Hey! Glad you could make it ^^
About a month ago on BlueSky I asked all of you if you might like the idea of a smut blog that focused on writing tips and advice, and that’s what this is. The name is meant to be a combination of ‘smut’ and ‘seminar,’ which was hopefully clear but I want to explain why I picked the latter word - aside from alliteration.
For those who don’t know, the difference between a ‘lecture’ and a ‘seminar’ is that the former is dictated from the front, and the latter is a facilitated conversation. That’s what I’m hoping this will be, not least because I am no expert. Also, close to nothing I’m going to write on this blog is gospel, and disagreement is a cool launch pad for discussion. I’m hoping maybe I’ll get to learn something from all of you too.
For those of you who don’t know me already - first of all how did you even find this blog? Second, I’m Sophie, I’m a disabled queer writer, and I write smut. A lot of smut. A debatably unhealthy amount of smut. That’s a lie you can never have enough smut. And this is ‘me’; I thought it might be nice to give myself a lil avatar for these posts, just to break up the walls of text!
I’ve been writing stories for almost two decades, and coming up with them for even longer. It’s a natural human instinct, to come up with stories, to share them, to lose ourselves in fun little imaginings and worlds. There’s no one right way to go about it, no universal techniques, and if you enjoy a story, it is a good story. That is all by way of saying what my first piece of advice is:
Write. 
I can share a lot of different types of advice on how to format a story, how to refine ideas, make characters, but the best advice for a writer is to write. Putting words on a page, and then reading them back is the best skill you can refine. It’s simplistic advice, but it’s the most important place to start. It’s also vague advice. There isn’t much you can do with me telling you to ‘write.’ It’s a good thing you’re not paying for this. Unless you donated in advance.
Fortunately I’m not actually that stingy, and I do have some useful advice for how to maximize how much you write. So without further ado, let’s talk about how to write a lot.
Step 1 - accept your flaws
…Didn’t I just say that I was going to give useful advice? OK, let’s break that down. There’s no such thing as perfect writing. Think of the best work you’ve ever read: I guarantee there is an error in there somewhere, maybe a typo, or a grammatical lapse that serves no purpose, or just a detail that you have affection for, but looked at objectively is clunky, or ill-thought-out, or worse. When you read a piece of prose you wrote, and spot things you don’t like, remember that you are having the one universal experience of all writers. We’ve all got a hand on your back.
When I said you should re-read your work, it needs to be with compassion. And if you’re like me, that’s hard to do. Poor mental health does not make a mind keen to give itself a break. But there are hacks to get to compassion. For me, I imagine it’s not my work, but that of a friend. I read it as a reader would, and if I spot a thing I don’t like, I’ll make a note, but also be proud of them for producing this at all.
Other techniques include putting the work down for a long time and coming back to it later, maybe a day, or a week, or longer. What that does is get you separated from the emotional journey you had writing it. And if neither of those techniques work, and you feel low esteem, there’s always the opposite approach: roast yourself. Lean into the self depreciation, snort and gaffaw as you read it. You trade compassion for a biting eye. That’s best done with caution, it can reinforce a feeling your work isn’t getting better, but as long as you’re doing a close reading, whatever technique works is the best one for you.
OK, but, why are we doing this close reading? We wrote it. We accept it’s not perfect, and even if we re-read it, and then tweak it, it’s still not perfect. So what’s the point?
Because to become a better writer, you need to know your own flaws. Accepting them is the first step, and necessitates you become familiar with the quirks of your own writing. So, here’s a list of mine:
- For the love of god I do not describe my senses anywhere near enough. We’re gonna get to the ‘show don’t tell’ rant, I have strong feelings about how useless that is as a way of describing how you should evoke your scenes, but I’m aware I ‘tell’ too much.
- I rush parts of my sex scenes. Granted, that’s because most of the time I’m masturbating while I write, and when I’m spent I then need to somehow bring the scene to closure, but I can’t just write “(Author’s note, I just came for like the fifth time so I’m gonna end the scene here lol)”. I mean I could, it would be very funny, but no.
