There is ton of good advice in here. There seem to be enough writers on the Dope that we might consider starting some kind of monthly check-in thread. ‘‘Whatcha Writing? January 2009.’’ I don’t know how many would be into that… we could share our progress and pitfalls and exchange advice. I could certainly use something like that to keep me motivated.
Check out Duotrope.
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” --Thomas Mann, Nobel Laureate for Literature
I’d be interested in something like that; it would keep me from getting lazy.
Back when I was in creative writing group, the mantra was “You have to write a million words (before you’ll be a good writer).” I wrote a lot; it helped. You’ll have those breakthrough moments and hopefully they inspire you to continue.
It helped me to have a deadline, too. If you can buddy up with someone, or commit to posting something in here, maybe that will push you.
Now, as to the matter of publishing…
I once took a workshop led by a published writer. Her advice was to ask first, write later. She would write to editors to see if an idea for an article would fit their publication—if not, she wouldn’t write it. It seemed silly that she would write a letter that might be as long as the article she wanted to sell, but she was adamant on this. Her final words of the workshop, looking directly at me, were, basically, “Don’t write something if you have no market for it.”
Granted, that’s mercenary but the alternative is to spend hours writing something that will just end up in the slushpile.
Dumbest advice I ever heard (outside of “Stick your finger in right here.”) for fiction, that is. Ask a fiction editor this question and his response is always going to be, at best, “Write it and I’ll see.”
I just saw this book in the bookstore today. It looks like it may be of interest, so you may want to see if you can take a look at a copy.
(I assume you mean the published writer’s advice)
For example, the writer in question had published a piece in a kiddie mag (Ranger Rick, IIRC) about how they train rescue dogs for avalanche situations. She showed us the letter, which specified how many words they wanted, what they’d pay for it, and so on. She also had the finished, published piece.
Her attitude was, I think, that if you do it for a living this is how you need to approach it; after all, if you don’t publish you don’t eat. IIRC she made a couple hundred dollars for the piece, so obviously it was one of many.
If it’s a hobby or your pet dream, you’ll still eat. But it seems wise to get advice and direction if you can, especially if you’re working on something lengthy.
It’s ok with non-fiction. That sort of letter is called a “query letter” and people ask editors of non-fiction pieces if they’re interested in reading an article on a specific subject.
But it makes zero sense with fiction or poetry, which what the OP is writing. The editor wants it if it’s brilliantly written, and doesn;'t want if it’s a piece of crap. He has to see it to know which it is.
Another thing: writing is a private act.
Workshopping your work is important, but sharing your progress and talking about your work before it’s ready to be shown is an unhealthy exercise. Don’t do it.
Unhealthy in what way?
No. It’s not.
Sure it can be a private act. And many people consider it that. But writing is a lot like sex–you can get all the advice you want on the best way to do it, but ultimately, you got to figure out for yourself (another way it’s like sex: You start out doing it for free but before you long, you’re getting paid 
). I have a writing partner and I work very, very closely with her, even on my solo stuff. We have a true collaboration, and I trust her opinion completely. Many people have trusted “beta” readers who help in any and all stages of the writing process. A writer might need somebody to read for grammar mistakes. A writer might need a reader for plot concerns. A writer might need to engage in a series of workshops with a beta reader who might act more like an editor. You can’t go through the history of literature without finding copious examples of authors who owe debts to friends, editors, and fellow writers. I wouldn’t say that T.S. Elliot had a particularly unhealthy relationship with Ezra Pound, would you?
If you prefer to work alone, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you prefer to be part of a dialogue while you’re working, there’s nothing with with that either. If you get so wrapped up in what somebody else thinks that you lose your own direction and goals, then you need to set better boundaries for yourself.
I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. You become a talker instead of a writer. Your work suffers from discussion. It loses clarity, and it can be hard to recapture. You doubt things you shouldn’t be doubting. You lose perspective.
I know editors who advise against heavy revision for similar reasons. Writing is delicate. When you start doing anything but writing and reading, when you start involving other people in your process, other opinions, it turns you around. You don’t write the same.
Writing is about forming habits that work. Habits are the most important thing to a writer just starting out, and I can’t think of a worse habit than surrounding yourself with other writers. They’re a bad influence. They can poison the well.
This sounds like hooey to me. Sorry. I’ve dealt with so many people who somehow think that they have this authentic, fragile little voice and if they read other people’s poetry or follow anyone’s advice or workshop it will all be inauthentic and somehow less theirs and less special and, I dunno, divinely inspired or something.
If your writing is delicate, there’s something wrong with it. Punch it in the face.
Eliot was already a successful poet before he met Pound. He may have received advice on the revision of his work, but Eliot certainly wasn’t asking Ezra for advice when his poems were still in the early stages of incubation.
