The best advice on writing I’ve ever read was in the late John Gardner’s books on the subject, still in print, I think. I disagreed with some of it, and over the years have found a lot of contradictory advice from others (write what you know, no, write what you don’t know, etc.) There ain’t no formula, baby!
Yeah, I agree. I also think one of the biggest traps is fear that you’ll never be able to do the story as well as it appears in your head. There’s no formula, and self-editing in the creative phase is death.
Unless, of course, that’s your formula...