My Favorite Piece of Writing Advice
Last month, my wife and I took a two-week vacation across Germany and Poland. It was exciting, beautiful, eye-opening, and full of adventure. Almost a full month after our return, the trip is starting to feel more like a dream and less like an event that happened.
When you travel overseas, you learn a lot about the world, cultures, and yourself. Literally everything is new, and it feels like being a baby, learning how to operate things like doors, locks, currency, and foreign train schedules for the very first time, along with the bigger barriers, like communication. But people tend to be kind. And they’ll want to share their world with you.
When we came back to the US, I opened my writing log and blinked at the larger-than-average gap between writing sessions. The trip was fantastic, but I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of guilt and stress seep into my gut. I wrote about it (“Finding the Groove in Gaps”) on my personal site.
This month, I wanted to talk about the one piece of writing advice I’ve carried with me for years.
I can’t take credit for it. I borrowed it from James Tynion IV, a comic writer known for phenomenal horror stories and one of the greatest Batman stories of all time. It’s a piece of advice I use at my day job, and it’s one I follow at home when I am having difficulty synthesizing a story.
It’s simple. Just make a decision.
Does it have to be the best decision? No. Does it mean that you’re stuck with it? Also, no.
When at a crossroads or weighing between several options, pick a rabbithole and drill down. Chase it as far as it’ll go. Sometimes, you’ll hit a rock and have to backpedal and start over. It’s the nature of the beast, but more often than not, I’ve found that simply choosing has led me to several realizations:
A Pretty Good Decision is Better Than None: The option doesn’t have to be the best one on the table, it just has to be one that keeps you moving. By following any rabbithole, you’re keeping the flow and inching closer to a fully realized draft, story, novel, etc. than not. This is especially helpful when you have tight deadlines to hit.
There’s No Wrong Path; Therefore It’s Calming: Who said it had to be the best decision ever? All your choice has to do is keep you writing and allow you to create and explore your ideas. You can always edit, update, delete, and rewrite entire passages later. For this exercise, because you just want to keep the momentum going, there’s no wrong answer. Since there’s no wrong choice, there’s a freeing sense of calm that washes over, a wave of serenity that comes with picking a path as if you were simply flipping a coin.
Decision-Making Boosts Confidence: The more you make decisions and see them through, the more you can look back, analyze your work, and see the successes. Not everything will be a winner, but there will be enough to instill a sense of accomplishment and maybe even surprise at what you discovered about yourself, your ideas, your fears, or your beliefs that came out, naturally, in your work.
You’ll Be Experienced in Hitting Deadlines: In the paid writing world, there’s a constant battle between deadlines and top quality. The most effective writers always hit deadlines with a consistent level of quality that gets the job done. It might not be Shakespeare, but it’s better than anything someone who doesn’t write for a living can come up with. Plus, as I’ve learned, most clients always have edits. These edits aren’t personal; they’re just the nature of the business. By making decisions and pushing through with writing, you’ll be exceptionally trained to hit deadlines, make edits, and bring everything together without making editors, clients, etc. wait too long.
Simply forcing myself to choose has helped me optimize my writing time and proven effective during work hours and in the evening, when I’m writing for fun at home.
I hope it offers you the same freedoms and benefits. Because your work needs to be seen, and your voice can make waves.
We’re all in this together,
Scott
Every month, I release a new issue of “Because We Can” that focuses on creative writing, motivation, and imagination. Consider signing up for my newsletter below, or check out my personal site at ScottWaldynWrites.com.