There is a lie you absorbed so early you never questioned it.
It says writing is a race.
Somebody is ahead of you, somebody is gaining on you, and if you just push harder than them, you win.
Let me tell you what that lie once cost me.
Years ago I entered a month-long writing event. Itās where the platform tracked everyoneās word count on a live leaderboard.
It was my favorite contest.
I looked forward to this each year with crazy anticipation.
Those who know me use the term āprolific writerā, but thereās a better term, IMHOā¦
Insane.
Every single morning I looked, and every single morning one name sat anywhere from three to twenty thousand words ahead of me.
So I pushed.
Coffee, naps, writing.
Coffee, naps, writing.
When my arthritis stopped me, I asked my my wife to massage my hands.
I popped ibuprofen and aspirin like they were Pez candy.
The result?
I wrote three hundred and sixty-eight thousand words in one month to beat that competing writer.
When it was over, my body literally shut down.
I was so sick I disappeared for two weeks.
Then I found out the truth about the man I had been racing.
He was a very nice guy from Russia, who didnāt even know the event existed.
Hell, he didnāt know Jaime Buckley existed.
It still hurts to think about thisā¦
He wasnāt writing at all.
ā¦he was uploading pages out of gaming manuals to build a world for his tabletop game!
My favorite platform in the whole world WAS COUNTING EVERY LINE!!
*ARRRGH!!*
I had wrecked my health chasing a person who wasnāt even IN the race.
I wasnāt losing to a writerā¦.
I was losing to a library.
[I will pause here as you laugh at me.]
[No, really, itās okay,ā¦Iām over it now. Go aheadā¦]
Thatā what comparison does.
It picks a number off someone elseās screen and convinces you your whole worth is stapled to it!
Itās a complete and total LIE.
You have no idea what that number even is, or if the person holding it is running at all!
My friend Kummer Wolfe shared his view on the podcast.
āEvery writerā, he said, āis running up the same hill toward the same wall, with arrows raining down on all of us at once. You can claw over the people next to you. Or you can reach back, grab a hand, and pull the next writer up beside you... and it costs you nothing on the climb. Nobody up there is keeping your seat warm by knocking someone else off theirs. It was never that kind of hill.ā
[mic drop]
So listen to meā¦
Put the scoreboard down.
Not because comparison is impolite, but because it is bad math.
It measures you against a number you cannot see, held by someone who may not be playing your game.
ā¦or any game at all.
The only writer worth measuring against is the one you were, last chapter.
In the newest episode of Nothing About This Is Safe, Kummer Wolfe and I walk through this, and then into the part that actually pays the bills.
Listen here. šš¼ š EPISODE 15: How Do You Make a Living as a Fiction Writer Without a Bestseller?
And when youāre ready to stop chasing one big break, I can show you how to build income you can actually control. The deep dive lays out the whole method, step by step, with a worksheet included.
Read the deep dive. šš¼ How Fiction Writers Turn One Book Into Steady Income: The Trickle Strategy
Your Turn
What would change in your writing life if you stopped comparing yourself to other writers and just focused on the next piece of work?
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About This Podcast
Nothing About This Is Safe is the monthly writing-truth podcast hosted by , featuring candid conversations with working authors. We go after the real questions fiction writers actually search for ... craft, identity, mindset, publishing reality, money, and creative survival ... without sugarcoating and without performance.
If a writer is looking for an honest answer, these are the conversations you want to listen to.
Jaime Buckley
Nothing about this is safe, but itās worth it.
Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course
You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.
You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.
Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.
That is exactly what this course fixes.
Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Methodā¢ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:
Design catalytic Events that force your story to move
Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters
Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it
Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page
This is not a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.
Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.
Build the world that outlives you.
Well, as I've said before... "With Coffee, I'm bright" šand at times, quotable!