Recently I finished teaching a six week workshop where one participant asked a tough question that has haunted me. “What shouldn’t I do as a writer? What mistakes can you help me avoid making?” I stumbled through an answer. I like to focus on the positive things writers can do to improve their writing and yet the question was a legitimate one. And in my line of work I’ve seen a lot of mistakes. So I thought I would share a short list of do’s and don’ts. Know your genre Many writers suffer from genre confusion. Fictional memoir doesn’t exist. Knowing your genre is important because bookstores need to know where to shelve your book. As a writer, it’s even more important because each genre has its own literary conventions. Within the genres of romance, mystery, thriller, suspense, and science fiction there are well-defined subgenres. Know precisely where your book fits because readers bring certain expectations to each. There are lots of love stories, but not all of them belong to the genre of Romance. Know your reader There is no “general reader.” Have you ever gone into a bookstore and library asked for a book that could be for anyone? No, me neither. Write with a specific audience in mind. Read I often hear writers say they don’t want to be influenced by what they read. Do artists avoid museums and galleries? Do musicians surround themselves with silence? Do you know any chefs who ignore their passion for food?…

You have polished a piece of your writing and are ready for someone else to read it. You take an enormous risk when you ask someone else for feedback. You make yourself vulnerable to being misunderstood or worse. It’s more than words on a piece of paper which stand in judgment. It’s you—your soul—on the line. Every red pen mark on the page feels like a personal injury. Margin comments seem like attacks on your integrity. Flaws and defects highlighted. Your face flushes with embarrassment as spelling and grammar errors you didn’t catch slap you upside the head. Questions raised you didn’t answer. Misperceptions identified. Clichés. Unnecessary adverbs or empty adjectives. Redundancies. Passive voice and zombie nouns. And all the life sucked out of your precious piece. Your ego deflates faster than a pin-pricked balloon. One of the biggest reasons writers are reluctant to share their work is the fear of negative feedback. You aren’t likely to share it if you think your work isn’t already your personal best and you hope readers will provide you with affirmations of your efforts. And yet you want to know whether it works for readers or not. When you ask for feedback you need to be prepared for negative as much as positive criticism. Negative criticism will help you much more than Stuart Smalley-style affirmations: “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.” If you seek only to enhance your self-esteem you won’t be able to improve your writing…

Let’s skip the stories about famous books that were rejected thirty, forty, or fifty-seven times before getting published and becoming well-loved classics. And forget about Stephen King’s nail on the wall that became so heavy with rejections it pulled loose from the wood. Intellectually, we all know rejection is a part of the game, but emotionally… well, emotionally, it’s a different story. So how can we deal with it better, which is to say without becoming bitter, disheartened, or outright depressed? The truth is, successful writers have all found a way to deal with rejection. They accept it or, at least, work through it. As a test of this statement, consider what happens to those who bow under the pressure: they stop writing. From this perspective, then, it’s really a problem of movement. Of momentum. Successful writers are those who keep moving. They, like everyone else, face rejection and keep going. No matter if it’s a form letter, an editor or agent writing personally to say, “thanks, but no thanks,” or a bad review, the professional writer continues to write. Here are some ways to keep the momentum going after a project is rejected: Reframe rejection as a positive step in your growth and development as a writer. Consider looking it this way: you’ve worked hard creating a story or maybe even a full book manuscript. You’ve edited and rewritten and edited. You’ve researched markets, and, finally, submitted. To a certain degree, it’s a case of mission accomplished. The next…