Five Habits for Writers to Avoid

“Much that is learned is bound to be bad habits. You’re always beginning again.” W.S. Merwin

We have this mistaken idea that bad habits are the result of some weakness, some character flaw. But our least helpful writing habits are more likely to result from things we’ve inadvertently learned. That means there’s this good news—once we’ve identified these learned behaviors for what they are, we can unlearn them.

Here, five habits we writers would do well to banish:

Comparing our progress with others: As writers, we’re each on our own journeys. None of us will move along exactly the same trajectory toward exactly the same end. So while it’s fine to be inspired by the success of other authors, it’s silly—and potentially demoralizing—to expect our successes to follow theirs. In truth, some of our most significant accomplishments happen on the page, in relation to our craft, and these may happen in ways that aren’t immediately acknowledged by anyone but ourselves.

Making excuses: You want to write, but you don’t have the time. Or you don’t know how to start. Or your kids keep interrupting. Writing doesn’t have to be your top priority, but should it really be your last? Alice Munro, one of the most brilliant authors of our era, wrote her early stories while her children were napping. Even if you can only write for ten minutes a day, that’s a start.

Getting in a rut: You keep at your work, but you sense it’s flatlining—characters languish, story lines run on and on, language sounds wooden. While persevering is admirable, it’s also helpful to do a reality check every now and then. If you’re in a rut, come at your project from another angle. Take a workshop. Get some coaching or editing advice. Study a craft book.

Sharing too soon: Agents and editors see this problem all the time—writers have a good concept, but it’s poorly executed. Or they have nice execution, but the concept’s not fully developed. In either case, the problem is the same—the work went out before it was ready. When you think you’re finished, wait. Days, weeks, even months. When you return to the project, you’ll see the flaws, and you’ll have new perspectives on how to correct them.

Losing touch with the joy: Beneath the hard work of what we do, there’s the joy of discovery, of creating beauty on the page, of engaging readers. If you find yourself losing touch with that joy, take a step back. Allow yourself to write something just for fun. It’s not the destination that matters so much as the journey.

For more on becoming the writer you hope to be, see Deb’s Write Your Best Book.

Why My New Book Won’t Sell

My new book won’t sell.

Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. A few readers will buy it, ones like those who’ve kindly endorsed it.* But I’m not expecting it to attract a huge number of readers.

I expect you’re wondering: Why would I bother writing a book when I don’t expect to sell many copies? The answer, in part, is that this book is a “passion project,” one that’s entrenched somewhere deep inside me, one that I feel compelled to share with however few readers might appreciate it.

Another reason I decided to go ahead with this book is that I’d already written parts of it, published online at here The Self-Made Writer, my teaching series for writers, now in its fourth year. Not that you can just push a button and turn a series of blog posts into a viable book. As with any meaningful collection, the material needed to be curated, organized, and amended. It needed revision for voice. It needed new chapters, to fill in the gaps. It needed cohesion.

In draft, this book was actually incorporated into another book that came out at the beginning of this year: What Every Author Should Know: No Matter How You Publish. But early readers suggested that there were really two books—one a comprehensive guide to publishing and promotion, the other a practical guide to writing books that rise above the rest.

Here’s the problem: My plan had been to sneak the craft portion, the part about writing your best book, alongside the part that I knew would attract the larger audience, the part about how to publish and promote. From traffic stats at The Self-Made Writer, I knew that page views for posts on publishing and promotion are on average four times greater than page views for posts about craft.

That trend is visible all over the web, in chats and on reader boards, in Google Plus groups and LinkedIn discussions. The MFA crowd aside, there’s a huge concern with how to get published, and an even huger concern with how to get your book noticed.

I get that. It’s a confusing time in publishing. There’s a content flood, so even the most experienced marketing people at long-standing publishing houses are less certain than ever about how to attract readers for authors who aren’t flying celebrity class.

Nevertheless, I firmly believe this: Reading may be a subjective experience, but there are still certain qualities readers expect of great books, whether they’re fiction or nonfiction. Readers may not be able to articulate these expectations, but believe me, they have them. If you want your work to get noticed—if you want to find readers—your writing needs to rise to the top. Good isn’t good enough. Your work needs to be exceptional.

No amount of marketing, no amount of agent or publisher clout, will make readers love a book that’s poorly conceived and badly written.

And in the changing world of publishing, where who’ll buy and read your work is in many ways beyond your control, what you can control is the quality of your work and your efforts to continually improve at it.

