Writing Wednesday: Honest Writing Advice

Someone over on BlueSky asked the question whether people take their own writing advice. Since I was writing syllabi and thinking about how I teach writing, especially since so much of my teaching at the lower level focuses on writing, this was a salient question!

The blunt answer is “No. I don’t take my own writing advice.” 

It’s not that my advice to students is bad, per se, but some of the narratives that I spin to my students doesn’t necessarily resonate with my own writing experiences at this stage of my career and life. After all, I’m at the stage where my writing is less likely to be getting sharper or “better” and more likely to be holding station. My bigger concern is how to keep myself both engaged with writing as part of a daily habit and whether that consistency is producing outcomes that go beyond communicating ideas, constructing arguments, or presenting evidence.

I thought a bit about what advice I’d give myself about writing and came up with three things (which I probably won’t share with students):

1. Maintain the Habit. For me, writing isn’t so much about improving or even progress, but habit. I write the same way that I exercise, read, brush my teeth, or take the dogs for walks. Like all habits, one doesn’t focus as much on improving and just continuing. After all, at my age, I’m not going to be a faster or “better” runner. Most intellectual tasks are clumsier than what they used to be. My brain is slower to find connections, to switch tasks, and read deeply. I can keep doing these things, but nothing I do is getting better in any real sense. At best, I can trying to forestall decline, but honestly, if we’ve learned anything from our presidential candidates, such thing is impossible. Performance, then, will change, but habits will persist.

2. Chaos Writing. I’m getting better and embracing a kind of chaotic approach to writing. Instead of always proceeding with a plan or even strategy. Part of the habit of writing — at least for me — more about using writing to help me think. This means writing into the maw of a situation and using writing to work out what it is that I think that I understand. A recent reader of one of my manuscripts described my style as “discursive” which I think might be fair. It probably reflects my willingness to write into situations as a way to understand possible outcomes.

3. Tolerance. For a long time (and still), I’ll tell people that I’m not a great writer. This is still true. In fact, I’d contend that I’m not even a GOOD writer. This used to bother me, but over the past few years — especially as I recognized that my writing wasn’t likely to get better — I decided to relax and become more tolerant of my style, my limitations, and my foibles. As I become more tolerant of my own writing, I slowly found myself becoming more tolerant of other people’s writing. This means not only becoming tolerant of other people’s styles and organization, but also how others make arguments and try to do what it is that they seem to want to do. (My time as editor of NDQ has also helped with this.)