a series of dirty writing tricks and brain hacks I learned in my MFA program that save my life on a weekly basis, because I have lots of thoughts about the usefulness of the workshop model but these things were objectively helpful: 🧵
1. accountability is your best friend, and it doesn't matter how you get it. I have a weekly email where I send friends my current word count. I tell people when I'm doing a 25-minute writing sprint and invite them to join. I ask others to set me deadlines.
2. fuck writing every day, that's not feasible for most people, but set yourself a schedule. it's not "when inspiration strikes," it's "now's my time to work." I work my day job when I don't want to because it has to get done, and writing is the same.
3. give feedback to others, often. I'm shamelessly selfish about how I do this. taking apart others' work to see how the pieces come together teaches me more about fixing my own stuff than anything else. probably more useful for me than for them.
4. if you're interested in tradpub, read as much as you can about how it works. ask questions. get curious. hope big but set expectations. this book was so helpful in orienting me to the business I can't even tell you bookshop.org/books/merchant…
5. find one, maybe two beta readers who get what you're trying to do, and hold onto those people like your life depends on them.
6. invest in a 500-pack of notecards. block out your outlines by scene. shuffle them around in revision. snatch dialogue wherever you find it and pop it on a notecard. I am sponsored by Big Notecard.
7. if you ever find yourself defending against critique with the phrase "this age gap is technically legal," throw away your entire story and start over.
8. stop being precious about your drafts. revise as you go if you want to, but notebooks that are "too nice to write in" or needing to have all your research alphabetized first is only going to slow you down. writing is messy. get in there and play.
9. critique shows as much about the reader as it does about your writing. listen first, take it in, and then decide what's relevant. are they critiquing what you wrote or what they wish you wrote? let yourself feel like shit for 2 hours, then throw out the useless parts.
10. save every nice thing anyone has ever said about your writing. don't delete any of it. make yourself a digital scrapbook of good reviews. there will come days when you need them.
bonus 11: go for the MFA if you want it, but don't let anyone tell you that you need it to be legit. I learned a lot through mine and loved it. critique partners, mentors, master classes, elbow grease and practice: they all do the job too.
ok that's my writing tip brain dump for this morning, thanks for humoring me, I'm not getting on tiktok so this is the medium you get my silly author thoughts in.
bonus bonus tip 12: quietly drop the buy link for your own book on all writing threads that get more than 50 likes, you never know, be shameless bookshop.org/books/a-tip-fo…
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