Writing Advice

I once tried to join a local "writer's club" just to pick the brains of others and maybe not feel so alone in my craft. Turns out most of the writers were non-fiction. I write only fiction. The only other fiction writers and I got along okay but it wasn't all I thought it would be. 

I thought I'd make friends with like-minded individuals and we could maybe bounce ideas off each other, beta read for each other, talk about what we loved to read, that kind of stuff. But everyone was so different. Yeah, I was young and naive. Well, I was younger, I'm still pretty naive. 
They had different techniques, habits, opinions, etc. I think I made three meetings before I bailed. (It didn't help that they always wanted to meet in a small, crowded coffee shop where we had to practically yell to hear each other. Who the hell wants to yell out their short erotic story to strangers in public?)

My point is, people are different and writers are people too. You can't clump us all together. We think differently and we approach our writing differently. What works for one may not work for all. 
Our writing isn't all the same too. You can't compare me to Anne Rice because we both wrote some erotica. If I say I write fantasy, don't say "Oh, like The Lord of The Rings?" 
Uh, that is a fantasy, yes, but nothing at all like what I write. 

So when you give advice, remember that what works for some may not work for all. You might want to self-publish, I might prefer a publishing house. You might like to describe your characters in minute detail, I may leave more to the imagination. You might utilize all your social media outlets to promote your book and be very successful, I might do the same exact thing and be ignored. 

This is why I take all advice from publishers, editors and authors with a grain of salt. I listen, I consider it, then I decide if I should actually use it or not. Just because it worked for fifty other people does not mean it will work for me. I expect people to do the same with any advice I give because I am no expert. I only observe and report here, people. But I do the best I can.
Don't we all?