What advice would you give yourself?

Nice post, I think everyone wishes that a conversation would go like that.

Hmmm. I'd tell me self to pay attention in highschool, because you might need all those grammar and punctuation lessons you learned someday.

Ignore the asshole who told you at age 14, when you were hardcore writing your magnum opus, that writing fiction was pointless and that you should look into journalism, which discouraged you so much that you stopped writing for about six months.

Butt in chair, hands on keyboard.
Not doing that doesn't mean you are not writing, but
It does mean you haven't written.
Corollary:
A writer who is not yet published is still a writer.
A writer who hasn't written? Not so much.

I would tell myself the following:

Ignore the craft books. They're going to tell you what most people commonly do wrong and what most people commonly don't have problems with. Everything you do wrong is something no one else does wrong, and everything you find easy is something everyone else has trouble with.

Get a comfortable chair.

swhibs123 said:

Imagine you could go back an talk to yourself as you were just starting out writing seriously. What advice would you give?

Me: I'd tell myself, "when you get an agent, or get a publishing deal, don't bother telling your non-writer friends until you get closer to book release date. Non writers do not understand the industry well, and there are few things as annoying (and sometimes discouraging) as having someone ask you "Has your agent sold your book yet?" every other day. And then look pitifully at you when you say, for the thrid time that week, "No. Not yet." Or, when you tell them you did sell a manuscript, but that it won't be out for two years, it's bothersome having to explain over and over, that no, it's not because it needed a lot of work.

It would be far preferable (for me) if the conversation went like this:

"Hey I signed with an agent."
"Really? Has she sold it to a publisher yet?"
"Yep, sure has."
"Really? when will it be in stores?"
"Tomorrow."

Click to expand...

This. Oh so much this. Even after having explained to people how slow the publishing industry is, I still get these questions.

iRock said:

Get a comfortable chair.

Click to expand...

A comfortable chair with padded arm rests.

"No, no, no, no, no! Learn to drive a truck or something, you poor fool!"

Williebee said:

A writer who is not yet published is still a writer.
A writer who hasn't written? Not so much.

Click to expand...

Word.

I'd tell myself:

Reading is not enough practice. Practice is writing until the writing sucks less.

You will, at times, fail. It doesn't mean you're not good. It means you're growing.

You may have a natural gift for language, but it doesn't mean you can slack off. It takes discipline and perseverance to be published.

Learn to harness your competitive spirit and let it drive you in a positive, productive way, instead of causing you to brood and criticize. (Still working on that one.)

Do exactly what you ended up doing, only sooner and faster.

You know, there's no advice I really wish I could give myself when I started writing. But I wish I could go back 2-3 years before that, and say Start now! What they hell are you waiting for?

Shut up, turn off the internet, and write.

... I still need to tell myself that.

Don't stick with that writer's group just to impress your boyfriend. In fact, dump the boyfriend all together.

I wouldn't tell myself anything. Everything I did made me the writer I am today.

Wouldn't have minded being published a few years earlier, though.

CheekyWench said:

Shut up, turn off the internet, and write.

... I still need to tell myself that.

Click to expand...

Do what, turn off the where, and something else, what?

Learn to revise. Seriously. Stop shoving the manuscripts into a box the minute you spot a problem and promising yourself you'll "get it right next time." Do the work and learn to fix your mistakes, 'cause you're always going to make some and pretending otherwise is folly.

So, about the same advice I was giving myself this morning.

I'd tell myself not to obsess so much over not being good enough, and to be the writer I am instead of the writer I thought I should be.

It's okay to suck. Really. Most people do when they start out, so stop comparing yourself to everyone else and get off your ass and start working. You can do this, and sucking is great because it means you can only get better.

Control your word count. Really,you are completely off the chain! The world doesn't need a 200,000 word vampire novel.

Get your ego under control and stop practicing your Bram Stoker award speech in front of your Pekingese.

swhibs123 said:

Me: I'd tell myself, "when you get an agent, or get a publishing deal, don't bother telling your non-writer friends until you get closer to book release date. Non writers do not understand the industry well, and there are few things as annoying (and sometimes discouraging) as having someone ask you "Has your agent sold your book yet?" every other day.

Click to expand...

Never being able to interest an agent or get a publishing deal, and therefore never being able to tell your non-writer friends anything, is a hell of a lot more annoying and discouraging. Trust me on this.

My advice to me, based on my experience?:

Have no expectations. Have no aspirations. Those lead only to despair.

caw

I tell myself that it's okay to suck, and that I can make it pretty later.

I also have this quote copied on a Stickies note:

Write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.- Neil Gaiman

Click to expand...

I see it every time I turn on my computer.

LJD said:

You know, there's no advice I really wish I could give myself when I started writing. But I wish I could go back 2-3 years before that, and say Start now! What they hell are you waiting for?

Click to expand...

Almost word for word, this is what I thought when I read the OP.

Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. You're gonna lose. Smile, you fuck.

Failing that, I'd tell myself to bear in mind the business side of writing and not just think a publisher will go for a book because I think it's great. Especially when it's shit.

Well, the opposite of Linda. I wish someone had told me about five years sooner that the most important thing I could do, aside from planting butt in chair and following Heinlein's Rule to the letter, would be to read the entire 808 section of the library as fast as I possibly could.

For me, the Holy Trinity is: 1. Reading much. 2. Writing often. 3. Following Heinlein's Rules to the letter.

Fortunately, the first two came naturally, and the third made so much sense that I started following the Rules as soon as I learned them. But craft books took a lot longer.

Reading craft books, particularly ones by writers whose work you like, is a very close fourth to the Trinity. Words on the page are important, but the method and technique a writer uses to get those words on the page are also vital, and it took me far too long to learn this.

I don't believe for a second that any of us are unique, that everything I do wrong is something no one else does wrong, or everything I find easy is something everyone else has trouble with.

Writing doesn't break down into anywhere near enough areas for this to be even remotely true. I learned considerably more in six months by reading craft books by writers I liked, and believing what they had to say, than I did in five years or intense reading and writing without them. Light bulb after light bulb came on when I started reading and believing those books.