Confidence

[heredoncove]

Time for my weekly question.

How did you develop confidence in your writing? Are you confident in what you put out there for everyone to read? Do you second guess? Do you fake it till you make it?

I have to admit that I'm not really that confident in my writing. Before I started HC I could count on one hand how many people have read anything I did creatively. I'm certainly of the fake it until you make it bunch. It's gotten much better as I've spent more time doing it but I still feel really nervous the few moments before I press post.

[raquelaroden]

I'm more of a fake it till you make it sort, myself. When I started posting my stories, I was so scared. I'd seen a few other people absolutely slammed on their own blogs, and for a while I was so worried that would happen to me. But I figured that I wasn't well known, and it was unlikely that many people would find my story. I resolved to be careful with the places I advertised, and I also resolved to keep writing and posting even if I received a mean comment, because when it comes down to it, those people don't really matter in the grand scheme of things and I am writing to please myself.

As time goes on and I continue to receive positive comments and I pick up a reader here and there, I feel more confident in my writing. But I also try to read over my early chapters every now and then as a sort of....double reminder: on the one hand, I've come really far and I can gain confidence from reading those early chapters, knowing that my current chapters are so much better. But on the other hand, at that time in my writing that was the best I thought I could do, so it is a reminder to never think I've made it and that I'm writing as well as I possibly can. I can always improve.

I can't fathom why you aren't confident in your writing, because it is wonderful!

[laura]

It always happens to be when I think I've done okay on something that I get totally blindsided by some feedback/evidence that I did not do okay at all, lol! I don't know why this is, but it's something that's been happening for years, since uni. I'd turn in a poem that I thought was stellar, and nobody got it. Turn in something I thought was bland at best, and people would think it was genius. And I'm like

I do get a bit nervous before I post something on LH too, but usually only if it's something I worked really hard on, and something that I worry people might not take the way I intend it. Which is pretty much most of them, lol! Most of you routinely want to beat up my characters, so I kind of have to brace myself for that a bit ;D

Maybe we're all just faking it, because do we ever really make it? I agree with Rachel - I think it's a good thing to keep in mind that we're always growing and improving.

Take the current literary babble about Jonathan Franzen (whose novel I did not read yet, and probably won't). By anybody's standards, you could say he's "made it" and yet all anybody can talk about is how his book is not worth all the hype.

So in my experience, confidence in your writing isn't really something worth striving for. The second you think you've made it is the second you let down your guard and stop growing and stop learning.

Nicole, I think the way you feel before you hit "post" is completely normal and healthy. It ensures that your work is the best it can be, and as one of your readers, I can say that it is top notch!

[dinuriel]

I don't have a shred of confidence in anything I write--or anything I do, really. It's Private School Kid Syndrome; unless you're one of those lucky individuals who are just born with an impenetrable spirit and who receive the type and amount of nurturing needed to maintain it, you can't go through nine years at a private school without being pushed to either extreme of the confidence scale. Most of the kids I went to elementary and junior high with left the school with either A) absolutely no confidence left in them whatsoever or B) so much of it that the confidence had morphed into sheer arrogance and it was unfathomable how they managed to keep their inflated heads from floating off like balloons. I fell into Group A--and, five years later, I still haven't recovered and have resigned myself to the fact that I probably never will.

But at the same time... I have to get my writing out of me. It's like throwing up--okay, bad analogy, but you get the idea. I just can't let all those words sit around inside of me, because they keep coming and coming and if I don't let them out, they'll over-crowd and my head will explode. So I don't really worry too much about posting? I know a lot of my stuff isn't satisfactory, but it's a bit... cleansing to just post something, if that makes any sense.

I don't really fear negative feedback because I seem to be programmed to expect it--which is mildly tragic if you think about it, but I suppose it's also something of a survival mechanism and therefore beneficial in its own twisted way. Positive feedback, meanwhile, comes as a pleasant surprise that never fails to put a smile on my face.

Aaaand as usual I have no idea if I even answered the question. Sorry if I didn't :S

[celebkiriedhel]

How did you develop confidence in your writing?

I agree with the others, you don't. I think there is a point though where I learn to trust my voice. because it maybe crap, but it's MY crap goddammit!


Are you confident in what you put out there for everyone to read?

No. If it's a piece that's already been critiqued before, yes. But brand-new pieces. No.

Do you second guess?

When I write I pretty much ignore my readers, if I have any. I write primarily for myself as reader. Once I've put it up for reading - I'll go into meltdown trying to work out if other people will read it, and like it.

