There is no one-size-fits-all advice when it comes to writing. Every author approaches the process differently, making it a unique experience that can be hard to explain to others. That being said, some of the greatest writers have blessed us with nuggets of hard-earned wisdom that can provide an extra nudge of motivation just when it’s most needed.

Read as much as possible.
Lucky for us, reading more seems to be a common piece of advice across the board. No matter what you read, it helps you become a better writer.

“Read, read, read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”
—William Faulkner

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” 
―Stephen King

Clear out a space just for you and your writing.
It’s difficult—if not impossible—to write without a quiet space purely dedicated to the craft. Even a cleared-out corner will do if an entire room isn’t available.

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” 
―Virginia Woolf

“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.”
—Barbara Kingsolver

Don’t sit back and wait to be inspired.
Treat writing like the job that it is. In other words, make time to do it whether you feel the creative juices flowing or not. Otherwise, you’ll be sitting around forever.

“Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it, you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.”
—Jack London

“You should write stories because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page.”
—Annie Proulx

Be confident in your own abilities.
Few things seem more intimidating than sitting down and putting words on pages. But if you focus on doing the best you can—instead of being the absolute best—you’ll be much more productive.

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” 
―Sylvia Plath

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”
—Anne Lamott

Practice, practice, practice.
Writing is a skill like any other. The more you do it, the better you become!

“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
—Octavia Butler

“If you’re using dialogue, say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.”
—John Steinbeck

Keep it simple.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have a certain style when it comes to your writing—it just means that once it’s all written, the time has come to edit it down.

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” 
―Mark Twain

“Anyone and everyone taking a writing class knows that the secret of good writing is to cut it back, pare it down, winnow, chop, hack, prune, and trim, remove every superfluous word, compress, compress, compress . . .”
—Nick Hornby

Make it personal.
Even if you’re writing the most off-the-wall sci-fi space opera, there still needs to be genuine emotion from you, the author, to make readers connect with it.

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” 
―Robert Frost

“Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that—but you are the only you.”
―Neil Gaiman

Just keep going.
It’s going to be hard! Know that going into it, and don’t give up when you hit some bumps.

“Writing about writer’s block is better than not writing at all.” 
―Charles Bukowski

“Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.”
—Margaret Atwood

Write what you want to read.
Think about the kinds of books you want to read—whether they exist yet or not—and get started!

“Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.” 
―Meg Cabot

“I wrote the first book because I wanted to read it. I thought that kind of book, with that subject—those most vulnerable, most undescribed, not taken seriously little black girls—had never existed seriously in literature. No one had ever written about them except as props. Since I couldn’t find a book that did that, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll write it and then I’ll read it.’”
—Toni Morrison

Andrea Moran lives outside of Nashville with her husband and two kids. She’s a professional copywriter and editor who loves all things books. Find her on LinkedIn.