Book Report: Dear Writer, You Need to Quit

About the Book

The complete book title is: Dear Writer, You Need to Quit: What to Keep, What to Quit, What to Question. All sixteen chapters begin with the word “Quit.” The author, Becca Syme, is the writing coach who developed the successful “Write Better-Faster” courses.

This book (185 pages) was not written to augment or promote her writing better and faster courses—quite the opposite. In this “Dear Writer” book, Becca explains why writing better-faster isn’t for everyone and how that isn’t a bad thing. She now has three “Dear Writer” books on Amazon, available in print, Kindle, and audiobook.

Writing Patterns

Becca begins by explaining how our brain patterns influence (or determine) our writing patterns, and when we find our particular pattern we should look for a writing system that fits it. This is much preferable to trying to bend our natural writing pattern to match someone else’s writing system. In this quest, she promotes the practice of QTP: Question the Premise. She uses QTP throughout the book, re-explaining what it is and why this process works in our favor.

She illustrates how many of the premises writers accept and operate under actually cause them to lose productivity, confidence, capacity, and momentum (pp 22-25). I like her explanations and agree that QTP works in most areas of our lives, not just our writing process.

In Chapter 3 Becca delves into an examination of systems, both natural (e.g. bodily system) and manufactured (e.g. computer system), pointing out that our writing productivity is also a system, composed of patterns, personality, resources and environment. She explains that something can impact a part of our system without noticeably crippling the whole system, yet still causing a drain.

Keystone Habits

I especially appreciated her discussion about Keystone Habits, those habits upon which other habits rely. So if your writing system seems to get bogged down and you don’t know why, don’t change everything. In her words: “Don’t change all the things!”

Case Studies

Becca uses detailed case studies to explain the types of problems some of her clients faced and what seemed to help them get back on track. In one of these case studies, she explained  the aspects of “perfect alignment” for an author, which include: personality, platform, patterns, resources, and environment. For every author these will be different, although many will be similar.

She explains why the “write better-faster” approach isn’t for everyone, regardless of who wrote the book or is teaching the course. Becca acknowledges that regardless of the approach to increasing productivity, the system being taught can be a problem for the author if it kicks him or her out of their writing system alignment. When this happens, the authors won’t be doing their best work because we are longer aligned with the kind of author they are. In the book’s case studies, Becca gives good examples of how this has happened to some of her clients and how they worked to get the author back on track.

Wired

According to Becca, an author’s alignment of personality, platform patterns, resources and environment is how they are wired for success. Authors may in time write better and faster but their progression to that pace will be more natural if they remember to maintain their personal writing alignment and not strive to copy someone else’s.

The book’s author demonstrates how some authors with one or two successful books will suddenly find themselves unable to complete another. They seem off their game and often come to a consultant like her in search of the reason Why. Many times it’s because they have bought the premise that they aren’t doing something right and need to change.

FOMO

Many times this happens because FOMO (fear of missing out) has pressured them to operating outside their aligned pattern, putting them in a place where they are no longer efficient or functional. She reiterates that if an author’s book process takes them three or four months to complete a book, it is a mistake for them to attempt a better-faster process that may well pull them out of alignment.

Conclusion

The author has a personable writing style that reads as though I’m listening to her speak to a small group from behind a book-signing table. She is a master at one-liners, many of which made me smile.

I recommend this book to authors who have had some modicum of success but fear that’s all they’ll have because they can’t seem to either repeat what they did before or expand it. I believe they’ll find her “Question the Premise” techniques useful as they work toward greater publishing success.

Happy writing!  
Ann