Open Thread: Oracle Hotline
Nov. 14th, 2014 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mithen posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
superhero_muses--What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?
Ha! Um, most writing advice has some good in it at some level, it's usually the way it's taken that I disagree with. Like "write what you know," which I think is fine advice when taken as "use your own experiences as a springboard" but bad advice when taken as "your stories shouldn't go far outside your own experiences." But that all hinges on your definition of "know," after all.
Writing this week has been pretty much non-existent--lots of brainstorming with my husband, which is great fun, but not much putting words on the screen. I've taken to using my 2 half-hour bus commutes as writing time--I hate writing in public, but with the November work load it's either write in public or don't write! If I write on the bus I can go to bed at night knowing I got at least 100-200 words written (it's a lot slower going tapping on an ipad on the bus as well...) Though I'm quite happy with what I've managed to write, so I'm not actually in that bad of a mood! How about you?
Ha! Um, most writing advice has some good in it at some level, it's usually the way it's taken that I disagree with. Like "write what you know," which I think is fine advice when taken as "use your own experiences as a springboard" but bad advice when taken as "your stories shouldn't go far outside your own experiences." But that all hinges on your definition of "know," after all.
Writing this week has been pretty much non-existent--lots of brainstorming with my husband, which is great fun, but not much putting words on the screen. I've taken to using my 2 half-hour bus commutes as writing time--I hate writing in public, but with the November work load it's either write in public or don't write! If I write on the bus I can go to bed at night knowing I got at least 100-200 words written (it's a lot slower going tapping on an ipad on the bus as well...) Though I'm quite happy with what I've managed to write, so I'm not actually in that bad of a mood! How about you?
no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 04:20 pm (UTC)Bar none, worst advice ever for a writer and I could (and have) ranted about it extensively several times. "write what you know" is pretty pointless too. That's what research is for after all. "Write what you're passionate about" is pretty good advice IMO.
Writing has gone super-well this week! :D I decided that I really wanted to ramp things up so I've aimed for 2 hours of writing every weekday and at least 30 minutes on weekends. Just about did it, too. Two hours, BTW, equals about 4000 words so... *wry grin* Lots of words have been written.
I'm almost done with my current novel (yay!) so I can hopefully soon (this weekend? Next week?) start writing an erotica novella I've had planned for a couple of months. And maybe a short story, too.
Good luck getting more writing this week coming up. Sometimes the brainstorming is necessary and life really can kick writing to the curb. *big hug*
no subject
Date: 2014-11-21 04:02 am (UTC)That's a MUCH better way of putting "write what you know." I like my job fine, but it's what I know best and I don't feel any real passion to turn it into a narrative. :)
Whoooo for 4,000 extra words! I'm very much not a fan of the "write only when you're truly inspired"--I have no problem with writers who do wait until they're truly inspired, but you can't really be surprised output is low if you do that, you know? You can wait for the muse to visit, but nearly no one is inspired often enough to get a lot of writing done. And almost every project is going to have patches that are necessary to write but are NEVER going to be inspiring.