The mentor who told me to write 500 words of pure trash every morning was right
Last March, my writing group leader said to start each day by typing 500 words of absolute garbage, no editing, no thinking, just dump it out. I thought she was nuts, my stuff was already bad enough. But after 6 weeks of doing it before coffee, I hit a scene in my fantasy novel that needed a death for the side character, and the words just flowed out, complete, no stalling. That trash habit turned into my draft's backbone, so now I ask every prompt writer here, what's the worst writing advice you followed that actually worked?