Kurt Dinan is the Library Foundation's Writer-in-Residence for 2016-2017. He shares several tips for writers, including writing about what you know, finding a writing process that works for you, allowing for a rough first draft, surrounding yourself with better writers, understanding your first draft may not be good, setting a word count goal, finishing drafts, supporting other writers, and saving old ideas. Dinan teaches high school and wrote a book about high school students. He encourages new writers to finish their first novel to feel a sense of success.

1. Insider Writing Tips From
Kurt Dinan
Library Foundation Writer-in-Residence

2. Kurt Dinan is the Library Foundation’s
Writer-in-Residence for 2016-2017.

3. In between teaching sophomore English and
creative writing at William Mason High School and
being the father of four, he penned his first book
Don’t Get Caught.

4. Dinan has a passion for writing and telling
stories. Here are his tips for writers.

5. BE WHO YOU ARE

6. Write what you know. I’m a high school
teacher and I wrote a book about high
school students because that’s the world
I’m familiar with.

7. FIND A PROCESS THAT
WORKS FOR YOU

8. Eliminate distractions and daydreams.
Find a place to write without foot traffic,
noise pollution and, if possible,
away from the Internet.

9. Every writer writes differently.
Find what works for you and do it.

10. ALLOW YOURSELF A
LOUSY FIRST DRAFT.
WRITE IT, THEN RIGHT IT.

11. Writing well takes patience and
persistence. And that only comes if you
give yourself permission to be bad at first.

12. Don’t give up when frustration hits.

13. SURROUND YOURSELF
WITH BRILLIANCE

14. Read people who are better than you’ll ever
be. Listen to podcasts by people who are
smarter than you. Engage with people who
intellectually intimidate you.

15. UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR
WORDS ARE NOT HOLY TEXT

16. Just because you wrote those words, that
paragraph, those pages, doesn’t mean they’re
good. Be willing to cut and revise what
doesn’t work

17. SET A WORD COUNT
AND STICK TO IT

18. Give yourself a daily word goal.

19. If you give yourself a time goal, say an hour, you’ll
write for two minutes then just screw around on
your computer for the next 58 minutes.
Trust me on this.

20. FINISH THE THING

21. Most first drafts are bad.
But you have to have something to
revise in order to find the real piece.

22. For beginning writers, having the success of
finishing a novel is vital. Now that you know
you can do it, you can do it again.

23. RAISE ALL BOATS!

24. It’s easy to get jealous of other writers and the
successes that inevitably come to them.

25. Writing isn’t a competition, and all writers
benefit from books sales. Support your peers!

26. SAVE EVERYTHING!

27. You never know when an old idea will have new
life breathed into it. Also it’s a good measuring
stick for how you’ve grown as a writer.

28. FOR MORE ABOUT THE WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE, VISIT
CincinnatiLibrary.org/WriterinResidence