Don’t take my word for it either. I’m not published. I write 300-500 words a week. I eat breakfast burritos the size of small children. I text and drive. I can’t remember the last time I shaved my legs. I don’t even like avocado.  But here’s my piece. Every time I try and look for advice about writing on the interweb I get 10 different answers. And then I need advice on deciding which of those ten answers is the best advice. And before you know it I’m feeling like I’ve been doing everything all wrong, I’m a failure, I’m a know-nothing writer, I’m tired and I might as well just make good use of my time vacuuming my room and scratch the whole damn thing.

Now, maybe you have a different perspective. Maybe surfing the net for writing tips really is your cup of tea. And I’m okay with that. But me? I don’t even like tea.

I’ll be honest, I had you in mind. I was looking online for some good tips I could put here on my blog, that might inspire whatever audience I may or may not have to get inspired to start writing. I googled “advice for writers” and “writing a novel.” I’m not going to say I was bombarded with results, but I was annoyed looking at them. What I got was semi-published authors writing pages and pages on what works for them, and minutes and minutes of my time reading them and countless others, trying to decide what works for me. Which is ultimately something I have to work out for myself.

Biggest discovery of my frustratingly tedious search for writerly wisdom? Your are your best advisor. You don’t really need advice. If you want to do something you’re passionate about, do it the way you want to see it done.

For me, writers inspire me to write. People, places, fish, my dirty room, bums on the street, facial expressions, smart people with witty quips. Sometimes I get my best advice by accidentally stumbling upon it, like this quote by John Steinbeck I “accidentally” stumbled upon while looking for “advice”.

“Don’t think of literary form. Let it get out as it wants to. Overtell it in the matter of detail—cutting comes later. The form will develop in the telling. Don’t make the telling follow the form.”

Now I’m no literary critic, but these words are deep. The form will develop in the telling? How fucking true is that? How many times have you sat down to write one thing, and after a few minutes of writing come up with a completely different other thing, told a completely different way that sounds ten times better than what you sat down to write? It was after reading this quote that I thought, you know what? I’ll write what I want. I’ll proofread, I’ll dot my t’s and cross my i’s (I know, but it’s funny right?) I’ll follow some grammatical rules, I’ll play the game. But sometimes, following the rules gets you nowhere. Now a days, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can write what you want to write, sell what you want to sell in this godforsaken e-book era, to whoever the hell you want to sell it to, and make tons of money if you play your cards right.

It’s just that advice can sometimes have the opposite effect, like it did with me tonight. The intent might be good, but the effect can be horrifying. Sometimes, you’ll hear about all sorts of things that are great for this or that and you’ll wonder why the hell you’ve been doing it wrong all this time and soon enough start worrying that you’ll never be doing it right. You’ll feel inept, sign up for a class at a junior college, start stealing other people’s voices instead of finding your own (take Ursula for instance, things didn’t end well), start listening to Radiohead again by yourself in the car. Nice Dream.

I’m just saying. Don’t go there. I mean, go wherever you want with Radiohead, I always advise that, but don’t get down and out. Just do your thing, and you’ll be fine.

In other news, I wrote 550 words tonight and I am officially on page 10. Reporting live from My Side of the Screen. Back to you Bob.

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10 days since I last blogged, wrote, or felt creative in any sort of vacant way. But tonight I sat my silly self down and wrote 450 words.

For those of you who see this as child’s play, that’s okay. I know one day I’ll look back at this blog and ache, thinking, 450 words? Easy peasy. But as for today, July 24th, 2011, 450 words is a big deal. Especially since that last week’s milestone was 350 words. So I’m 100 words up from last time. Throw me a freakin bone.

It occurred to me at brunch this past weekend that I needed to be a doer. My stepmom graciously hosted a brunch this past Saturday, in which she cooked delectable dishes like french toast casserole, potatoes, fruit salad and egg-white Frittata. Add to that an endless supply of mimosas, and the brunch was complete.

After a huge plate of food and brief nap (I was lulled to sleep by some classical, Music Choice channel), my stepmom proceeded to enlighten me with all of  the things she had done the night before in order to make this meal possible. She had just returned from a trip the night before, which is exhausting in itself, and decided that if the meal was going to fly off without a hitch, she needed to not only get started ahead of time, but wake up early the day of the brunch as well.

I’m going to give a smidgen of back story here, because I feel it pertains to the message I’m trying to convey. My father passed away in late March, so preparing a meal like this normally wouldn’t sound very extraordinary.  Under the circumstances however, entertaining people is no easy task. As she listed the lengths she’d gone to in order to provide us with such fulfillment, I thought to myself, I can’t even summon the strength to fold my clean laundry.

But that’s besides the point. When we made our way back into the kitchen for seconds she continued by saying, “I got everything all ready the night before. I was like, look baby, there are the doers and there are the non-doers. I’m gonna be a doer.”