If you agree, and you commit to writing your best book, I believe you’ll gain an advantage in the marketplace by studying how best books are made and applying those processes to generate your own best work.

Statistically speaking, however, you won’t do any of that. If you’re like most authors, you won’t consult my new book, or other books devoted to helping writers improve their craft. You won’t commit to writing as a lifelong process of learning.

I don’t begrudge you that. We all have to do what we have to do. For me, it was writing this book. Even if it won’t sell.

*  "Some of the best advice available today on the craft of writing.” Tanyo Ravicz, author of Ring of Fire; “An excellent resource for writers who are serious about their work.” Stephanie Cole, author of Compass North

Co-founder of 49 Writers and founder of the independent authors cooperative Running Fox Books, Deb Vanasse has authored fifteen books. Her most recent are Write Your Best Book, a practical guide to writing books that rise above the rest; What Every Author Should Know, a comprehensive guide to book publishing and promotion; and Cold Spell, a novel that “captures the harsh beauty of the terrain as well as the strain of self-doubt and complicated family bonds,” according to Booklist. Deb lives and works as freelance editor and coach on Hiland Mountain outside of Anchorage, Alaska, and at a cabin near the Matanuska Glacier. 

Creative Mistakes: Five Ways Authors Box Themselves In

As an author, you’re a creative type. That goes without saying. But in your approach to your craft, your publishing, and your promotion, are you actually as creative as you might be?

Writing is a scary business, any way you cut it. In Write Your Best Book, the companion volume to What Every Author Should Know, I compare it to the position my son played on his high school hockey team. There’s nothing quite like being the mother of a goalie. He’s got his team out there, helping, but when pucks whiz toward the goal, it’s all up to him. And believe me, those pucks fly from every direction. The goalie has to watch every angle. He has to be quick. Fluid. Psychologically unshakable.

I don’t mean to suggest that the position of author should be a defensive one, although sadly, that’s how it ends up for some. What I learned from being a hockey mom (and please, no comparisons with thatother hockey mom) was that goalies shore up the uncertainty of their position with practices that don’t make a whole lot of sense, like never washing their jerseys during the season (my son claimed this was essential for his success) and talking to the goal posts, as top goalie Patrick Roy did in every game.

The equivalent for authors are these creative mistakes, all of which confine us in unhelpful ways:

·         A focus on the wrong kind of being: To write is to make yourself vulnerable. You will fail, time and again. Your work won’t be as good at first as it will become if you stick with it. Writers who fail to accept these truths typically end up spending more of their energy on “being” a writer instead of doing the hard work of a writer. The “being” that benefits writers is the “being” of everyday existence, the conscious effort of experiencing life as it happens, of staying actively engaged as opposed to striving to present ourselves as writers (or as anything else).

·         Risk aversion: In any uncertain enterprise, the natural tendency is to shy from risk. For survival, risk aversion is a healthy impulse. But in both the entrepreneurial and creative pursuits of a writer, risks are inherent. To avoid them means doing what everyone else does—and getting generic results.

·         Relying on formulas: Good writers balance reader expectations, which are sometimes taught as formulas, with the unique insights and approaches that are only achieved when we allow ourselves to think beyond formula. The same applies to promotion—do what everyone else does, and you’ll get lost in the crowd.

·         Believing you’ve got nothing left to learn: A writer’s education is never finished. Seek out the best—in the books you read, in the examples you follow, in the discussions of craft and business in which you engage. Be an active learner of both aspects of being a writer: your craft and the publishing end.

·         Seeking rewards too soon: The readers, the accolades, the sales—these will come. Focus first on your process, on doing your best creative work. Don’t rush a book because this person or that person has theirs out already. Don’t succumb to discouragement because your rankings aren’t what you’d like. Take your time. Persistence, diligence, completing your work, having the courage to publish—these matter, but check your motivation. If it’s all about rewards, your work will suffer, and you’ll likely be disappointed. Repeat after me: you have nothing to prove.

Co-founder of 49 Writers and founder of the independent authors cooperative Running Fox Books, Deb Vanasse has authored fifteen books. Her most recent are What Every Author Should Know, a comprehensive guide to book publishing and promotion, and Cold Spell, a novel that “captures the harsh beauty of the terrain as well as the strain of self-doubt and complicated family bonds,” according to Booklist. Deb lives and works on Hiland Mountain outside of Anchorage, Alaska, and at a cabin near the Matanuska Glacier. A version of this post also ran at www.49writers.blogspot.com.