What is Reddit's opinion of Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies?

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There are plenty of books out there on writing that cover the technical, words-on-page and habit aspects of writing (I like Stein's). What I want to share has to do with expectations, and avoiding A) getting a fat head or B) beating yourself up.

Growth in a craft like writing is not linear. You get better, then you stall. Better, then stall. At the same time, your ability to judge how well you're doing is also growing, but it doesn't always stall in the same places. One skill is usually stronger than the other, but not for long. In this way, there will be alternating periods of "This is great!" and "This is shit!" as you grow in both the ability to create and the ability to judge what you've created.

The times it feels like you're doing great are times to challenge yourself by reading and writing more (and practicing your critiquing skills). There's nothing to be done for times it feels like your writing is shit except to power through—your writing probably isn't getting worse, you're just judging it differently.

Unrelated note: don't start off with novel-writing unless you have an outline handy. Practice the structure of stories, the basics of the craft, on self-contained or interlocking short stories. At this point, you'll get more practice by cranking out a so-so short story a month than laboring over a single half-decent first draft for a year—learning to finish things is its own valuable skill.

If you want more than two books:

<em>Stein on Writing</em> is fantastic for learning an editor's perspective

<em>Invisible Ink</em> (not sure what happened to the Kindle edition) is more about storytelling in general but it's fantastic at breaking down what makes good movies good

<em>How Not to Write a Novel</em> will crack you up