How to take your writing seriously
From creating a regular practice to finding your people, seven steps to turn your writing into a craft. Plus, expert tips and resources.
I take my writing seriously.
This isn’t the same as taking yourself seriously (to be fair, I do that too). This is about devoting yourself to something external to you: the act of writing. To make time for it, take care over it, aspire to improve, and admire others who do it better. To finish Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth, as I just did, and think, yep, that’s how it’s done, kids.
Yet, it took me over a decade of writing professionally to get here. For years, I sat at my desk, waiting for someone to hand me my Serious Writer badge. Perhaps I’d earn it when I got my first ‘editor’ title, or when I got a book deal, or when I wrote for so-and-so publication? Eventually, I got far enough into my career to realise that it was on me, alone, to decide. Still, I felt resistance; oscillating between my love of writing and a secret fear that if I devoted myself to it – if I entered uninvited into the arena of writer writers – I would be exposed as a fraud.
Then, something shifted. Observing other writers, I realised that ‘talent’ only got you so far. What separated those who excelled from those who did not was whether they were brave enough to stare the writing thing in the face. To do it regularly; to join groups; to read widely; to form actual opinions on Oxford commas. In other words, to be serious about it. Given that I had written for most of my life (and chosen it as a career), I might as well take it seriously too. Go hard or go home, as no serious writer said, ever.
I began thinking of writing as a craft. Language matters. ‘Art’, for me, is too lofty, while ‘gift’ (or ‘talent’) is actively unhelpful – as it undermines the need for actual effort. ‘Craft’ connotes something tangible: shaping pottery with cool hands, the way you might edit prose. My granddad used to disappear off to his garage for hours to do woodwork. When he emerged, blue eyes twinkling amid a cloud of sawdust, no one called his creations an art or said he was gifted. He simply dedicated himself to it. Humbly and happily.
That’s set a framework for how I approach writing. Yes, it’s helped me in the shiny, external ways: to land my first New York Times byline; to launch this Substack to thousands of you; to write my first non-fiction book, and be published in various others; and to get a place on Curtis Brown’s Write Your Novel course last year. But the best part is feeling like a legitimate writer, among a community of writers, taking ourselves and one another seriously.
Do you, too, want to take writing more seriously? Below, I share seven ways to reframe writing as a craft, including insights from some of my favourite writers – plus the books, podcasts and resources that keep me going.