Every now and again I read a book about writing. It always inspires me and reminds me to think about what I’m doing. This week, I’m reading Chuck Wendig’s The Kickass Writer. When flicking through it, I saw the following advice:
Talking about writing isn’t writing.
Enough said. Almost. It made me think about reading about writing as a distraction from the action of writing. It is easy when you’re busy, or tired, or disheartened, to feel that reading about writing almost counts as writing. It is, after all, just like reading in the genre your write in, and reading outside it too, part of the job of writing. But it isn’t writing. It isn’t productive: it might put fire in your belly and ideas in your head but that doesn’t necessarily translate to words on a page.
Words on a page is what it’s all about. That’s writing. I just clocked 150.
Writing about writing, although writing, is a distraction. I’m going to do some editing now.