I’ve been reading advice from writers for years to keep me plugging away at stories I’m working on, despite the fact that I was pretty sure I’d never share them with anyone. Neil Gaiman is one of the best for that kind of advice. He says a line here and there that speaks to me, and many others, and then he gets back to the work of being a great writer.

I need that kind of input, and taking advice from Margaret Atwood or Stephen King or Neil Gaiman makes sense even if you aren’t a fan of their work, because they’ve written well, consistently, popularly for years. There are hundreds (thousands?) of books about how to write well, or how to write bestselling novels, authored by people who’ve never succeeded at either endeavor. I understand that they might help me with, my, comma, placement, but I need to know how people organized their minds to get their damn novels DONE.

If you’re only going to write when you’re inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelist — because you’re going to have to make your word count today, and those words aren’t going to wait for you, whether you’re inspired or not. So you have to write when you’re not “inspired.” … And the weird thing is that six months later, or a year later, you’re going to look back and you’re not going to remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you wrote because they had to be written.– Neil Gaiman

I think that quote gets you into the mindset that produces quality work like Sandman or American Gods and all the other great things Neil has created over the course of 30 years, despite the fact that Neil didn’t go to college to get a degree in creative writing.

That being said, look at this:

Tell your story. Don’t try and tell the stories that other people can tell. Because [as a] starting writer, you always start out with other people’s voices — you’ve been reading other people for years… But, as quickly as you can, start telling the stories that only you can tell — because there will always be better writers than you, there will always be smarter writers than you … but you are the only you. – Neil Gaiman

This may be the most terrifying thing I’ve ever read about writing. I’ve worried from the first time I put pen to paper, with the express purpose of writing fiction for myself, that I’d be accused of sounding like Ursula K. LeGuin or Ray Bradbury or Robert Jordan. Not that the comparison wouldn’t be flattering if it was said as a compliment, but as an accusation it would have been crushing.

I think advice that makes you feel good is nice, but advice that creates concern can be even more useful. People who sit at the computer and type or who scratch away furiously in a notebook with a fountain pen, aren’t wasting time, they’re finding their voice.