You Don't Need More Writing Advice. You Need More Writing Action.

Becoming A Writer

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You Don't Need More Writing Advice. You Need More Writing Action.

Episode 32 of Becoming A Writer podcast.

Rubina G Gomes

Nov 22, 2024

Transcript

Show Notes -

Episode Summary: In this episode, we dive into a common trap many writers fall into: the advice blackhole. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of self-help resources available today. But at some point, we need to shift our focus from consuming advice to taking actionable steps.

Key Points Discussed:

The Self-Help Overload
- How the abundance of books, articles, videos, and courses can lead to information paralysis.
- The real purpose of these resources: to motivate and guide you into taking action.
Personal Experience
- How consuming too much advice led to inaction in the early stages of writing.
- The realization that practical experience and writing were crucial to learning and growth.
Learning Through Doing
- The benefits of starting your writing journey without waiting for the perfect moment or complete knowledge.
- Discovering personal writing habits and processes through actual writing practice.
The Balance Between Learning and Doing
- Why it’s essential to balance the time spent on gathering advice with taking concrete steps towards your writing goals.
- The ideal ratio of action versus advice consumption for progress and productivity.
Creating a Plan
- Encouragement to set a plan and schedule for writing and action.
- The promise of finding your writer self and making writing feel effortless with consistent effort.

Takeaways:

Action Over Advice: Consume advice to get started, but focus more on applying what you’ve learned through consistent action.
Practical Experience: Begin writing and experimenting to discover what works best for you personally.
Set Realistic Goals: Create a plan and stick with it to make significant progress on your writing journey.

As the year wraps up, reflect on how much time you’ve spent taking action versus gathering advice. Promise yourself to prioritize action in the coming year to truly find and develop your writer self.

Transcript -

Hello, my writer friends! Rubina here. For our thirty-second conversation, we are going to talk about why you don't need more writing advice. You need more writing action.

But before we do that, I need to tell you that I am taking the whole month of December a break. I will be stuck in cake flour and Christmas sprinkles up to my nose, so I won't be able to come here to chat with you. But don't worry; I'll be back on 11th Jan 2025. Now, back to our conversation.

I love self-help books, videos and articles. They have helped me survive and climb out of my depression and helped me find answers to the mystery called Life.

Even in the case of learning about how to become a writer, books on writing helped me find my writer self.

I didn't have anybody around me to ask for advice, and they came to my rescue.

This is one of the biggest advantages of our times - ready and mostly free access to advice.

But this can quickly turn into a nightmare with us getting sucked into the advice blackhole.

One article leads to another article.

One book leads to another book.

One video leads to another video.

And yes, one course leads to another course.

We get so busy going from one resource to another that we forget the real purpose of them all.

The reason why there are these articles, books, videos, and courses - the ONLY real purpose for their existence - is to make you get your butt out of the chair and into action.

No matter how many of these self-help, personal development materials you ingest, they will only help you if you put those ideas and yourself into action.

That is how I wasted the first two years of my writing life.

As a newbie writer, I read hundreds of blog posts and articles on how to write a mystery novel. While reading those, I realised I needed to read about character development, plot structure, theme, outlining, editing, etc.

From one article to another, from one video to another, the more I read how-to articles about writing, the more I realised how much I sucked at it. How much I didn't know. I went so deep into the writing advice blackhole that I couldn't find my way out. I didn't know where to start. That made me doubt myself; fear of failure came hand-in-hand, too. Before you know it, I didn't write anything because I knew what I'd write would be crap.

It wasn't until I finally understood that the best way to learn something was by doing the work.

We can learn all the theories about writing, but it is only when we put it into practice that we find the writing process that works specifically for us.

If I hadn't started writing, I wouldn't have learnt that I am a pantser. If I hadn't started writing, I wouldn't have learned that my writing battery works for about 2-3 hours per day. And most importantly, if I hadn't started writing, I wouldn't have known that I could write.

Don't wait to know everything to get started. Don't wait for the right time or the right motivation. Don't wait for someone to give you the permission to write. There is no end to this waiting.

It's okay to look for advice.

It's a good idea to know where to start and how to go about it.

It's a good idea to learn how your idol did it.

It's a good idea to hire someone to help you.

But once you know what you need to do for your next step, GET TO WORK!

It is only through action that you can see those pieces of advice come to life. Only then will you know which of them works for you or not. As you do that, you'll learn and make changes, and slowly but surely, you'll make some progress.

Look back at this year and see for yourself how much your getting-advice-to-taking-action ratio is. Ideally, at least 70% of your time should be spent taking action on your writing project. Even 50-50 is not good.

As this year is coming to a close, promise yourself that you will take action on your writing dreams instead of just gathering advice on how to go about it. Create a plan and a schedule to figure out how to pull it off.

If you stick with it for at least three months, motivated and inspired or not, I promise you will find your writer self. Once you find that part of yourself, you won't need to push yourself to write. It will become as easy as breathing.

What are your thoughts on this? How do you suggest we writers take more action than advice? Feel free to share your thoughts and tips in the comment section on Substack and YouTube.

Well, that's it for today. Next time we meet (that is on 11th Jan 2025), we'll talk about the steps you need to take to make sure you actually write and finish the first draft of your book in the new year.

Until then, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and keep writing, my friend.