Whatever You Do, Don’t Listen To the Poets

When my client booked a week at a writing retreat to draft her book, I thought uh oh. 

I worried that she would be in community with what I call “Writers” — artsy, creative, dreamy people who aspire to write novels, poetry, plays. People who I feared would give her advice that wasn’t bad, per se, but wasn’t appropriate for her situation.

(My client is writing a book on business finance for Simon & Schuster.)

After checking myself on my (many) assumptions, I told her that it was likely she would be surrounded by fiction authors, poets, and maybe someone writing their life story.

In that conversation, I shared that those authors’ experiences — with writing, with selling books, with their publishers — likely wouldn’t be similar to hers. And, therefore, not really indicative of anything that could or would happen with her book.

Then I said something important and unequivocal.

Whatever you do, don’t listen to the poets. 

(Ironic, because we’re both Swifties and we had this conversation literally a week before The Tortured Poets Department came out. IYKYK.)

So often I hear folks saying something like, 

“I heard this from so-and-so . . . is that true?”

Or 

Broad-generalization-not-based-in-fact followed by immediate and intense worry

But here’s the thing. 

Whatever that story or generalization is that you’ve been told, heard through others, or read on the Internet, has nothing to do with YOUR unique situation.

That’s because every book is different.

Because every author, every business, every goal, every day is different. 

Writing, publishing, and otherwise. So when you hear a story about someone’s failure or even their success — know that is just one story. And guess what? 

It’s not your story. 

. . . As for my client — she realized I was right the very first night she gathered with the other writers at her retreat — whose books, goals, and dreams were different from hers. 

Not better, not worse. 

Just different.