Keep Writing Despite the Naysayers

The word "despite" sounds a lot like "to spite." When people tell you that you shouldn't or can't do something, the best revenge is to do it anyway. Do it well. Do it with all your heart.

(How to Give Gentle and Helpful Feedback to Writers.)

What should you be doing with your time instead? If you’re not neglecting your “real” responsibilities, like, say, feeding your children, your time is yours to do with as you please. Also, writing is fun. Anything could be considered a waste of time by someone who doesn’t enjoy that activity.

For some people, watching a basketball game is "frivolous and a waste of time." Playing with Lego is "frivolous and a waste of time." Complaining that other people are wasting their time writing is definitely frivolous and a waste of time. And if you need more convincing that writing is not, in fact, a waste of time, there's a mountain of pretty compelling evidence that writing helps you think more clearly and aids in recovering mentally and physically from traumatic events.

First of all, your writing is probably not that bad. But even if it is, so what?

You have to be bad at stuff before you can be good at it. A student starting medical school would be a bad doctor. A baby taking their first steps is a bad walker. Instead of telling them to stop trying, we encourage them to walk as much as possible (or, you know, to finish medical school before hanging out their shingle).

The best way to no longer be bad at writing (if you even are bad at it) is to do more writing. Not less. Not none. More. Practice makes perfect. Keep going.

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This one usually comes with “helpful” advice about why their suggestion is better than whatever you are currently writing. Maybe it’s another genre, a different kind of story or poem, or something with a different tone. It could be anything, even just a small change to your character or setting.

Usually, in my experience, this advice comes from people who are not writers themselves. They are readers who like to read a certain kind of story/poem/memoir/whatever. Or they are more business-minded than art-minded and have no idea what it feels like to be passionate about a creative idea. Writing is hard at the best of times. Why would you make it harder by writing something other than the thing you actually want to write?

I recently went to the Leipzig Book Fair. There are over 2,000 exhibitors, mostly book publishers. The space consists of five halls that are each 20,000 square meters (~215,000 square feet). Each. If nobody’s reading, nobody told the Leipzig Book Fair.

Statistics show that people in various countries spend over 300 hours a year reading books. And that’s just books. That doesn’t include browsing some niche poetry webzine or scrolling through fan fiction online.

Imagine telling a chef there is too much food out there already. You know what else there’s a lot of? Nail salons. Investment companies. Pickleball courts. Clothing brands. Truthfully, there are a lot of books. A lot of stories, poems, weird unclassifiable word art. So what?

No one has written what you will write. No one has said it exactly like you. Having tons of books in the world is not a real problem. If anything, we need all the books we can get. It’s not a zero-sum game. Your readers want, or will want, the exact thing that you have written, not (only) some other thing that someone else (or a machine) wrote. That’s what makes them your readers.

Don't waste time arguing with the naysayers. Instead, take your irritated energy and put it into your writing. Create something new and awesome—or even something derivative and mediocre.

Get out there and show the naysayers that you are a writer, no matter what stage of learning or skill you are currently at. Then do it again. And then, again. And again.