It made me think about the countless hours, the amount of time I spend bemoaning my situation, gawking at friends’ pictures on Facebook, eating out on weeknights, crying for no apparent reason in my car and on my bed, simply not doing. And to think my stepmom is doing so much with such apparent ease. Where does that energy come from?

We can all learn a thing or two from the people we love. Just do it, baby.

I’m on page 7. Milestone of the century. It might not sound like much to you, but I deleted mostly everything I had, remember? Tonight I tried to write from the heart.

Tonight I sat down to blog. Not here, but for the chiropractor I write for. I was feeling the itch to create, and when you feel that itch you’ve got to scratch it because it doesn’t come often. I wrote 350 words and I am DAMN proud of myself. Not only did I write 350 words, but I liked what I wrote. I popped into the shower after 250, feeling like I was done, and actually wrote 100 more words when I got out.

Blame it on the exercise and the vegetables. After work today I rode about 8 miles on my bike with a friend, and ate a veggie packed turkey sandwich from Subway. I’m still hesitant to do the full-on veggie, because I like turkey, and unfortunately there aren’t any fast food sandwich places nearby that serve free-range, antibiotic and hormone free deli meat. I worry about that kind of stuff, you know? But I was feeling good when I got home around 915pm, and even better after my sandwich.

The reason I actually liked what I wrote tonight was because it wasn’t bull shit. Okay some of it was. What I mean by that is I was writing my character exactly the way I want her to be portrayed–she’s full of shit. My main character is full of shit and I’ll admit it because a large majority of the time I’m full of shit. And when you’re told to write about what you know and all you know is that you’re full of shit then it’s from the heart, and your readers will feel it because they know you’re not bull shitting them. They agree with you. They think she’s full of it too.

And I feel really good about it. The key to being a good writer to me is being honest with yourself, about yourself. If you’re writing the way you want to write and telling the story in a way that is keeping you entertained, then it’s sure as hell keeping someone else entertained. I’ve started stories plenty of times. I’ve got at least 5 short ones sitting at the top of my head ready to commit suicide because they haven’t moved and they’re bored. Maybe 10. I start and I stop, start, stop, start, stop and why? Because right when I’m about to end it, I hit a wall. I start thinking how the Reader might want me to end it. I stop writing like me and start writing as if someone is reading it, the Reader. Then I start fabricating expectations this Reader might have, and suddenly I’m not as entertained, I’m even upset.

My bike ride today cut into the time I wanted to spend working on researching how to get my idea patented, as well as the time I wanted to use nailing down the all of the requirements for business school.  But I wrote 350 words today. Little things.

Can’t do it folks. I’ve tried. Hemingway had it looking real easy there for awhile, but after a few drinks, sitting in front of my computer trying to coherently put together thoughts makes me tired and ready to flip on the tube for some visual stimulation, so I don’t have to think. Drugs (the innocent ones) have a similar effect.

In the beginning though, after I’ve had a beer or two, I’ll admit it does make the words come. When I’m stuck thinking how crappy a page is coming along, alcohol does in fact help me shrug it off and just keep moving. In that sense it lifts the trashcan lid of my head open a little, so a bit of fresh air can seep in and refresh me. Stephen King has admitted to plugging his nose up with tissues to prevent his nose from bleeding all over the typewriter while writing Cujo and simultaneously snorting cocaine. In “On Writing” he said he doesn’t really remember writing Cujo, because he was so wacked out. I read “On Writing” a long time ago, but that was one of the instances from that book I’ll never forget.

King’s been clean for a long time now, and honestly I think that’s what works for me. However I will tell you, when I’m low on sleep, hungry, and have cried for the better part of the day, that’s when my best ideas come to me. When my spirit is at its lowest, and my body is at its breaking point. I often wonder why that is, but it doesn’t surprise me. The “no-sleep” bit can really torment a person and put them in a stupor. It’s actually been used as a form of torture in some countries. If your brain can’t properly digest the stimulation it receives throughout the day, it gets a little jumpy. For me it makes me both paranoid and alert. Thoughts that might enter someone’s mind on a drug trip start entering mine through a sneaky backdoor where the bouncer in charge there might be saying “sober? Alright, go on ahead.”  I even start to hallucinate a little. Was it Einstein who slept only 4 hours a night?

The point to this post is that I woke up last weekend hungover, sunburnt, tired, and scared. In a fragile state indeed. I’d had weird dreams all night long, and I ran to the computer to put them into a scene. My mind was naturally altered by the previous night’s decisions, as opposed to being purposefully induced into slow intoxication.

The wispy uncertainty of our dreams has always had me very intrigued, and they play a huge role in my novel. I’ve decided not to go with one of the paranoid delusions I’ve been reading about in The Paranoid’s Pocket Guide. I’ve decided to write a poem about each one of them instead, you know, in my copious free time. They just weren’t interesting enough to keep me wanting to learn more about them. Although I haven’t finished the book yet, so we’ll see.

What works best for you? Writing clear-headed or a bit foggy?