I think a lot of writers hate themselves, at least a little. We desperately want to have someone look at our writing and tell us that it\u2019s good, that they want to publish it, and that we are worthy of the career we\u2019ve been pursuing. We want readers and respect and most of all, validation.<\/p>\n
But every writer I know, at least the ones who are apprenticing the hell out of their work and constantly trying to get better, also have this fear that they don\u2019t measure up. That they probably never will. And in their quiet time, when no one\u2019s around, they wonder if they should just stop. If they should finally let go of the writing and the dream and everything else that goes with it. Because belief is hard and the signs of failure are everywhere.<\/p>\n
Not being able to believe in ourselves prevents us from believing in our work, and this is why many of us never think our stories or novels or screenplays are ready to see the light of day. For all the self-naysayers among us, I have two words for you: shut up. Your head\u2019s in a dangerous place and you\u2019re being self-destructive.\u00a0 You aren\u2019t preventing rejection. You\u2019re guaranteeing a lack of success.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to stop hating on your stories. Write something you like. Write something you would want to read. Tell a story that amuses or haunts or titillates you. Work on making it the best you know how, and then let it go. Send it out into the world, and move on to the next thing. There should always be a next thing.<\/p>\n
When it comes to my own writing, I try to make myself smile. It\u2019s hard to laugh at your own jokes as you\u2019re writing them, but if I do manage to pull it off, I know there\u2019s a good chance I\u2019ve got something good. Sometimes it\u2019s a story. Other times it\u2019s a chapter. I will even admit that I spent the better part of the day chuckling at a one-liner I slipped into scene.<\/p>\n
I realize there\u2019s a chance that my audience could eventually end up just being me. That thought is almost enough to make me want to walk away from the keyboard altogether, but I try not to. Most days I succeed. But when I make myself laugh, I\u2019m having a good time, and it\u2019s a good day. And when other people laugh along with me, well … that\u2019s just about as sweet as it gets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think a lot of writers hate themselves, at least a little. We desperately want to have someone look at our writing and tell us that it\u2019s good, that they want to publish it, and that we are worthy of the career we\u2019ve been pursuing. We want readers and respect and most of all, validation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[218,398,826,875],"class_list":["post-2788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-confidence","tag-fear","tag-perseverance","tag-process-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}