thoughts for young writers

I teach writing to high school students, but the method I use is the method of no-method. 

What I mean by this is that no craft book, no craft class, no teacher, no MFA program can teach you to write. These things might give you a "space" to write, you might learn certain techniques, but none of these things teach you to write in a real way. The only person who teaches you to write is yourself. I try to teach the students to teach themselves. 

The reason most fiction these days is paltry - I mean watered-down and easy - is that everyone is teaching the same thing. The reason most fiction writers sound the same is because they are learning all the same techniques. I see several veins of fiction: there's the minimalist or maximalist autofiction; there's a kind of historical, political, wide lens realism; there's the overly wrought, highly stylized mainstream literary novel that transgresses social mores; there's a kind of darkly comic magical realism.

Don't read craft books. 

Find a way to see the world. Not look at it, but see it. 

Remember that the moment passes. Writing about "now" is important, but keep in mind that "now" is already gone. 

Don't play the social media game. 

Separate your desire for recognition and your need to write, and investigate the two. Then you'll understand if you should really be writing at all. 

Real, so-called "literary" writing is not entertainment, though it may have entertaining qualities. 

Become intimate with your own confusion, but don't become enamored by it. 

There's something beyond story, but you use story in order to get at it. 

Do not write for publication. Do not write for an audience. Do not write for yourself. 

Who are you writing for then? Ask yourself that. 

Write as though no one will ever read anything you've written. 

There is a pretend world in which people play at being "writers." Don't be a writer at all. Don't think of yourself as an artist. Don't consider the "writing life." Do not become enamored with your own projections. When you're writing, just write; when you're done writing, do whatever else you do. The writing might stay in your mind, but let your subconscious do the rest. If you're constantly thinking about being a writer, you're covering up and limiting your subconscious mind. 

Writing is a vehicle or a tool to see another world. This world is the world you already live in but can't see. In this way, writing is a spiritual enterprise. Most writers believe writing is the end and means, but that is mistaking it for something permanent. It all blows away.