He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday—Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself—were flowers. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled

10 Mistakes That Will Destroy Your Writing Career

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The advice I wish someone had given me when I was a lot younger.

Any one of these 10 mistakes will absolutely destroy your writing career, and I wish someone would’ve given me this advice when I was a lot younger, because it would’ve saved me a lot of broken drafts and a lot of failed expectations.

And after you read this, make sure to comment below with what mistake you’ve made.

1. Thinking You’re Smart

Now, why is this a mistake? Well, because when you think that you’re smart, it gives you less incentive to work hard. I think you have to realize that you are competing with millions of other writers, and that when it comes to IQ, writers tend to be a little bit higher than the average IQ. On the IQ creativity spectrum, you’re probably somewhere in the middle.

Believing that you’re smart also hinders your ability to take criticism, hinders your drive to read, and hinders your ability to learn from others.

As you can tell, this is probably the biggest mistake you can make as a writer. What sets you apart as a writer is not your intelligence, it’s your work ethic.

All the writers that I know who have made it big time, they all spend 2 to 4 hours a day writing every single day. They’re smart, sure, but I don’t think they think of themselves as smart. They think of themselves as being hard workers.

2. Repressing Your Emotions

To be a writer, you need a black belt in emotion. If you squelch your emotion or let it slip away, you’re never going to be able to make your reader feel something. You have to feel something first before you can make your character feel it, before the character makes the reader feel it. That means it all starts with you and your emotions.

I see a lot of writers avoid writing the things that they’re supposed to write about because they’re afraid of the emotions that it’ll bring up, but you should absolutely write about the things that devastate you and thrill you. The more you spread your messy emotions all over the page, the more readers are going to identify with your characters and with you as an author.

3. Being Idealistic

This is often the scourge of young writers. And I say young writers rather than beginning writers because it’s often young people who have the highest expectations of how their career will turn out.

  • Look, if you get a story published, don’t regret that it didn’t get published in a better magazine.
  • Don’t insist on only sending your book to the best, most high profile agent.
  • And don’t insist on only writing a perfect novel.

A novel is great not in spite of its imperfections, but because of them.

I want to encourage you to be as practical as possible. Think about your audience, think about the type of book that they would want to read, and write that book. There’s a difference between writing a book that sells and writing a book that is mainly for your own ego. Writing is a very tough business. Try to be as practical as you can rather than being too idealistic.

4. Writing for Writers Rather Than for Readers

If you’ve been in an MFA program or if you’ve been in a writing group, then you are writing instinctually toward other writers. Think about all the people who have read your books over the years. What percentage of them are fellow writers? And what percentage of them are readers? If you’ve said, “Most of the people who’ve read my work are writers,” then you are really writing to writers rather than readers.

But surprise, the vast majority of your audience are going to just be regular, average readers, and they have different expectations than what writers might have. So don’t be writing to please your teachers or your professors or your fellow writers. Write to please your audience.

5. Reading Only Good Books

Read bad books. Seriously. Bad books are so educational. I love reading a bad book, especially when it’s by a good author. Paul Auster, I’m looking at you. Because I’ll make a long list in the back of the book of what’s not working, and then I remind myself, oh, don’t do any of that in your own book.

It’s about 10,000 times more instructive than reading a good book, because you read a good book seamlessly. You sort of fall into the dream and let it carry you along, and you reach the end and you’re like, “Oh, that was wonderful,” but also maybe you don’t know what to do to imitate that. So bad books can be just as instructive or more instructive than good books.

But just remember, you don’t have to finish a bad book. Like, if you really hate a book, don’t be one of those type of people like plow through it. No, throw it away and start the next book.

6. Being a Lone Wolf

The act of writing is a very solitary event, but the career of writing requires a whole village. You need to surround yourself with a ton of other writers, which means:

  • You should be going to conferences.
  • You should be going to readings.
  • You should be going to any events about books in your area.
  • You should be developing online relationships as well.

Remember that you are the average of your 5 best writing friends. If you surround yourself with other good writers, they’re going to propel you to become a better writer. So go ahead, take a moment right now and write down your 5 best writing friends. If you don’t have 5 writing friends, that’s a red flag. And if you do have 5 writing friends, then think about the average between all of them and think, okay, are you comfortable with being that level of talent?

The more writers you know, the more opportunities you have. It’s more contacts for agents, for publishers, for blurbs. A lot of being a writer really comes down to who you know.

7. Lacking a Mentor

Yeah, it’s a problem if you don’t have someone to guide you along in the writing life. So if you can’t find one, then you might have to pay one and hire a writing coach. A mentor’s just going to save you from 1,000 missteps and wrong directions and false hopes.

And mentors don’t only exist to give you feedback on manuscript. I mean, really, that’s the job more of a developmental editor. When I say mentor, I’m really talking about career coaching.

  • I’m talking about deciding what book to write next.
  • I’m talking about them telling you which conferences to attend.

Those little tiny pieces of advice add up to direct your entire career. Try not to go at it on your own. Find a mentor you can trust.

8. Being Impatient

Endurance is one of the greatest virtues of a writer. When I see writers who have failed in their career, it’s because they didn’t write that third book, right? They didn’t publish the first two and they decided, “I guess this isn’t for me,” and they weren’t willing to try again.

  • There is a lot of failure in the writing life for everybody.
  • There’s a lot of rejection.
  • There’s a lot of heartbreak.

So if you’re not the patient type that believes in endurance, that believes in year after year after year to keep trying, you’re just not going to make it. Everyone wants to hit that bestseller list really fast and have the world wake up and realize their genius. Patience is the virtue that will get you there.

9. Acting Like the Hare and Not the Tortoise

Do you know the worst writing plan in the world? “Oh, I’m gonna try this whole writing thing for a year.” Don’t even think about success with that plan. Becoming a writer doesn’t take a year. It takes 5 years. It takes 10 years. Writing is a long path. Don’t burn out with these short little spurts of energy. Like the tortoise, it’s all about being slow and steady, writing every single day, putting in that time.

Here’s my advice.

  • Come up with a 5-year plan for your writing life.
  • And come up with a 10-year plan for your writing life.

If you cast this vision into the future, you’re going to have the endurance to stick to your goals and to make it.

10. Sticking With the Same Genre

If you’ve written the same genre your entire writing life, you might be in a rut.

  • If you write literary works, try YA.
  • If you write YA, try a screenplay.
  • If you write screenplays, try a stage play.
  • If you write romance, try sci-fi.

It’s called cross-training. By switching genres, you’re helping these writing muscles that will help you when you return to your original genre. The novelist will probably find that they get a lot better at writing dialogue if they focus on stage plays and screenplays for a little bit. The YA writer might get a lot better at sentences if they try literary fiction.

Often, by switching to a completely different mode of writing, you unleash your full potential. And hey, who knows? Maybe you were writing the wrong genre all along and you’ll discover a talent for a new style.

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Every writer NEEDS this book.

It’s a guide to writing the pivotal moments of your novel.

Whether writing your book or revising it, this will be the most helpful book you’ll ever buy.

Learn More

Every writer NEEDS this book.

It’s a guide to writing the pivotal moments of your novel.

Whether writing your book or revising it, this will be the most helpful book you’ll ever buy.

Learn More