My best writing advice

On how to get people to actually read you.

As someone who teaches poetry full-time and leads a writing community, I am in constant conversation with writers. Writers, it turns out, all want the same things—to write what matters, to find a place to begin, to overcome writer’s block, to not implode like dying stars.

Here’s my very best advice after years of teaching:

Write what you (wish you didn’t) know.  

We've all heard the advice: write what you know but I dare you to write what you wish you DIDN'T know. Your weird insecurities, your loneliness, the fact your dog isn't fully housebroken or your toddler always cries or you're a poet with writer's block. Catalog all the ways you're human. Stop trying to be a hero. Those are the stories worth reading. That's what feels remotely like hope. 

Write from the belly

Often when we go to write, we forget we’re mostly skin. There’s a chunk of heart and a little brain in there also, but mostly we’re skin. That’s where we first experience  language. It’s why the word whoosh makes us shiver. Because we read and feel it at the same time. For a moment, there’s wind whipping in our hair, waves in our throat. You can’t always know rationally what will make a good poem, but you can trust your body to show you what sticks.

Have a point of view and say it like you mean it

Nothing is more valuable than a perspective that is carefully considered. You are an artist and you have experience with which to speak. Stop clearing your throat. You’re already an expert, a veteran of life's strange and terrible currents. Stop apologizing and start sharing. Stand, even on sea legs. 

Be a poet, not a preacher

Especially  on social media, poets seem hellbent on teaching us something. Some grand lesson or eternal moral. I know this comes from wanting to add value but, my best advice is to skip the sermon and instead haunt the unsayable. Want readers? Articulate the strange/confusing/exhausting nature of being human. A poet’s true job is not to offer advice, but, rather, to aptly name the ache. 

You will never have more time to create than this present moment

I write less on writing weekends in the woods than I do in the snatches of time between my work calls at home. It’s a common misnomer that you will one day have more time to write. You won’t. No one does. The most time you will ever have to write is now. The desire to create is a human instinct like hunger or hormones. Its urgency will ache you in half until you feed it. 

In order to write a book, you have to actually write one

There is no trick to writing a book except to actually putting pen to paper. There are no shortcuts. It’s like trying to run a marathon without being willing to first huff down the street after a long winter. Or like asking how to get out of the woods without ever entering the forest. You’ve simply got to start. You have to endure the struggle until you find your way through the trees.

I’d love to know your thoughts, questions, and responses in the comments. <3

​Poem on,
Joy

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