There is SO. MUCH. advice out there for writers. So much. And if you’re a good student, rule-follower like me, you want to follow every bit of advice you can get.

But even the best advice in the world might not be the best advice for you.

I spent a LONG time getting tripped up by one common piece of writing advice:  Treat writing like a job.

I was a newish writer, working hard on a story I loved. I was also starting my own consulting practice. The advice to treat my writing like a job made a lot of sense. I was building a business as a copywriter. Maybe I could build a business as a fiction writer at the same time.

But…

The things that were important as I built my consulting practice – branding, marketing, social media strategy – all felt stifling when I tried to apply them to fiction. In all that jobbiness, I lost completely any sense of why I had been drawn to writing fiction in the first place. Writing became just another client demanding something – only this client wasn’t paying me for my time!

Exhausted and dispirited, I took a break(ish). And as soon as I stopped treating writing fiction like another part of my job, I started to want to do it again.  

And then I realized: Writing fiction is not my job. Writing fiction is my play.

This post by John Cusick – which I read before I had my writing crisis and which stayed with me during – sums up much of what I feel. And if the church metaphor works for you, go with that.

But for me, writing is closer to the playing we did as kids. All those long afternoons of “Let’s say…” that led to owning a record shop that sold only the coolest records, or being kidnap victims who staged a daring self-rescue, or piloting our plane to Hawaii to swim with sea turtles, all within a short distance of our moms and the snacks they kept on hand for hungry dreamers.

Writing fiction gives me that sense of play that makes me a much more fun and relaxed person to be around. And new research shows how important play is for adults. 

I asked my fellow Pennies what standard writing advice doesn’t work for them, and they came up with even more tried-and-true writing advice that doesn’t help them get words on the page:

Write every single day

Julie: “Write every single day” never worked for me. With a busy family life and a day job, there are plenty of days when I don’t touch my writing. And yet, I average about one manuscript per year. Writing ebbs and flows for me, but I’m always moving forward.

Halli: Writing every day is not possible in my life – or I imagine for most people. At first, it put additional stress on me if I couldn’t make it happen, especially when I counted writing 7 days a week in my deadlines.

Rebecca P: I second this one. I write 5 days a week, doing four 30-minute blocks, and I’ve written more in 4 months than I did all last year. Wild!

Write a detailed outline before you start your novel

Rebecca P: I’ve tried this twice and for both, I never finished the MS. I work best with a high-level plot chart, and maybe a pitch paragraph, flap copy, or informal synopsis. I make changes on the fly as I write and get to know the characters/issues/world more thoroughly, so this strategy fits me best. But I know several successful authors, including Alan Gratz, who write very detailed chapter by chapter outlines before they begin a MS, and they’re very productive so the technique is not to be discounted. Happy writing!

Michelle: This is me. Writing a detailed outline doesn’t work. The story blooms layer by layer based on a general idea accompanied by several major pinch points. If I had to outline everything first, I’d never finish a story.

Gita: I’d say that a neither a very detailed outline nor fast drafting work for me. I tried both this year in efforts to crank out a sequel in 1/3 of the time that it took me to write my debut. While I always have my major plot points in mind before I start writing, the detailed outline made me feel the book was all figured out, and I completely lost interest in writing it. Fast drafting (3-4K per day for 6 weeks) also robbed me of joy. I realized that I need to take my time to write dialogue, descriptions, character reaction/interiority because that’s how I figure out my story and the characters. For me, multiple revisions will always probably be more useful than either of the two techniques I mentioned. But I know they work for authors I respect, so they are still worth a try. So much of the writing process is learning to know yourself.

You must have a platform to get an agent

Jessica: What comes to mind isn’t advice that was given to me directly, but something a respected agent said at a writing conference early in my career. He stressed that having a strong platform is critical and even went so far as to say that it was an important part in deciding whether or not he’d take on a new client, which was extremely discouraging for me as a new writer to hear. I know now that agents take on new and unknown clients all the time and go on to sell their books!

You should always…

Laurel: I wish I knew what particular advice kept me revising and revising. I don’t want to give any new writers that advice for sure! I think it was basically the desire to meet someone else’s standard instead of my own. I somehow believed that agents and editors had X-ray vision and could predict what the work was meant to become. The vagueness of “Send us your best work”? Of course, once you’ve made the thing, agents and editors can have X-ray vision to make it more itself, but you have to make it first.

Mark: Anyone who says, “You always should…” Or “You have to blah blah blah…” I found I had to sift through the mountains of writing advice MYSELF to find the tidbits that work FOR ME and there is no shortcut to gathering it all up. It’s part of finding your own voice, and it takes time, and you can’t rush it.

And that brings me to the best writing advice I have: chase your stories over hills and down rabbit holes and wherever they lead, and do what works the best for you.

What is some writing advice that – while it may be perfectly valid – just doesn’t work for you? Share below, and maybe we can free ourselves from following paths that aren’t a perfect fit!