The Advice Game: What 17 Published Writers Would Tell Their Younger Selves

Beginning writers are hungry for advice.

Oh, let’s face it: we all are. We want guidance, help, a clue . . .

For a while at birthday parties, my friends and I would play the Advice Game. At first, in the Advice Game, each person who was older than the birthday girl would give her advice, and each person who was younger would get advice from the birthday girl. But after a while, the rules changed. I think my friend Kendra changed them, and I think it had to do with questions about the desirability of unsolicited–or jokingly solicited–advice.

In any case, the change in rules led to a deeper and more profound version of the Advice Game. The new rules were these: the people older than the birthday girl told her what they wished they could go back and tell themselves at her age, and then the birthday girl told everyone younger what she wished she could go back and tell herself at their age. In other words, the advice was now directed at a younger version of one’s self: what do you know now that you wish you’d known then?

In the spirit of the new and improved Advice Game, I asked a bunch of published authors what they would tell themselves if they could go back in time and talk to their younger selves who had yet to write and publish a book. What did they know now that they wished they’d known then? I got a lot of wonderful answers. See for yourself:

(All names are linked to authors’ sites. Latest or, when noted, forthcoming, books given in parentheses.)

Thaisa Frank (Heidegger’s Glasses, a novel, forthcoming, May 25, 2010):

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time and talk to the you who had yet to write (and publish) a book?

Guess what? You’re really going to do it.

What do you wish you had known then that you know now?

That I was going to have a career as a fiction writer. That it was inevitable, choiceless.

Maybe I knew this at a deep level.  I still would have done all kinds of things to avoid it. But it would have helped me with my deeply competitive wanna-be writer parents, especially with my father who had no faith in me. I would have believed my minister-grandfather when he told me that he rejoiced in my decision to go into the literary world and was sure I had the talent to succeed.  I always had to swim uphill in my family, except for that one person who wished me well.

Terry Gamble (The Good Family, novel):
On the writing front, I would tell myself the same thing I continually tell myself now: that there are no short cuts; that every path trodden is worthwhile, even if you circle back (ESPECIALLY if you circle back); that words on the page tell you more than words in your head, so write them down — even if they look clumsy and stunted; that a book of depth and richness comes from a persistent root system that taps into deep, often secret wells. Lastly, this will take longer than you thought.  Way longer.

On the publishing front, I would say that, no matter how pathetically grateful you may feel that a publisher (or agent) wants you, remember to advocate for yourself and be assertive.  Sometimes you have to take things into your own hands, like promotion or blurbs or jacket copy or presentation.  Don’t let the creative process stop with the writing.  Also, maintain a healthy skepticism toward effusiveness and criticism alike.

Ruth Rosen (The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America):

Read my work aloud.

Brenda Webster (Vienna Triangle, novel):

I wish I’d know that re-writing is 90% of the work. I thought you just poured it all out. Also, I wish I’d known that when you get two page letters from a big press asking you to re-write you should at least consider it, that sort of attention is not a given.

Maud Carol Markson (Looking After Pigeon, novel):

Perhaps it’s better not to know too much when one is starting out writing– how difficult it is to get published, how the publishing industry is just a business like any other business, how many other writers are out there struggling– because one does not need discouragement at a young age.  One always has to be hopeful and optimistic when one writes.  So I am glad my young self was always hopeful and optimistic each time I sat down at my typewriter.

And I am glad my “old” self is still mostly hopeful and optimistic as I sit down at a computer.  I was lucky to have good mentors who told me if I wanted to write then I should write, and all the stuff surrounding writing really didn’t matter all that much.  You can control how well you write, but the rest is mainly out of your control.  So I write the kind of books that I like to read and am always hopeful that others will feel the same way.

Ellen Kirschman (I Love a Cop, non-fiction):

Re: my still to be published mystery, I wish I had known how it would end before I started. Next time I will plot the book from start to finish. It may change as I write, but I will at least have a foundation from which to write instead of wandering around in a panic waiting for the muse to hit.

Katherine Ellison (Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention, memoir, forthcoming, Oct. 2010):

The advice I would give to myself would be to not sign on with the first agent that smiled at me; I should have taken the time to interview several people. Luckily, I have a great agent today and plan to stick with her. But that was after 2 false starts.

Yael Goldstein Love (The Passion of Tasha Darsky, novel):

Your first book is just that — your first book, the best you could do between the years x and y.  Don’t ask it to be more. In particular, don’t ask it to be the masterpiece that defines the limits of your gift. It is not only more realistic, but also a lot more pleasant to instead acknowledge that with each book you will improve.  After all, do you really want it to be all downhill from here?

