The Top 10 Myths About Writing and Why They are Mostly Wrong

I’ve been in the writing game for most of my life and one of the things that never ceases to summon an “Oh, Please . . .” reaction are those incessant misperceptions and myths about writing that I encounter from time-to-time. We’ve all heard them and some of us buy into them. There’s a whole self-help industry build around many of these myths. Others are put out there as road blocks to discourage aspiring writers from realizing their goals. Among the ones I see most often are:

1. Writing is easy to do

Yeah, sure. Tell that to the multitude of writers struggling with the blank screen even as I write this. I remember when I was a very young writer, I’d read magazines like Writer’s Digest or The Writer and they’d make it seem like writing that NY Times bestseller was just a daydream away from reality. I can’t tell you how many times during the week something comes across my desk from a writer who obviously shares this belief, who thinks that writing is just about putting words on the page — any words! Good writing is not easy and not effortless — good writers only make it look like it is. Good writing takes imagination, thoughtfulness, determination and steady effort. It’s not something that just happens magically because you woke up early one morning, stumbled out of bed, tripped, hit your head on the nightstand and decided you want to be a writer. Until you’ve gone fifteen rounds with the muse and have the breaks, scars and bruises to prove it, you aren’t yet a real writer.

2. Writing is too hard

I hear this one from non-writers who say they’d like to write but don’t because of this excuse. I suspect that these people don’t really want to write. Ha! Okay, writing is hard work — that has been established. But it is not impossibly hard work. There are all kinds of genres out there. Sure, not everyone is going to write The Great American Novel, but there’s no reason why you can’t write a decent article or blog post if you really want to and have something to say. There are people writing online everyday who can barely string together a coherent sentence who doing just fine for themselves. If they can do it, why not you?

3. Writing is a useless skill

This one is a big honking myth. To be fair, I don’t hear too many people spouting this nonsense these days, but every once in awhile, I hear this one. The truth is, even if you’re not a professional writer, odds are you’re in a profession that requires you to write something occasionally — even it’s just email, the more skillfully you do it, the better off you are. Next to speaking, writing is a very important skill to have. At some point in your life, it’s a skill that will come in handy.

4. You can’t make a living as a writer

Usually the people who think that writing isn’t a useful skill will follow-up with this one as a reason why writing isn’t a useful skill. Tell that to Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Diablo Cody, Robert B. Parker, etc. While it’s not necessarily the most realistic goal to set for yourself if you are a writer, as it is true that most writers don’t make a living at it or, only make a partial living at it, you should understand that there is money to be made from all kinds of writing and if you are good enough, smart enough and productive enough, there’s no reason why it’s impossible for you to be able to earn a living from writing. It happens and it could very well happen to you.

5. Anyone can be a writer

This one would seem to contradict my response to myth #2, but this one is not so much a myth as it is a misrepresentation as people who spout this little gem usually imply that anyone can be a “great” writer, are typically scammers trying to sell some “program” to aspirants and overlook the obvious — that not everyone has the stuff to even want to write to begin with, much less be able to sit their asses in a chair for several hours a day and write. It’s true that anyone with an average intelligence and a basic command of written language can, in theory, write. But that doesn’t mean they will or even can become a good writer and certainly is unlikely they will become a great writer.

6. Writing can’t be taught

People who say this seem to think that writers spring fully formed like Athena from the head of almighty Zeus. All writers learn to be writers. Whether a writer is self-taught or goes through some writing program somewhere, there is a process of learning going on and therefore a process of being taught. Whether you are being taught with a lot of trial and error and a library card or being workshopped to death in a word factory, writing is being taught to you in one form or another. What you choose to do with that knowledge is another matter.

7. You have to have talent to write

Well . . . having talent doesn’t hurt, but honestly, let’s not overestimate it’s importance. You’ve got a writer who’s the most talented genius since Willie Shakespeare penned Hamlet, but he can’t be bothered to get out of bed in the morning and dress himself much less share any of that talent with the world. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a guy who’s not very talented, but competent, dependable and workmanlike who writes and submits constantly. Writer #2 has dozens of publication credits as a result while Writer #1 still hasn’t gotten out of bed. Listen. A really talented writer who works really, really hard is probably going to go farther than a no-talent hack who works equally as hard, but the no-talent hack will still go farther than a lazy genius.

8. You have to go to a writing school to be a writer

Okay, sure, I’ve been to college and I know a lot of writers who’ve been to college, gone through writing programs and now teach in writing programs, but let’s be real here: If becoming a writer depended on getting accepted to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop or the like, there would be relatively few writers out there, now wouldn’t there? College writing programs typically don’t accept that many candidates each semester and even fewer people actually make it through the really tough programs. Some of the best-known writers throughout history didn’t have a degree in writing or much of formal education whatsoever. That’s not to say you can be a functional illiterate and write well, if at all, but you get my point, don’t you?

9. You have to have a literary agent

While it’s probably true that if you are a novelist or screenwriter you are not likely to break into a major market without an agent, you don’t absolutely need one. If you write non-fiction, an interesting, well-written book proposal is often enough and even with fiction, independant publishers often (and sometimes especially) don’t require agency representation.

10. Writers have to pay people to publish their work

That’s a big, “Hell, no!” Sure, there are publishers and agents (so-called) who will demand the payment of fees, but understand this: no legitimate royalty-paying publisher or literary agency ever requires a writer to pay a fee for the service. There are legitimate printing services that offer to print books for self-publishers, however this is different from vanity presses that masquerade as a traditional royalty publisher that charge fees upfront to publish your work.