The best writing advice I've heard from multiple authors, teachers, and lovers of art- write unapologetically. Write from the heart, stories that are true enough to feel but false enough to make you dream, the things that would cause a ruckus at the family reunion...that is the kind of writing that moves the soul. The kind of writing that people dissect for decades, that people know how it makes them feel yet they can never really put it into words...

I have never been a fan of advices, though I have found some and they often are contradictory. I believe that is fundamental to listen to your inner voice, which is hindred by your overreactive mind.

So my advice would be to be couragoeus and just do something, try, experiment, which is a very difficult endeavour facilitated by turning off the critical thinking, at least whilst in the middle of writing, as opposed to outlininig, and focusing on the moment. It also helps to remember that you enjoy what you are doing and play the game for the sake of the game, so to speak, without goals and expectations. All of which is more easily said that done, no doubts about it.

"Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone."

Enough said.

I was privileged to know the late, great Southern writer, Walker Percy ("The Movie Goer," "Love in the Ruins," etc.). (https://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/11/obituaries/walker-percy-is-dead-at-74-a-novelist-of-the-new-south.html)

He read my first novel and although he enjoyed several parts, his main criticism was that many included elements, while entertaining in their own right, did nothing to "move" the novel or the story.

I've used this advice ever since to discard sections that didn't really contribute to the novel as a novel or the story standing on its own. The advice: get rid of the stuff that doesn't move the story. It's amazing how much there is that can be discarded for the betterment of the work. And if the stuff that's junked is good, keep it and use it somewhere else. To this day, I have several "orphans" of writing that are waiting patiently for a home in which to land.

This is something I have lived by most of my life.

Write what you know, research the rest, and if you need help, ask.

It doesn't take much to sit down and write something, anything that travels through your mind. But it does take time to learn, to discover diverse ways to say the same thing one reads in the thousands of novels, and millions of poetry laid out before us. That's where the Internet comes in handy, but even then, not even the Internet can give you what you need.

That's when you start asking questions of your peers, friends, family, and continue reading other well-established authors.

Here are some other simple tips:

Avoid distractions.

Set a set time to write each day, be it five minutes or five hours, and stick to it.

Accept criticism, be it good, bad, or indifferent.

Carry a note pad with you when out and about. Jot down things of interest Consider what you write to be somethings useable for background info for you, be it vegetable, mineral, or human.

Get money out of your head. Write because it pleases you. If you think money first, your writing will be shit. Craft it, think of it as your best friend, or even your most private lover.

Don't settle to write in one genre. Expand yourself. Challenge yourself.

Another phrase I have is "Less is More." Oft times the less you say in writing, the bigger the impact on the reader.

And I, like my favorite author, Stephen King; use less adverbs in your writing. "He closed the door firmly." Firmly doesn't need to be there as he closed the door. Words like firmly, gently, softly in most cases doesn't need to be used. It's known as over emphasizing. "He shook his head" you don't need to follow that with "left to right". Get the idea?

Lastly, always remember why you write. Each writer has their own reason. Perhaps just to release tension, create a personal diary, that all-American great novel, or perhaps because they want to entertain the reader.

Entertain the reader. And that is what we do on Prose.

if it doesn't come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don't do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your

heart and your mind and your mouth

and your gut,

don't do it.

if you have to sit for hours

staring at your computer screen

or hunched over your

typewriter

searching for words,

don't do it.

if you're doing it for money or

fame,

don't do it.

if you're doing it because you want

women in your bed,

don't do it.

if you have to sit there and

rewrite it again and again,

don't do it.

if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,

don't do it.

if you're trying to write like somebody

else,

forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of

you,

then wait patiently.

if it never does roar out of you,

do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife

or your girlfriend or your boyfriend

or your parents or to anybody at all,

you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,

don't be like so many thousands of

people who call themselves writers,

don't be dull and boring and

pretentious, don't be consumed with self-

love.

the libraries of the world have

yawned themselves to

sleep

over your kind.

don't add to that.

don't do it.

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don't do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don't do it.

when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

This is "so you want to be a writer?" by Charles Bukowski. I don't agree with everything the man ever wrote - it really isn't possible for any two human beings to agree on everything, anyway - but this... I liked this a lot, the dig at self-love notwithstanding. I find a lot of similarities between me and him. I'm not alcohol or sex-crazed but I've felt many of the things he wrote touch my soul. And that's what writing is about, anyway. Pulling things out from the depth, whether people notice or not.

And it makes even more sense, the words on his tombstone being "don't try". When I look at it, I see it as him saying people ought to move towards what serves them, what flows in them, what they're passionate about and stop forcing everything. Forcing themselves to like the books and movies and people and lives that they feel they should like, forcing themselves to pretend.

And we all do. We all learn there is a way we should act, no matter how different it is for each of us - until we slowly realise that there was never any need.

All the world is a stage. It needs less puppets. And sometimes, giving up is the only way to find out what actually matters. I don't know exactly why I found myself drawn to being a writer - or why it comes over and over again, even when I have such a case of writer's block that I assume my gift of madness has finally been whisked away by the gods. But I am a writer. And I write. And that is enough.

Also... I recommend Big Magic by Harper Collins. She says a lot of stuff I do not remember right now. Very interesting mind she has and very cool experiences, made me smile cos it's probably the first book on passion and creativity that I have ever (accidentally) read.