When Your Words Seem Inconsequential

Those days are the worst. When you look back over your plot notes, character sketches, and a few attempts at a beginning, and you get the creeping sense that maybe the world doesn’t need it. When you remember that you’re just one person in an endless sea of words, and you’re afraid they’re going to drown yours out. Yeah, those days are pretty bad.

Unless you decide to fight back.

Who else is going to tell this story? Who else has your voice? Who else sees the world the way you do? Who is you but you?

No one.

That may sound like a bunch of airy-fairy crap, but it’s true. (Not counting doppelgängers, of course.) Every writer is different, so it follows that their stories will be different as well. The days I described above usually happen when we compare ourselves and our work to others. But if all of us are different, what use is it to compare our stories to ‘Pride and Prejudice’, the ‘Hunger Games’, or ‘Harry Potter’? Or ourselves to those authors? None. Your words are yours and no one else’s. If you believe in them, work with them, make them grow, they will have weight and meaning with your readers.

Not so inconsequential now, eh?

We all have those days. It’s up to you whether you’ll give in to doubt and fear or push back with all your might, sitting down to write that day anyway. Your words are powerful. It’s just a matter of getting them down on paper. Don’t give up on your stories. Revive the spark that inspired you, that one thing you loved about that idea, and keep going. You’ll get there. And when you do, your readers will make you wonder how you ever doubted your writing’s worth at all.

What bad days have you had? What was your response? Did you have help pushing past the fear? Or did you give yourself a breather? Put your answers in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you found this post helpful.

Happy Wordsmithing!

Writing Bravely

…Is hard. Really, really, REALLY hard. Why? For starters, we’re afraid–being brave pretty much requires fear. What are we afraid of? Making people unhappy. One of our most basic desires is to please other people. We want to be liked, even loved, by everyone we encounter, even though that’s an impossibility. When we write bravely, we risk making people dislike us. If you’re taking a firm stance on a subject, there will be someone who vehemently disagrees with you, usually in anger. If you try something different in fiction, whether it be a different type of story, combining two previously separate story types, a new element in a story type, a different perspective, whatever, there will be someone who doesn’t like it.

But that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Because if you’re writing for the right reasons, the world’s opinion of you won’t matter. Sure, you’ll hope that people enjoy it, find meaning in it, and value it, and the lack of such reactions will sting, but it isn’t your main focus. Your focus is on the writing. On doing something new, something exciting, something you love.

Also, the only way something great can be written is if the author is willing to look foolish. If the writer is so wrapped up in the audience’s opinion that they are unwilling to try something unexpected, they’ll end up writing the stories that have been written before. In some cases, they’ll be paralyzed, unable to write a word. We’ve all been there. I struggle with it every day. But in order to achieve something truly special, we have to be willing to push past it, to fight the fear and do what we love in spite of it.

Because when we do, great things can happen.

For instance, I never thought I could get even a small group of people to care a mite about anything I said. Here I am, writing to a small crowd, doing my best to communicate everything I know about the craft and the art of writing, and you know what? With every post, I feel the fear a little less.

I know it might seem laughable, but it’s actually a huge deal to me, not only that I’ve found a way to combat my fear, but that you all have seen fit to stick with me over months of inconsistency because there was something in my content, in my words, that you found worth reading. And that’s the one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given.

That is what vulnerability looks like. I told you something I never thought I’d share. Allowing ourselves to be seen and heard is exactly what happens when we write bravely. Opening our souls and our minds to criticism is difficult, but it’s necessary if we ever hope to write something beautiful and true.

This post isn’t instructive, but I hope you found it helpful! If you have anything to share, feel free. What are your biggest fears about writing? Do you have any stories of triumph to share? Any failures, spectacular or otherwise? Thank you so much for reading, and have a fabulous day!

Happy Wordsmithing!