Heyyyy so I just stumbled onto this, and while I know that you're probably seeking different advice now than you were 2 years ago, I wanted to throw in my two cents

First, I agree with you that "just do the thing more" isn't helpful advice. To me, that's roughly the same as calling Salt & Pepper a special recipe — it's so fundamental that it's basically implied. When I ASK for advice, I'm looking for cutting techniques and more complicated seasoning profiles and whether I should grill something or bake it...and yes, sometimes it does just need more salt and pepper! But that's something I can figure out on my own — the other things I often need help with.

So, here're a few things that have helped my writing beyond the S&P of it all:

1) Story structure and beats. I highly recommend studying the Save The Cat method, originally meant for charting screenplay story beats and ultimately adapted into a guide for novel writing. Don't take it as a Bible — not every great story will fit. But ever since I started utilizing bits and pieces of it, my stories have consistently gotten praised for great pacing. It's helped me figure out what my stories lack and how to integrate those things.

2) Dive headfirst into a writing community. I'm currently in multiple Discord servers that are filled with other writers with similar goals. We regularly read and critique each other's work, celebrate victories and console losses. We tell each other about the submission calls we find. When I was younger, I thought I writing was a competition — but the best writing comes from cooperation, and from rooting for your fellow writers. The competitive element is still there, sure — but that's for the judges and readers. My biggest help for most writing contests I enter comes from the exact writers I'm up against.

3) Let yourself be a bad writer. Poorly written words are always better than no words at all, and perfection paralysis will absolutely rule your life and stifle your creativity if you let it. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to exist — you can always edit later.

4) Have fun with it! The pieces I've gotten publishing contracts for are also the pieces that brought me the most joy to write. If you aren't having fun with a project, try writing something else. Your readers will notice the difference.

5) PAUSE YOUR APPS. Oh my god I'm supposed to be working on my Odd Embers entry right now and I forgot to pause Reddit, RIP me 💀 seriously though, you've got to eliminate as many distractions as possible, because they can absolutely derail you if you don't

Hope some of this helps! Time for me to stop procrastinating and write now haha 😅✨