‘Dinosaurs, the Alphabet, and Ten Things to Consider Prior to Submitting a Story for Publication’
— Andrew Sargus Klein
I often find writing advice—and writing about writing in general—to be lacking in humility. Grand pronouncements of daily word counts, gritty mottos, vague truisms, DOs and DON’Ts, it’s all mush if it comes from a declarative place.
Which is why Nate Brown’s long and winding essay on writing, the slush pile, and The Land Before Time in American Short Fiction is such a refreshing dose of writing-on-writing that doesn’t hit you over the head. It does the work of acknowledging the vagaries of editors and aesthetics and also doles out some good advice—advice that you’re free to pick and choose as you see fit. And it ends with some lines, which are, to me, about as strong as it gets in the hazy world of writing advice:
Our time is short, so write as best you can and as often as you can. Write as beautifully as you can, then make it better.
Maybe that doesn’t work for you. It’s working for me right now, but maybe in a month it won’t. That’s OK.