Should You Just Write? - Writing and Editing Advice by Greg Luti
- Greg Luti
- May 29
- 5 min read
A common piece of writing advice is often too vague to be useful. In “Should You Just Write?,” Greg Luti critiques the popular “just write” mantra as unhelpful for most people and offers more practical guidance: choosing a specific topic to spark ideas, writing without the pressure to publish, and maintaining consistent daily practice to build real skill and flow.
The Trite Advice: “Just Write”
One of the most common pieces of advice you will hear writers give you is that the only way to become a better writer is to just write. It is one of those practical pieces of advice that they say in a way that you should recognize that no work can get done without effort. But after hearing the saying for like the hundredth time, I started to think about it a little more deeply.
Who Is This Advice Actually For?
Who are all these writers out there who think they can improve without actually writing? Is there some way I can improve as a writer and not write? My god, is there a steroid I can take to help me here? Perhaps there is a drug I can take to magically make me a better writer. Telling writers the only way they can get better at writing is such an obvious statement that it makes you question the viewpoint of the speaker.
What the hell do they think an actual writer does? Correct me if I am wrong here, but if you are a writer, then that means you are writing, making the very point of you having to write to improve negligible. And if you don’t write, then you aren’t much of a writer, now are you?
A Catch-22 for Writers
It is a catch-22. The writers who are writing don’t need to be told that they can improve by writing, because you know, they are already doing that. Those who are not really interested in the craft and don’t want to write won’t really listen to the piece of advice anyway.
Who is the writer who heard another writer tell them the trite advice and finally got to work? “Oh boy! That writer told me the only way I can get better at this is to actually do it! I'd better get started!” If that is how you think, then maybe you should do us all a favor and not actually write.
Advice Only Works If Someone Listens
I was talking to someone the other day, and it was about giving advice to people. Not about what advice to give, but who is actually receiving it. A thing you rarely hear people say about advice is that you only give it to people who actually freaking listen. I mean, why am I going to tell a moron who doesn’t care about a thing I am saying, great sound feedback to improve himself? See, if you give advice, you learn that there is an art to actually giving it, and that includes not wasting your time on a person who won’t give you the time of day.
I wonder that about writers who have to be told to write. You only ever hear the line about writing to improve as a writer in magazines or random blog posts like this one. And there is a reason for that, I think. It is advice that sounds like it can be for anyone, and the speaker doesn’t really need to know the person.
It reminds me of when people say that balance is the key to a good life, but don’t really go into more depth about it. And that is really simple… they would have to know your life in order to help you there.
If the speaker were to say to the person not writing that they have to write to get better, I wonder how the exchange would go. I suspect it would not go as grand or as expected for the writer. If the listener is like me, they would look at the writer as almost insulted by the idea. But if they are not like me, and they don’t even listen, then the speaker has to think about who they are even giving the advice to in the first place.
Here’s Some Actually Useful Advice
Now, this is the part where I have to back up what I say and give you something useful to go away with, because if I don’t, then I just sound like a complete jerk. That is fair too. So here you go, some reasonable advice, rather than you just being told that to be a better writer, you have to write. Yeah, no shit.
Practical Tip #1: Start With a Topic
I would give you two things to do. The first is to write about a topic, and have that be the starting point for your piece. I like to write about certain topics like history or whatever, and then I let my mind go where it will when I write. I never get too far away from the original topic, so that I know there is something to direct me. You also learn how much you know about something when you make that thing the focus of what you are writing.
Practical Tip #2: Write Freely, No Pressure
The second thing I would do is to set aside time to just write, but not with the intention of it being published or anything. Yeah, forget about it. Write about a topic, and then go. Just go. See where your mind takes you. Don’t think about it needing to be edited for a book you are working on or for a blog post. Writers worry too much about all of that. You should note that you are trying to improve your flow in the piece and how you are able to connect thoughts and ideas under one umbrella. You are not just trying to write to write here.
Practical Tip #3: Keep Writing Anyway
One last thing I would tell you is not to worry about what you write so much, in terms of feedback or perception. Write so much that you are viewed as a writer, and you do that, rather than that person who wrote that one blog post that one time, and then never did a thing again. Yes, there are some things you write that will be more read than others, but that doesn’t mean you should ever stop wanting to write up new things.
Why “Just Write” Sounds So Obvious
I hope that you are a writer who views the nonsensical advice of “to be a better writer, you have to write” the same way I do. I am not sure why that has become such a profound thing to say. That is like telling a runner the only way to get faster is to run. I would hope they know that.
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