reading 'It' was two pages worth of Eddie Kaspbrak's medicine descriptions. And the font on those pages was so small it was like trying to read fleas. Great book, though, for the most part.
 
In many cases when the writing becomes boring it's because the writer became disenchanted with what they were writing but felt they had to power on through anyway.

And if we don't like what we are writing, why should anyone else like it?

Besides, you can edit something you haven't yet written down. You don't need a piece of paper (or a computer screen) with writing on it in order to edit and revise. Much of writing can take place entirely inside the writer's mind, so that when they do sit down too the physical task of writing, most of the editing and revising is already done.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
Besides, you can edit something you haven't yet written down. You don't need a piece of paper (or a computer screen) with writing on it in order to edit and revise. Much of writing can take place entirely inside the writer's mind, so that when they do sit down too the physical task of writing, most of the editing and revising is already done.
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This is very true. In fact I've written a very successful five-part series that has spent years on the NYT bestseller list and is currently being optioned for a HBO adaptation, all inside my mind.

Wait, I might have been doing this wrong...
 
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