Harriet Scott Chessman (Someone Not Really Her Mother, novel):

If I could go back in time and talk with my younger (pre-writing, pre-publishing) self, I think I’d say:

You can do this!!  Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t!  Turn inward instead of outward, and stop doubting yourself.  Give yourself a chance.  About how to earn a living? — that is the secondary part, and you’ll find a way somehow.  But the first part is to trust that you can do this.

Wendy Tokunaga (Love in Translation, novel):

I would say that the advice I would give is to understand that publishing is a business and, while it’s very important to know about the business, to not let that side of writing interfere with the creative / artistic side. Another piece of advice would be to not compare your journey to publication with anybody else’s: luck, success, and setbacks all happen differently for each writer.

Jessica Barksdale Inclan (The Beautiful Being, paranormal romance):

My advice would to be grateful for it all.  That effort putting the book out, the calls with agents and editors.  The email message from a reader.  The one person at the bookstore who came to listen to me read.  The ugly book covers.  I just got one today from a Portuguese edition of one of my romances.  I am truly thrilled.  It’s really knowing that this is a privilege and to try to take it seriously and to know that it’s a gift.  I continue to try to tell myself this constantly, and I’m a bad listener, but I’m getting better.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe (The Big Bang Symphony, novel, forthcoming, May 6, 2010):

Two things.  One, take more risks.  I wish I hadn’t spent so many years/so much time writing stuff I didn’t REALLY want to write because I needed the income.  Or because I was getting good feedback in other ways.  (Of course that one begs the question, then where would the income have come from…?)

The other one is I wish I had had a deeper belief in my voice and stories.  I go back now and read old rejection letters and they’re fantastic!  Personal, asking-for-more-work kinds of rejections.  At the time, I just read them as rejection, period.  So I wish I’d taken more encouragement where it was offered and saw less rejection.

Kathi Kamen Goldmark (Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now, advice, with co-author–and husband–Sam Barry forthcoming, May 1, 2010):

I would floss more.

No, seriously, I would say “Believe in yourself and your unique voice. Give yourself and your writing the same respect, time, and energy you give others.”

Dorothy Hearst (Promise of the Wolves, novel):

1. Believe in your ability and trust your instincts.  I look back on story ideas I had ten years before I began writing my first novel and they’re really good. Now that I’m published, I trust my judgment about them and wish that I’d believed in myself as a storyteller sooner.

2. The planning and rewriting and undoing everything you’ve written is part of the process, not a waste of time that keeps you from the “real” writing.

3. Trust your subconscious and give it a chance to work. Sometimes you have to walk away from the story and let things brew.

4. Don’t mess with the ravens.

Ellen Sussman (French Lessons, novel, forthcoming, 2011):

I would tell myself that it’s a long slow process. I didn’t understand how many drafts a writer had to wrestle through before a novel appeared out of the struggle. I love first draft writing — and my younger self thought that’s what it meant to write a novel. Now I know that yes, it’s a joy to spend a year writing that first draft, but then the real work begins.

Catherine Brady (The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories, fiction, and forthcoming, fall 2010, Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction):

If I had to go back in time . . .

I have to be contrary in replying.  In so many ways, I’m glad I didn’t know then what I know now. I didn’t know that it would take over ten years of hard, serious work before I would publish my first book.  I didn’t know that it wouldn’t be much easier to publish the next book or the one after that. I didn’t know if I was any good as a writer (and still don’t know), which made this seem like a huge gamble, a great risk, a potential waste of time.  But I had a lot of hunger to try to become a better writer.

I think our love for the great books we read is as important, if not more important, than ambition as a motive to write. I wrote because I wanted somehow to get closer to the writers who’ve given me such intense pleasure.  The poet John Berryman is said to have given this advice to a young writer anxious to know if he was “any good”: “If you have to be sure of that, you don’t write.”

Nina Schuyler (The Painting, novel):

Come here, younger self. Take a load off. People spend a lifetime trying to unearth what you already clutch in your grimy little hand—you found something you love to do, and that’s the ticket. There are objections to every course of life, but the end of that tiring argument is indifference. Don’t listen. You are immersed, engaged, and as Emerson says, “all our progress is an unfolding.” You’ll hear, “no,” “no thanks,” “not this time,” “try again,” or you’ll hear nothing at all. Don’t listen. Here, take this image with you (from Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels”): “once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to his throat.” Hold on, young self. Live like that.

* * *

So . . . if you’re published, or you’ve finished a draft, or you’ve been writing for a while: what do you wish you could go back and tell your beginning self?

And if you are beginning (and let’s face it, in some ways, creative folks are all always beginning again with each project), do you think you can give yourself this courage and encouragement from the start?

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