Writing and Confidence
Sometimes it’s not just life that gets in the way of our writing. Sometimes it’s us. I’m not just talking about the Inner Critic (who, you may remember, I try to call the Outer Critic as a reminder to speak to myself in a way I’d speak to others). I’m also talking about our actual, objective assessment of our writing abilities. The ones where we look over our work and say, yes, it needs work. It’s important we cultivate that skill—separating our Critic from our actual abilities—because we won’t improve as writers unless we recognize where and how we need to improve as writers.
But even if we can finally assuage our Critic, and look closely at our own work, we can still easily fall into despair. We think we’re terrible writers because, well, we’re still comparing our work to other books. And even when we remind ourselves that we’re not reading their first draft, it can sometimes feel that our final version will never measure up.
There’s only one answer to that: practice. Study the writing of those you admire, learn what you can from their works, then learn how to apply those lessons to your own writing. It’s not about imitation—many artists can copy the Mona Lisa—but about absorbing what you can from the authors you love.
Which mean, reading is also on your to-do list of writing tasks. Isn’t it nice when your interests align? 🙂