#the publishing journey is totally different tho but i'd advise you get more info from someone else on that as i've no first-hand experience

[la-cocotte-de-paris]

Bonsoir Katie ! What advice would you give to someone who want to start writing (novel, short story) ?

Bonsoir ! :)

**[Disclaimer: this is my advice based on my own experience -- the journey with writing is different for everyone, so do not take my words to be absolute truths, just little nuggets of information which you may wish to consider or disregard at your own discretion.]

I think my main advice would be...write what you wish to read. Create stories that interest you. If you write simply to cater to a particular audience, you will be bored writing it, and if you're bored writing it, then the readers are bored reading it -- or something will seem off when they read it, at the very least.

Be honest with yourself. Try your utmost not to limit yourself on what topics/themes/ideas you wish to explore. You can experiment plenty before deciding "oh, hey, this is pretty good" or "this piece will never see the light of day ever again". Ideas can come from anywhere, so let them. Don't block them out just because the thing/situation that sparks the idea seems ridiculous.

Don't fear disappointment. Writing is hard! Sometimes inspiration strikes you and it causes a natural flow in your writing, but it takes discipline and dedication to finish a piece. Writer's block is common and you may go days or months without writing (or at least anything they find decent quality). Some choose to power through it, writing pieces of lower quality so then eventually the good stuff comes back, and others wait it out a little and chip away at works until their flow returns with better strength. When you begin to write, or when to begin to edit, you may think "Oh dear God, this is terrible. What was I thinking?!" THIS IS NORMAL. Honestly, alarm bells should be ringing if this DOESN'T happen to you at some point to some extent during your writing/editing process (because if it doesn't happen, it means you're not thinking critically). BUT sometimes you may write a beautiful sentence you surprised yourself with (e.g. I have accidentally some rather poetic/aesthetically pleasing lines without even realising it, and only noticed upon reviewing the section) and you should allow yourself to celebrate these! This is a reminder that you CAN write! And it can act as a motivator to push you to finish your piece, if you so choose to. And besides, there's an editing process for a reason! That's where you REFINE your work -- up until then, rough drafts can be as shitty as you want so long as your idea or message/intention is clear and interesting to you.

Also, it may take a while to find what you're really good at writing. There's nothing wrong in challenging yourself either, but it's useful to know where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Experimentation would be helpful. For example, I prefer long-form storylines -- I find writing short stories IMPOSSIBLE and affectionately envy those who can do it!

Writing may also make you discover a lot about yourself which you never consciously knew about before. This doesn't happen with everyone, but it can occur. I find this therapeutic, but it can scare some, so if you find yourself in such a situation, I think it is best to acknowledge this new information about yourself and then either move on or deal with it in whichever way you deem fit (preferably in a healthy manner!).

And my final piece of advice, which is most obvious: read broadly when you can and enjoy writing! By reading other books, you'll naturally take in a lot of information re structure of a story, character development and general formatting rules (which then leave it up to you to decide whether to follow or disregard/twist these rules, depending on what your writing style is). By reading broadly, you familiarise yourself with a range of different writing styles, and you'll learn which styles might help improve your own, or act as inspiration for you in some way.

Saying "enjoy writing" sounds cliché but it certainly helps if you enjoy the whole act -- this is about you first: write what you enjoy and your readers or external interest will follow (even if it's friends or strangers online at first).

Hope this helps! ^.^ x