I spotted this post over at A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing and couldn’t walk away without passing it on, because it’s about as essential as essential gets. Confident or Delusional? ‘Tis a brilliant (and entirely true) entry. Some highlights:
Confident writers expect to be periodically rejected.
Delusional writers are shocked every time someone fails to recognize their brilliance.Confident writers take suggestion.
Delusional writers believe their words are written in stone.Confident writers work even when it’s hard.
Delusional writers believe they need to be inspired first.
If you write or have any inkling of writing, you need to read this. Read it and ABSORB it. A lot of those lessons are hard learned. You need to set aside the naive arrogance of youth or, more commonly, the arrogance one wears when one isn’t truly and genuinely confident in their work.
Or when one is just a naive imbecile. There is also that.
And hey, I’ve been all of them. Thought I was doing well when I wasn’t, though I had great ideas when I didn’t, thought I had my head wrapped around this writing thing when I didn’t (smart enough now to know that I still don’t), and so on. For instance, the “inspiration” thing, ugh. I wasted years of writing time clinging to that absolute bullshit.
So anyway, go, read it, absorb it, and read it again. ‘Cause that right there is a great post.
