It sounds like most of us are pretty close to consensus on this, and I’m not an outlier in that regard: I think it’s good advice, but like Ellie said, it’s not universal.

It’s worth trying to “just write” but if that doesn’t work (or doesn’t work on a particular day or a particular mood), then there’s nothing wrong with trying another approach. Like outlining, researching, organizing, etc.

I’m saying this as an amateur writer who struggles to write anything most days. Most of the time just trying is worth it, though.

I think like 99% of writing advice, it’s a brain chemistry thing. I generally like “just write”. But e.g. when I know I’m not 100% settled on the outcome of some specific arc yet or I don’t fully know yet what overall direction I’ll go in next, I may stop mid draft and work on other related art for a few days just to give myself time to ponder it before I get back to drafting. The common worry is killing momentum like that is a risk factor for completing the draft at all, but I have written for almost 10 years now so I know that I’ll be fine doing this. But you might not be fine if you try it, so it really depends on the person.

Some writing advice I ignore myself entirely, even though I think it’s a good idea for most, due to brain chemistry:

• Most writing advice says never edit before you finish the draft. I almost always edit what I wrote the previous day before I continue with new work on the current day. However, I hear other people say they will get stuck on worries and bad feelings regarding their previous mistakes if doing this, and therefore this may seriously impede their ability to get going.

• Most writing advice says follow common three act or four act structures. I typically mostly ignore that since I like to just find whatever’s interesting next as I go, and during revision I don’t change the plot in retrospect to fit these blueprints either. However, I think for most writers this would be too stressful of a way to find a compelling plot and the act structure would work better for them.

• Most writing advice says don’t edit right after you wrap up the draft, let it sit first. Almost always I immediately edit it back to front. I still let it sit, but I do that after, and then I come back for a second revision later. However, I think most writers hate revisions while I enjoy them, so they should probably let it sit first to conserve their energy.

• Most writing advice says your first novel will come out all wrong, and you should be prepared that the inevitable outcome is that you’ll never publish it, and that you’ll need 2-3 drafted novels until you get good enough to write your “true” first novel. I think this might work the best for some writers, but I think if you enjoy or at least don’t mind relatively extreme and cruel revisions like me, you can totally pick up how to write novels by heavily revising your first draft over and over instead of just starting over multiple times. I think it’s mostly a question of whether you work better iteratively or by starting over once you realize how to do it, which again seems like a brain chemistry thing.

• Some writing advice says practice with short stories first before you try novels. I don’t know how to write a short story, I always run out of pages before I get to anything interesting, and I don’t find them compelling to write anyway. I’m more of a character-driven writer than somebody sitting down to have a specific message, the latter of which feels more appropriate for short stories, and rather than finding the length of a novel hard to fill I tend to overshoot and end up making sequels. However, I think for people that find trying to draft a full novel immediately too intimidating or they might get frustrated if they end up with an entire novel’s length of an inevitably bad first draft, short stories are a good starting point for practice.

• Some writing advice says that if what two characters bring to the story could be done via just one character, you should merge them. I don’t do that, since I like a messier cast. However, I could see many writers feel like they get lost this way and that they struggle to make a cast that feels unique and “alive”, so I’m not sure I’d recommend a messy approach to others. It can also be more challenging during the edit.

• Some writing advice says every chapter should have a specific conflict and a resolution to it, so that a chapter has a specific purpose. I don’t even write using chapters, I somewhat arbitrarly split up the book into chapters after the fact. Therefore, I don’t follow this rule either although in practice often there vaguely ends up being one sort of conflict or topic per chapter, but not always. I think a chapter can totally be “only vibes” and still have a purpose. However, I think most other writers will find writing without any chapters or any chapter-level planning whatsoever way too confusing, or may struggle to make chapters not feel like filler.

• Some writing advice says only write if you have a message. I find it easier to sit down at the mid point and to figure out what sort of message might fit this book best, since inevitably my personal views already informed the story anyway and now I just have to figure out which one to make the focus of the finale to wrap it all up nicely. However, to people that don’t naturally inject their views into their writing as much, perhaps it would help them to sit down and ponder a message, before they write an outline and the opening scene. And what I do may work best for character-driven writers, but less so for plot-driven writers.

• And of course the typical recommendation is to outline on some level since almost nobody works best with no outline. But there seems to be more of an understanding nowadays that some people really do write most comfortably via pure discovery, which is how I usually write.

So in summary I think “just write” will be great for most people but not for everyone, which is worth keeping in mind.

my mind has gone to some interesting places with free association. there’s certainly value in it.

To me, it’s valuable in the sense that you shouldn’t be overly judgemental/self-critical towards your own writing and write anyway. In this sense, it resonates with me.

But if one reads it in the sense of “just write whatever, even if you have nothing to tell”, then I’d hard disagree; there are no worse stories to read than those in which the author doesn’t like/know what they’re trying to tell. I believe writing without purpose is counterproductive.

“Just write” is fine as advice, as long as it’s given in the correct context. If there is another problem at play, giving empty advice is always annoying for me to read someone else giving a person who is genuinely trying to learn. However, I find treating a rough draft as a playground is certainly good advice. As the purpose of a rough draft is to explore the idea that you’ve conceived and following it to a natural conclusion.

The editing process is when one should worry about cleaning up the plot and making sensible alterations. Making the most of organization skills to reshape your writing into the right form!

Imagine a sine-wave…

Now put the rules-less-writing at either the bottom or the top of that sine-wave…

Now put structured-intent writing at the other side of that sine-wave…

Now, alternating between free-form & intentionally-structured, you can see how one’s capability would be improving faster in this alternating-system, than in either pole, alone.

Same as people who sleep all the time & people who never sleep progress more gradually than people who do honest, proper, deep sleep, for their reasonably amount of time, per day.

The Middle Path, iow, has some of the extremes at its fringes, it isn’t monoculture in a narrow unfertile rut, it is appropriate-to-that-sentience degree of focused or generalized…

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On a mostly unrelated note, do these two phrases mean the same thing?

1. “excuses for not writing”
2. “excuses not to write”

I had used the second form in my first draft. I changed it as I’m not sure it’s grammatically correct.