The Best Writing Advice I Ever Received

Years ago, another author offered me some advice about writing, “Take joy in the process, because the process is the only thing you have control over."

(5 Pieces of Common Writing Advice You Should Absolutely Ignore.)

In the interest of full disclosure, the writer in question—Robyn Carr—didn’t offer this nugget of sublime wisdom to me personally. She was giving a keynote to an entire ballroom full of writers. Even so, it felt like she was speaking directly to me, and that she’d somehow read my mind.

Back then, I was not taking joy in the process. Apart from the short commute and lack of dress code, there wasn’t much I enjoyed about writing in those days. This was confusing because for much of my life, I’d genuinely loved my job.

What happened? When did I lose my mojo? How could I get it back?

In one insightful sentence, Robyn Carr answered every question.

Like much truly great advice, its brilliance lies in its simplicity. However, turning that good advice into a life practice has taken me nearly a decade. In that time, I’ve come up with three principles to help me take joy in my writing process.

Whenever I hear writers talking about the hot trends, or genres, I cringe a little. Even so, I get it.

Making a living as a writer is tough. The temptation to write to the latest market trend is understandable, and not always a bad thing. If current trends truly line up with your interests and strengths, go for it!

However, before you sign up to write romantasy, or World War II historical fiction, or robot apocalypse science fiction—make sure you’re genuinely excited about the story. Spending months or years with plots or characters you don’t like is like being trapped in a lease with a really terrible roommate. Every day feels like a month, and every month is worse than the one before.

On the other hand, time flies when you’re working on a book that you’re truly excited about. Days spent typing scenes that make you grin, or cry, or gasp are always too short and full of joy. It’s an incredible feeling, and probably the reason we started writing in the first place.

Market trends come and go, but the joy that comes from writing a story you’re passionate about is yours forever.

Deadlines are a fact of life for writers, and that’s probably a good thing. Most of us possess a strong streak of procrastination and need the pressure of a deadline to get past it.

But there’s pressure, and then there’s pressure.

After 10-plus years of turning in one or two books a year, I was experiencing pressure that crossed the line to panic. No matter how hard I worked, there was always more to do. Meeting one deadline just meant starting a countdown clock to the next one. Talk about a joy crusher!

Advocating for more realistic deadlines that give me time to do my best work and factor in breaks for rest and creative regeneration has been life changing. Yes, I am writing fewer books than I used to. But I’m also writing better books. And I’m doing so joyfully.

Remember your first crush? How you couldn’t stop thinking or talking about that person? How curious you were about every detail of their likes, dislikes, and history?

When you’re writing from a place of joy, your relationship with your characters feels like that first crush.

This is not to say that you’ll necessarily love or admire that character. Often, it’s the badly behaved characters who most fascinate us, which makes sense. Who hasn’t been besotted by the “bad boy” at some point, fixated on a person who is guaranteed to make us absolutely miserable?

Whether they’re good, bad, or confounding—letting yourself get crushed on your characters is a recipe for joyous writing. Lean into it. Spend your days imagining what they’ll do or say next, interviewing them in your mind as you unlock the mysteries of their murky past. Let their revelations wake you in the night and send you searching for a pen.

Getting crushed on your characters, reveling in that relationship is one of the most joyous parts of the process. It not only makes writing a pleasure, it’s a formula for building the kind of richly drawn, multi-dimensional characters that readers get crushed on too.

“Take joy in the process, because the process is the only thing you’ve got control over.”

Truer words were never spoken.

As writers, there are so many things we have no control over—fickle editorial boards, miserly marketing budgets, fluctuating internet algorithms, cranky Goodreads reviewers, AI, book pirates.

What we do have control over is the pleasure we take in writing.

Click to continue.

My next novel, The Book Club for Troublesome Women, the story of four unhappy, 60s era housewives who form a book club to read Betty Friedan’s blockbuster, The Feminine Mystique, and are forever changed, was just published on April 22.

It’s a book I’m enormously proud of, that has taken me in some surprising new directions. The biggest surprise for me personally was how much I loved writing it.

In the mornings I’d hurry to my desk, tingling with anticipation, impatient to continue the conversation with my Troublesome Women. As the deadline approached, I found myself dragging my feet, writing more slowly because I didn’t want the experience to end.

It was a magical season of life, and a joyous one.

Learning to suck every drop of joy from the process has helped me to produce my very best work. It’s also helped to revive the excitement or ardor that made me first fall in love with writing.

What happens after publication day is beyond my control. But the joy I found while writing this book will be with me always.

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