Some advice for writers from our own Elissa Bassist:
[Some of this is stolen. But I won’t tell you what because I want to impress you.]– First piece of writing advice: “Never take credit”–Stephen Elliott (half-pictured above)
– Your writing should amuse you; if it doesn’t, there’s hardly any point to suffering this much or being this vulnerable or getting that addicted to [fill in the thing to which you got really addicted or hope to get addicted because it’ll give you “material”].
– Writing is the opportunity to take the worst things that have happened to you and turn them into the most beautiful.
– Do you want someone to tell you that your short story sucks and that you should be intellectually and environmentally safe by recycling it? TOO BAD. No one can tell you this. No one gets to tell you what’s trash/recyclable; you decide.
– An MFA program will really help you if you have a high self-esteem problem.
– If someone judges you through your writing, that someone is doing a bad job reading.
– Write every day. If you can’t do that, do this: set an egg timer for 20 minutes; get a pencil and paper and have them touch; don’t lift your pen or pencil off the paper; write “I cannot write every day” on the piece of paper until you have something else to say; do this every day.
– “The moment I stop being a reader is the moment I stop being a writer”–a famous writer said this to me once.
– A conversation between two writers: Writer 1 says, “Blah blah blah,” and Writer 2 says, “Shut up and write.”
– You can’t dismiss an experience because there have been worse experiences.
– “No one who writes good fiction has an Internet connection”–poorly paraphrased advice from Jonathan Franzen.
– If anyone has told you you shouldn’t write or that no one would read your writing if he/she had a choice or that you’re unloveable, please email me at funnywomen [at] therumpus dot net, and I will tell you that any person who craps on your dream is a tampon popsicle.
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For more from Elissa, such as her “Writer’s Guide to Using Twitter“ check out ElissaBassist.com.
12 responses
some good advice i received (related to elissa’s #7): write 100 words a day, every day, no matter what.
that’s setting the bar extremely low. but even just 100 words a day amounts to a lot over time. 🙂
Thank you for this: “You can’t dismiss an experience because there have been worse experiences.”
This reminds me of the time years ago when something sad happened, and people, trying to sympathize, told me about their similar but worse something sad that had happened, so I felt like I was supposed to be grateful for my less-worse sad something instead of being sad. Maybe that’s the way privacy used to work; you kept sad things to yourself so you could be sad about it until you felt better, instead of feeling guilty that your sad thing wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
Anyway, this one sentence spoke to me. Thank you.
I appreciate every bit of this. From the great laugh caught on film above,
to that classic last line, the thing with the popsicle.
I think the one that hits me the hardest, the one I want to hit me a little harder is #3, ” – Writing is
the opportunity to take the worst things that have happened to you and turn them into the most
beautiful.’
I am teaching this script to my squirrels.
Tampon Popsicle. That is my new catch phrase. It might even be my new bumper sticker. I hope it replaces douche bag. I am getting tired of that one.
Yes to all you’ve said. *nods firmly*
Though, I must get off the internet??? *sob*
Okay. I will. And I’ll shut up and write.
Unloveable? Well, I truly think I’m delightful.
Had a little laugh at the commenter above who couldn’t write “tampon” and called it “…the thing with the popsicle” 😀
I really appreciate this one: “Writing is the opportunity to take the worst things that have happened to you and turn them into the most beautiful.†Even the process of writing about those things can be beautiful in its catharsis of it. I also think it’s important to write everyday. Another great exercise is to open up a Word document on the computer, close your eyes, shut off your computer monitor and just let your fingers move on the keys and write away.
Number seven reminds me of a William Stafford quote I’m going to poorly paraphrase: “If you get stuck, lower your standards.” Shitty poem > no poem. Thanks Elissa!
I like this very much! All wonderful bits of wisdom. Thanks, Elissa.
I’d add:
Courage is more important than confidence.
Unless you’re an asshole, in which case confidence will do just fine.
” ‘No one who writes good fiction has an Internet connection’–poorly paraphrased advice from Jonathan Franzen.”
I super-respect Franzen, this is great advice (that I’m obviously not following right now), but would be even better if “Freedom” hadn’t been peppered with anachronisms and inconsistencies that a quick Google Search would have cleared up in .00001457 seconds…
This is great. I’d only add that writer 2 should say “shut up and writer” and then punches writer 1.
This is quite possibly my favorite bit of writing advice to date. Thank you.
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