Advice Aspiring Writers Insist on Ignoring

It doesn't matter who says it, or how many times - there are certain pieces of advice we aspiring writers doggedly ignore, with the kind of bullheaded childishness reminiscent of putting one's hands over one's ears and saying "LALALALA."

To wit:

1. "Getting published does not solve your problems - it creates new ones."

2. "Getting an agent does not solve your problems either."

3. "You should really wait and properly polish your work before you start sending it out."

4. "Read your work aloud to yourself." (Does anyone do this??)

5. "Stop obsessing about form rejection letters because they don't matter."

6. "Stop obsessing about agents, period, because you have no control over how someone will react to your work."

7. "It's hard to be a full-time writer with deadlines." (We actually scoff at this one - sorry.)

8. "Put the writing first." (Okay, we follow this one sometimes. We just forget it a lot.)

9. "Getting published does not solve your problems - it creates new ones." (I already said this, but we hear it so often and we so DON'T listen that it bears repeating.)

10. "The writers who make enough money to live on are in the minority."

10a. "Don't quit your day job."

11. "When it comes to contests/critiques, take what you need and forget about the rest."

12. "Not many people get an agent from a conference meeting or a contest final." (I get this one, but some people are insane about conferences and contests.)

13. "You can start thinking about marketing and name recognition and all that, but you really should just focus on writing a really good book."

The people who offer this advice are very, very generous, and they are right. Most of us, however, refuse to listen; I'm not sure why. We're doing ourselves a disservice, I think, by deluding ourselves.

But if the messages sunk in, wouldn't we all quit? Is delusion the only thing that keeps us going? Actually - now that I think about it - isn't delusion a prerequisite for being a writer anyway?