How to Be A Bad Writer

Let the oversharing begin!

I am a bad writer.

To be clear, I’m great at writing. My plots are tighter than a drag queen’s corset, my characters always bring the drama, and I’ve never met a detail I couldn’t defamiliarize. What I’m not great at is…everything else. And by everything else, I specifically mean everything the world expects writers to be.

While I published my first two books (here and here) with delightfully humane but relatively under resourced presses, I published my latest book with a press that hooked me up with bookstagrammers and interviewers at decent magazines, got me reviews in major publications, and send me to book festivals. In the process, I met a bunch of writers who went to MFA programs, some of whom are still my buddies today (read their books!), and some of whom probably erased me from their memories because I was A MESS.

I did not know how to introduce myself at events.

I didn’t know how to talk about myself.

I certainly didn’t know that I was supposed to be doing things like posting literary thirst traps on instagram churning out personal essays and finishing my next book and generally writing every day

Embarrassed about how little I knew about how I was supposed to act, I started imposing all kinds of expectations on myself. I also completely forgot why I got into this business in the first place: because I constantly need to escape reality because I love to write. It was only when I became / went back to being a bad writer that I remembered who I was, why I do this, and what parts of my life really matter.

You, too, can be a bad writer!

Here are some ways that being a bad writer has been good for my soul.

I don’t write every day.

We’ve already been through this, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it, but I don’t have time to work on my books every day. So I don’t!

Side note: I have realized that I do actually technically write every day, it’s just not always related to my book projects. I bet this is true of a lot of you too, especially if you have other jobs. I’ve enjoyed noticing how much I write, even if it’s not for book projects.

I write what I want, not what the market wants.

To be honest, this hasn’t worked out super well for me. I’ve now written three books I’ve been unable to sell, some for dumb reasons - protip: if someone says your characters are unrelatable, that’s their problem, not yours - and some for good reasons.*

Here’s what I’ve learned, though: if I write something marketable, and hate it, then I have to spend years defending this thing I’ve published and miserably relive all my mistakes. If I write something unmarketable, I usually love it, and even if it’s not out in the world, I’m super glad I wrote it.

This is the key to being a bad writer: prioritize what you want to do over what you’re supposed to do. That, I’ve noticed, keeps my writing in the realm of art and out of the realm of capitalism, which is always a good thing.

*I’m seriously glad that the book I wrote at 25 is not out in the world right now. The agent who wouldn’t take it said it wasn’t “marketable,” which, even at the time, I knew was not a real thing. But when I look back at the draft now I am SO GLAD her racism kept that horribly written, poorly plotted monstrosity right where it belonged: on the harddrive of the mac I purchased for myself in 2004. Thanks kinda racist agent lady!)

I read EVERYTHING.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve discussed books with folks and have them whisper to me out of the side of my mouth, “It’s kind of embarrassing, but I read romance!” Or, “Don’t tell, but I mostly read YA.” Or, “I know it’s trashy, but I love thrillers.”

As you can obviously tell from my book lists, I read, like, every genre except scifi (I’ve tried, I swear, but speculative is as far as I can go!) While on book tour, I felt like I could only talk about literary fiction. Granted, this may be because my book was labeled literary fiction and so everyone I met and did events with wrote literary fiction (whatever that even is - genre, like gender, is made up). But it took me awhile to recover from the idea that, as a WRITER (said in a British accent), I was only supposed to read “quality” books that got on lists or were given this arbitrary classification by the powers that be.

Being a good writer with a lowercase w means reading as widely as you can. But being a Writer with a capital W means only reading the best.

I’m lowercase all the way baby.

What makes you a bad writer?

Let us know in the comments! And I hope that all of your bad decisions, like mine, lead you to a very, very good writing life.