The Very Best Writing Advice I Ever Received Wasn’t Actually About Writing

Sage wisdom sometimes comes from the most unexpected sources

I began my day this morning in my usual stupor which typically has a shelf life of somewhere around my third cup of coffee (no cream, no sugar, just plain old piping hot elixir) then a shower and a shave.

Don’t even think about me changing the order. They may call them safety razors, but I assure you there’s nothing safe about them when wielded by someone who can barely keep his eyes open that early in the morning.

Well, after all of that (I survived with no cuts or lacerations, by the way, thank you for asking. Oh right, you didn’t) I sat out on the back patio sipping my coffee and watching the glorious crimson and fuchsia striations in the sky as the sun quickly rose then broke over the horizon.

What kept running through my thoughts was a single question. How did I get to this point in my writing career? It’s been a lot of words, a hell of a lot of words written, but what is it that kept me in the game all the years?

This isn’t the first time I’ve wondered this, but it’s the very first time I thought back to those moments when someone or an entire group of someones offered me some much-needed advice.

What’s particularly strange about the advice I’ve been given over the years, was that on only a few occasions the commonsense conversations had nothing to do with writing. And yet all these years, I’ve applied the sage pearls of wisdom to my writing.

Like the time when I was twelve years old and my grandfather noticed I had a tendency to procrastinate doing anything that required a lot of focus. He called it lazy, but he knew especially for me, I needed much more than a swat on the butt (got a lot of those I tell ya) to get me to do something. I remember him telling me multiple times:

“Ya can’t finish something ya don’t ever start boy.”

He was right you know. And I hear my grandpaw’s words each and every time I sit down to talk to all of you folks. Great writing advice from my granddaddy. Of course, most of his advice was centered around a chore I was supposed to be doing.

Like mowing the back twenty acres of the land he and my dad mutually owned with a bush hog attached to a tractor, or helping my grandmother can tomatoes and preserves.

I like to think of the advice he offered as agnostic. It applied to my laziness just as well as it did to me adopting a healthy attitude about writing something every day.

Then there was my father who believed in stern discipline and an even harsher emotional and terribly unforgiving attitude toward me and my brother. Later I realized his attitude applied to life in general. Every time I complained (I was an expert whiner by the way) about something he would offer me some sage advice such as:

“Ya know what boy? Ninety percent of the people in this world don’t want to hear about your problems cause they got some of their own. The other ten percent are glad you got ’em and not them.”

Yeah, that shit stuck with me too. So how in the world can I apply this advice to my writing? Easy. When I write I don’t think about the ninety percent of readers out there who probably won’t read my stories. If I buy into that I’m guaranteeing myself a really short career.

Instead, I just write.

And I’ve learned to stop listening to all the ex-friends or family members (haven’t figured out just how to excommunicate a family member yet) who want to drag me down to their level of failure.

Those folks who are glad I have the problems I do, who willingly celebrate my failures because they don’t have the guts to fly and they don’t want me to expose their insecurities by doing something they’ve wanted to do for years.

They have problems. I have problems. Everybody has them, but sometimes, actually a lot of times I cope with my problems by, you guessed it, writing something.

And finally, the last piece of writing advice that wasn’t intended to be advice on writing, but I’ve used it as such all these years came from a young lady I went to school with so many years ago. I can’t even remember her name, but somehow the advice she gave me found a way to lodge in my brain.

She told me:

If you spend your life looking back over your shoulder you’re going to run into a telephone pole someday.

Okay this is crazy, but at the time I knew what she meant, and to this day I still know and apply it to my writing. All the work I’ve done to this point is in the past. I’ve written the stories, agonized over them, edited them, and cried over them.

But if I continue to examine each one, if I keep my focus on those past stories, I’m sure as hell gonna run smack dab into a telephone pole and that’s it, game over.

I can’t see my way to constant improvement if I’m always using my past writing as a baseline. I have to keep moving forward as best as I can, steering around the telephone poles this writing career offers.

So none of the advice offered was specific to my writing but in my humble opinion these little cherries have served me well, and I suspect will continue to do so until I spin free from this mortal coil.

Thank you so much for reading. You didn’t have to, but I’m certainly glad you did.

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