If we’re going to talk about students of Ezra Pound, we should mention Hemingway, who in his memoir * A Moveable Feast*, said something similar to what I’ve been talking about. On reading an unfinished work to his friends, he wrote:
“When they said, 'It’s great, Ernest. Truly it’s great. You cannot know the thing it has,” I wagged my tail in pleasure and plunged into the fiesta concept of life to see if I could not bring some fine attractive stick back, instead of thinking, ‘If these bastards like it what is wrong with it?’ That was what I would have been thinking if I had been functioning as a professional although, if I had been functioning as a professional, I would have never read it to them."
And in Green Hills of Africa:
“Writers should work alone. They should see eachother only after their work is done, and not too often then. Otherwise they become like writers in New York. All angleworms in a bottle, trying to derive knowledge and nourishment from their own contact and the bottle. […] Once they are in the bottle, they stay there.”
That’s not what I’m saying. Workshopping is important. Criticism is important. But wait until you have something complete before you show it to other people or talk about it.
I think there is a balance in there. I do see what you’re saying, I think. I’ve run into writers who are so paralyzed by needing to know what other people think that I doubt they get anywhere. A lot of writing is about voice, and finding your own is what makes for a compelling story.
But as Pepperlandgirl says, if you allow other people to run over you that way, the problem is in boundaries (and perhaps confidence). To say that you shouldn’t ever involve other people or it will ruin your writing isn’t true for many writers.
I’ve done most of my writing alone, and if it stayed like that until I found an agent/editor, I’d be perfectly comfortable with it. However, I happened to run into someone about a year and a half ago who was a perfect match for me as a crit partner. We give each other high level feedback on “what works/what doesn’t.” However, neither of us tampers with the other’s voice. Early on in our relationship, he did question my tendency to choose certain types of words, but he dropped it pretty quickly once he got into the rhythm of my voice, and when he realized I wasn’t going to change that.
We mainly look for problems with continuity, clarity, and logic in each other’s work. Although the changes I’ve made based on his input are minor in the scheme of the entire work, those changes have greatly strengthened my novel, and he hasn’t altered my story from what I wanted to tell at all. In fact, he hates the decision my protag makes in the end, but he also says it will work for my target audience. There’s no pressure to make it different, although he did give me a suggestion for how to strengthen the acceptance of the ending for people with his perspective. Actually, I had intended what he suggested to be apparent all along, so what I took from his feedback was that I hadn’t done a good enough job with my own idea for that part of the story.
My crit partner and I both take great care to respect each other’s integrity as writers, and it works well for us. He’s got a big ol’ thank you coming in my acknowledgments if I’m ever published. I certainly wouldn’t accept just anyone as a crit partner, though. It has to be someone who already gets me as a writer and who works with me, not against me. I hope I offer him the same. I love his writing so much that I will be just as thrilled if his work sees publication as I will for my own. I would never want to damage his voice in any way.
I admire Hemingway a great deal, but just because he did better when he was writing alone doesn’t mean everybody should. You could do everything Hemingway ever did, and avoid everything he avoided, and mimic his method and style completely, and you’d still never touch his brilliance. So why get hung up on what he said?
And I was referring to Pound’s influence on The Waste Land. Clearly, Eliot was not finished with it when Pound read it, even if he thought he might be.
You said but sharing your progress and talking about your work before it’s ready to be shown is an unhealthy exercise–my concern is that I don’t know what you mean. If you agree that workshopping and critique is important, when would you say that it’s important to invite somebody’s opinion? I think that the right time is when the author says, “I need a second opinion” whether that’s before the first word is ever written or after the sixth draft is polished.
How about this: you should workshop your stuff only when it’s as good as you know how to make it. Don’t bring your stuff unfinished, unpolished, unrevised, un-sweated-over into a workshop so people can tell you to give proofreading a shot, or to avoid glaring contradictions in your basic plot. It’s an insulting waste of time to the people in your workshop, who will read your stuff less carefully in the future, and worse it’s an insult to you that you felt incapable of making it as good as you know how to.
Could we agree on that? Because maybe that’s what **Tarwater **is saying. It’s certainly what I would point out as a major pitfall of too much workshopping too soon.
Well, yeah, and unhealthy too if your fellow workshoppers decide to beat you with a stick. 
Hemingway’s opinion on writers being solitary wasn’t unpopular or uncommon. It very much jibes with advice given by other writers.
I think Pound’s influence on The Waste Land is a good example of what I’m talking about. Eliot had spent a considerable amount of time on the poem before Ezra’s first reading, and most of the changes he made at Pound’s request did nothing to alter the poem in a fundamental way; they were issues of clarity, of length, not of style, content or theme. If you’re at the stage when you need a second opinion, then okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. So long that you’re confident your work is strong enough to withstand criticism and revision.
I’ve seen many promising writers undermine their gift by allowing other people to influence their work, or by talking about writing instead of sitting down at a typewriter and writing. Writing is form of personal expression; it’s not a team sport. Nobody knows better than you what you’re trying to say. Be skeptical of their opinions. More often than not, they are wrong.
What I guess I’m trying to say, in addition to what prr has said above, is that discussing your writing with other people is a good way to homogenize it, and that’s not a good thing.