I sit here, reflecting on my journey in writing, I think about a question I was asked not too long ago. I was asked if I can give any advice to new writers. I immediately began to think about advice that I wish I was given when I first started out. With that said, here are the three pieces of advice I wish I was given…

1. Find your voice and stick with it: Don’t feel like your writing has to sound like everyone else. Sometimes you may feel pressured to alter your “style” based on what’s popular. In my opinion, you should always aim to sound like you. Embrace your uniqueness as a writer and stick with what works for you. If you don’t, it will make the writing process much harder than it needs to be. And the end result could be something that doesn’t showcase the real you.

2. Understand that you can’t please everybody: This is kind of related to my first point. The one hard truth I had to accept early on is that my writing – including my style and voice as a writer— isn’t going to appeal to everyone…period. And that’s okay. We’re not trying to win over all audiences. We’re just trying to find “our audience”, meaning those with whom our work will resonate. And trust me, they’re out there. It just may take some work to find them. So, please don’t go down the rabbit hole of constantly tweaking your writing so that it wins everyone over. You’ll never finish, and you could end up with something that’s a far cry from what you had originally intended.

3. Don’t quit just because things aren’t going as fast as you’d like: Let’s face it, it’s rare for someone to be an overnight success in any endeavor, and writing is no different. Most of us have to work at this thing to find some measure of success. I’m still working on it myself and have a long way to go. But don’t quit, because quitting is nothing more than a guaranteed path to failure. Embrace the grind of writing and learning how to market yourself as a writer. I believe it’ll pay off in the end.

I hope this helps