One of the biggest reasons I hear from so many about why they won't write that great story they have in their head is that they say they don't write real well. It's taken as an act of faith that poor skill in writing disqualifies people from ever even trying. Well, I'm here to tell you that's it's okay to be a bad writer.
Notice that I said writer, and not published author. I'll go more into the distinction in a minute, but suffice to say that no one starts off with the skills of the best. Even the best don't start off with the skills of the best. Yes, some have more natural talent than others, but unless you're a prodigy - the literary version of Mozart - no one writes well when they start.
So how do all of these great writers become great authors? They write. And they write. And then they write some more. More than that, they accept that their writing will be shitty for a while, and they'll accept criticism from folks who will be honest and tell them when their writing is shitty. They'll take that criticism and go back into what they wrote to try and fix it. They'll spend countless hours working and reworking stuff until it gets better(Stephen King once noted it takes about 10,000 hours to master any craft, including writing). Plus, a great deal of what they wrote won't even see the light of day.
That last part is important, because above I noted that you should accept being a bad writer but not a bad published author. Yes, even the best will have something bad slip through the cracks every so often, but most good writers will trash something they know is bad before they'll allow it to be seen by their audience. And that's hard. It's hard because we put so much into what we write that throwing it away feels like quitting, but we have to understand that it wasn't quitting - it was practice.
I've got some bad stuff in my drawer. Awful, terrible stuff that would destroy people's faith in my abilities as a writer. At the time I thought some of it was great, while I knew some would need work. With a more practiced eye, I can tell how bad it is. But I don't get down on myself. Instead, I say, "That crappy stuff helped me learn how to better craft a story."
Those afraid to write because they're afraid of looking bad need to accept that they'll write badly...until they learn enough to write well. Like anything else worth doing, it takes a long time to get good. Problem is that most people don't want to put in that work and want to go from nobody to superstar overnight. Accept the hard work and know that with that development, things will get better...even your writing.
Notice that I said writer, and not published author. I'll go more into the distinction in a minute, but suffice to say that no one starts off with the skills of the best. Even the best don't start off with the skills of the best. Yes, some have more natural talent than others, but unless you're a prodigy - the literary version of Mozart - no one writes well when they start.
So how do all of these great writers become great authors? They write. And they write. And then they write some more. More than that, they accept that their writing will be shitty for a while, and they'll accept criticism from folks who will be honest and tell them when their writing is shitty. They'll take that criticism and go back into what they wrote to try and fix it. They'll spend countless hours working and reworking stuff until it gets better(Stephen King once noted it takes about 10,000 hours to master any craft, including writing). Plus, a great deal of what they wrote won't even see the light of day.
That last part is important, because above I noted that you should accept being a bad writer but not a bad published author. Yes, even the best will have something bad slip through the cracks every so often, but most good writers will trash something they know is bad before they'll allow it to be seen by their audience. And that's hard. It's hard because we put so much into what we write that throwing it away feels like quitting, but we have to understand that it wasn't quitting - it was practice.
I've got some bad stuff in my drawer. Awful, terrible stuff that would destroy people's faith in my abilities as a writer. At the time I thought some of it was great, while I knew some would need work. With a more practiced eye, I can tell how bad it is. But I don't get down on myself. Instead, I say, "That crappy stuff helped me learn how to better craft a story."
Those afraid to write because they're afraid of looking bad need to accept that they'll write badly...until they learn enough to write well. Like anything else worth doing, it takes a long time to get good. Problem is that most people don't want to put in that work and want to go from nobody to superstar overnight. Accept the hard work and know that with that development, things will get better...even your writing.
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