- I get into the weeds on tangents. What can I say I'm easily distracted. This one is interesting because it’s a good example of something I want to talk about down the line, namely leaning into your ‘flaws’ to make them strengths. Why are almost all my stories stream of consiousness? Because I like the mundane details and I lean into including them. So your flaws - sorry cumming <3
- phew. Your flaws can become assets.
Anyway...
- Spelling. Yeahhh, this one is a pain. I make a lot of typos, and I am bad at spotting them even when I re-read.
- Quirks. This is an umbrella term, but here’s some examples: I like to start sentences with ‘and’ or ‘but,’ which you technically shouldn’t do; I use sentence fragments for dramatic effect, which again, technically a no-no. These are ‘mistakes,’ but they work for me.
- Repeated phrases. If you want to deal free psychic damage to any writer, tell them what their most repeated phrase in their prose is. Alternatively, don’t, jerk, but in all seriousness it’s useful to know what you use a lot, and to try and vary it up a bit, but even if you do this will still happen.
That is not an exhaustive list. No writer could write their own, because you will never know all of yours. And again, that is why this step is about accepting your flaws, not discovering all of them. Every now and then, you’ll find a thing you do that’s a problem. If you can approach those with curiosity, and a willingness to learn from them, then you’ll keep improving with every one you spot.
Step two - make it regular
This goes for both writing, and reading your work. If you make it a habit you do every day at the same time of day, then it’ll get easier. Some writers set an amount of words to aim for, others have a fixed minimum, and some will settle for a single new word on the page. Some take breaks, some don’t. There’s no one size fits all way of doing this. Stephen King recommends 2,000 a day. There’s nothing magical about that, but it’s worth talking a little about how practice works.
If you do one word a day, you likely won’t get as much practice honing your skills as if you do 100, or 2,000, or any number between. But writing a few sentences could be as few as fifty words, and that might be the best practice for you at the outset. So I would say that maybe 50 is a good lower limit. There isn’t an upper one, but I’ve heard persuasive arguments about setting one, if say you burn out easily. Autistic hyperfixation writing can get out a ton of words, but leave you a smouldering mess if you don’t exercise self care. If you’re gonna do more, maybe consider taking breaks along the way.
If you make it the same time of day every day, then you’ll find just like food or sleep - if you’re able to do those at regular times - you just slip into it. This is also why re-reading is important: once you get the habit of writing down, you’ll enter a flow state where you don’t focus on the individual words and sentences as much, and that’s where the gremlins can sneak in.
It’s also good for self esteem. IYI is about to hit 300,000 words long, all from chipping away just like this. You can write huge projects if you do a little at a time.
Step three - hold yourself accountable
I learned this one from a friend. He posts when he finishes his writing for the day on a blog, and that way there’s a digital public place where he has to check in and say ‘yup I did it.’ My version is a calendar. I put a tick in every day I manage to do at least a paragraph of writing. Some days I won’t manage it, but that’s ok. If I feel up to it, I’ll write why I didn’t on those days. None of this is about admonishing yourself. It’s about giving yourself a compassionate neck-breather. And yes, you can just have a writing buddy you check in with, and say ‘did my writing today!’ In fact, that’s probably the best method.
I think if you do something 30 days in a row it solidifies it as a habit, or something like that. I’m probably misremembering that, but it sounds about right. My challenge to you then is to get an old calendar or make one on your phone, and see if you can do this for a month. Start from whatever day you want, or even retrospectively if you’ve been on a roll and know when you did / didn’t write.
Oh, and um...
Step four - have fun. No really, that should always be the whole point
One last note. I’ve talked about how re-reading your work isa great step to become a better writer. Reading others writing will also do this. Try to read a mixture of traditional published books, works similar to what you want to write on AO3, and your own work. If a writer does something you like, emulate it, borrow what you see them doing, and make it your own. Don’t just paste their words into your work of course, but borrow their vibes. Developing a voice as a writer is about creating an amalgamation of all the writing you love. If you can do that, you’ll be amazed how much easier it is to love your own writing.
That’s all for now! If you liked this first post please let me know, and tell me what topics you’d like me to cover in future posts! I have a few in mind, but I’ll go with what people ask for first and foremost. If you wanna support me, please consider leaving me a tip on my Kofi, but there is no obligation. But for now, get to work, and remember: keep one hand on the keyboard~
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