Classic Writing Advice on Money, Habits, and Good Storytelling

“Write out of love; write out of instinct; write out of reason. But always for money.”

“Write without pay until somebody offers pay; if nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.”

— Mark Twain

Advice To Writers

I have a growing collection of books on writing that have steadily accumulated over the years. Books on how to write, why to write, where to write, what to write. Books on creative storytelling, nature writing, crafting memoirs, productive writing in academia, and flash nonfiction. They offer advice on solving various ‘writing problems,’ like fixing bad style, composing compelling structure, finding motivation and forming good habits. Not to mention all the publications I follow (and run!) here on Medium sharing tips and tricks on the happy, productive and rewarding writing life.

In an interview about his views on struggles and breakthroughs in pursuing a career as a writer , Ta-Nehisi Coates says: “I always consider the entire process about failure, and I think that’s the reason why more people don’t write.” For Coates, writing is a messy and unreliable channel from the brain to the page, where the writer constantly fights to translate the music in their head to notes on the page. Inevitbly, ideas get lost in translation, but also new ideas take shape as thoughts materialize as words on paper or screen.

Susan Sontag put it aptly like this: “Writing is a little door. Some fantasies, like big pieces of furniture, won’t come through.”

Reading writers talk about their craft motivates me, but also helps me feel a sense of commonality with other writers, realizing that we all share similar challenges and hurdles for those of us who wish to make a living through writing in this life.

I’m always on the lookout for new books on writing advice. So, a few days ago, it was great to discover a book I had never heard of before: Advice to Writers: A compendium of quotes, anecdotes, and writerly wisdom from a dazzling array of literary lights by Jon Winokur, first published in 1999.

Winokur introduces his book on the collected wisdom of writers on writing like this:

“This book will not teach you how to write. Whether you use a fountain pen or a word processor, writing is finally sitting alone in a room and wrenching it out of yourself, and nobody can teach you that.

But you can learn, because writing is self-generating, one of the few skills you can acquire from a book…”

In Advice to Writers, Winokur organizes quotes from well-known writers into a several intriguing categories. Categories like: ‘discouragement,’ ‘publicity and promotion,’ ‘technique,’ ‘the secret,’ ‘tricks of the trade,’ and ‘work habits.’

Here are some of my favorites:

On money

1. “Write without pay until somebody offers pay; if nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.” ~ Mark Twain
2. “Best writing advice I’ve ever received: Sell everything three times.” ~ Margaret Carlson
3. “Ignore the literary critics. Ignore the commercial hustlers. Disregard those best-selling paperbacks with embossed covers in the supermarkets and the supermarket bookstores. Waste no time applying for gifts and grants — when we want money from the rich we’ll take it by force.” ~ Edward Abbey
4. “Write out of love; write out of instinct; write out of reason. But always for money.” ~ Louis Untermeyer

On habits

1. “Don’t work too hard. Fool around a bit. Be lazy. Don’t worry, Life is — forever.” ~ Henry Miller
2. “My most important discovery has been that I have optimum hours for writing. These are between 10:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M. For a lifetime I’ve told myself that I was a nighttime writer — it seemed romantic. But actually I’m tired at night, and that’s when I prefer to read and research. Whatever your optimum hours are, don’t cheat yourself of them. This is a daily battle. If you spend them answering the phone, attending to correspondence, etc., you’ll find yourself empty-handed and out of sorts during your low tide.” ~ Amy Wallace
3. “Best advice on writing I’ve ever received: Finish.”~ Peter Mayle
4. “Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Giving Advice

1. “Nobody can advise and help you, nobody. There is only one single means. Go inside yourself. Discover the motive that bids you write; examine whether it sends its roots down to the deepest places of your heart, confess to yourself whether you would have to die if writing were denied you. This before all: ask yourself in the quietest hour of your night: must I write?” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
2. “The ‘best advice’ I think is in reading good writers, not seeking advice from them, for we learn best by emulating the best.” ~ Gay Talese
3. “There is no advice to give young poets.” ~ Pablo Neruda
4. “I never presume to give advice on writing. I think the best way to learn to write is to read books and stories by good writers. It’s a hard thing to preach about. As Thelonious Monk once said, about his field, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” ~ Maureen Dowd

On Storytelling Technique

1. “Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created — nothing.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. “A short story must have single mood and every sentence must build towards it.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe
3. “I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
4. “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
5. “Find out what your hero or heroine wants, and when he or she wakes up in the morning, just follow him or her all day.” ~Ray Bradbury