Poll: Best Advice for Writers

There are a million tips and nuggets of wisdom out there for writers. But I’m interested to hear what advice you’ve received that has been valuable to you. Leave a comment with your best advice (or cautionary story!) below.

For me, there are a couple important ideas that keep me plugging forward. When I first began focusing on writing children’s books, I took some courses that had critique components. I’d submit, get comments back, revise based on the comments and submit again. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that if you act on ALL feedback, you end up with a piece that you don’t like much and isn’t anything like the original idea. After that, I began to evaluate critiques of my work so I only focused on comments that I felt made it better.

The other constant in my mind is the idea that writing well and successfully takes time. I know that my first draft will not be the best one. Most likely the second, third or even tenth won’t be either. And even if all the planets align and I write something that I feel is done and ready to submit, I’m prepared for the years of work that come after the writing is finished.

So those are my top pieces of advice. What words of wisdom do you have?