Topic: Lies that writers tell you
Loves parrots – has a pet parrot
Main lie: “You can do anything you want to”
He writes books about people who succeed despite terrible odds
Short story contest, won first prize
Judges told him the story felt strange, and then realized he’d stapled the pages backwards
Not a reader when he was a kid, thought books were boring
Middle school books felt like kids with a pet where the pet died — he wasn’t interested
A teacher got him interested in fantasy novels
Once he read them, he immediately wanted to become a writer
Two childhood desires
1) become a famous novelist
2) have a pet dragon
Survivorship bias – people want to trust successful people, but it can be a fallacy; we don’t know how much of success was skill, talent, and luck
Three pieces of advice
I will do hard things, and they will make me a better person, even if I end up failing
ONE: Make goals you have control over
“I want to win awards” – this is a goal you don’t have control over
He has a class of 15 good writers, and only 2-3 will make it professionally, even though all 15 are talented, qualified, written novels before, and still only 10-20% succeed
In 2002, had crisis of faith in writing, was actively writing, went to college with the goal of becoming a novelist. Next 10 years, wrote 13 novels, none of them sold, kept getting rejected. Weren’t dark enough. So he tried writing darker, but the writing wasn’t good. Wasn’t his style / desire
“What am I doing with my life?”
Realized even though he wasn’t succeeding, he sincerely loved writing those books
Even if he wrote 100 books that didn’t sell, he’d still consider himself a success
His goal changed from “famous novelist” to “get better at every book”
Write the books he loved, his way, and acknowledge it’s good for him even if they don’t sell
The 13th book sold, and then the 6th book sold, and his career took off
TWO: Learn how you work
Lie: “You’ll know you’re meant to be a writer if it’s the only thing you wanna do”
Some writers are like this, but not all
Writing is tough; it still feels hard for him
Figure out what motivates you, hack your brain, almost like tricking yourself
What motivates him: Track his daily word count, has a spreadsheet
Experimentation is important
THREE: Break it down
His Stormlight Archives series are LONG books, daunting for him to write it
Set goals, break into small manageable pieces
His writing classes rarely discussed HOW to be a writer, instead just read books and analyzed them
His roadmap was writing 13 novels before selling one – long hard road
Writing has great intrinsic value
Writing is a bit like telepathy
Talking to readers about how they felt, what they saw in your characters
Hope is wonderful, it’s what keeps us going, but temper your hope – combine it with the 3 tips above