Do you fake it till you make it?

Not really. I try to talk myself into trusting my voice, but I pretty much certain that most everything I write is really only interesting to me, and is (as one of my tags on my blog says) unmitigated rubbish.

[heredoncove]

Its funny because you wonder whether best selling authors have moments of failing confidence. Do Stephen King or J.K Rowling, no matter how many books they've sold, agonize over what they're doing and think that they can't do it?

I guess I would just like to believe that you reach a point where you're assured that you're doing the right thing or at least going about it the right way.

And, Laura thanks much because sometimes I read LH right before I start working on a post and start wailing to myself about being you, but me, when I grow up.

[thelunarfox]

Writing is probably the only thing I really do feel confident in! But I'm definitely a fake it till you make it kinda girl in everything-- especially IRL.

Developing confidence in your writing can be done. At some point you simply have to make a contract with yourself and say, "I will trust myself." This is the part where you fake it and you have to remember to smack yourself if you think otherwise. This is THE single hardest part of the whole process I think because you need to have a will of iron and you have to refuse to let yourself dwell on the negativity.

When I hit low points where I lose confidence in my writing and stories, I will acknowledge it and face it head on. Which means that I will write more. I will write on a fresh page in my journal and write out all the bad thoughts I have until I run out of steam. I get really harsh too with myself sometimes.

Then I just leave that page there and write around it. Once I've gotten that out, I can carry on. Sometimes, if I feel the page is a pit of negative energy, then I'll rip the page out and throw it away.


I think too, the more you do it, the more field testing you get the easier everything gets. My writing has had plenty of field testing as far as I'm concerned. I've used it to make some wonderful friends, fall in love, smooth over difficulties, and express my pain and frustration. Each time it works, I gain more confidence until my head is so big it's a little hard to carry around.

[thelunarfox]

I do sound like I have a big head compared to the rest of you. Really? All of you feel you lack confidence for the most part? Am I understanding that?

I do agree that a lack of confidence, or a lack of satisfaction, can help because then you're always wanting to improve.

And also, I have had some comments where I've completely blindsided and felt that I didn't do well at all either. But at some point, I realized that once a piece of writing has left me, after I written it to the best of my ability at the time of writing it, it is out of my hands and becomes a beast completely separate from me. (At least most of the time I think I do think this. Other times I'm not always sure.)

It also used to happen to me a lot where I would work really hard on a paper and get bad marks from the teachers meanwhile a paper I had rushed out at the last minute somehow would get the best marks ever and the teacher would love it.

I think that was when I learned to simply trust myself. Instead of working hard to make something that sounded the way I thought it was supposed to sound, I did best when I wrote using my own voice. And from there, it pretty much snowballed.

[Stacy]

Nov 29, 2010 21:41:07 GMT -5 @thelunarfox said:

I do sound like I have a big head compared to the rest of you.

I haven't answered yet.

[Stacy]

All right, here we go.

First - I LOVE your idea of a weekly question! Please do keep posting them.

Second - I have read all the replies before mine. I will reply to them and to posts after mine and I will continue to read the thread and participate and I will not be all scared and avoidant.

How did you develop confidence in your writing?

One reason the internet hit me so hard - I have never heard a bad word about my writing IRL. Not ever. My friends loved it. My teachers loved it and told me I should be a writer. I got standing ovations when I read my stuff out loud in class. I also made someone cry once in creative writing and another student called me a genius. OH! And also in creative writing we went to this all regional workshop and the professional writer person there who read my story was all "OMG how old are you? This is great!"

So I spent my formative years, from first grade to senior year, receiving constant praise for my writing. This formed a very bad habit and now I expect to be kept in the lifestyle to which I am accustomed.

On the plus side, I do try to spread the gift I was given and praise others when I can.

Are you confident in what you put out there for everyone to read?

Huh. Hard question to answer.

Because I do have my moments when I go to look at a draft or an older entry and the letters drip with suck. Like - it's not anything I can fix. It's suck at the most basic level. The letters are all wrong and bad and I can rearrange them but it won't help, they will still drip with suck. Suck has become their very core.

But if you narrow it down to the moment when I hit the publish button - yes. Wouldn't hit publish if I didn't think it was done and ready.

Do you second guess?

I've gone back and edited a fair bit - oh man, especially 10.02. But I don't know if that's second-guessing. It's just going back after having more practice and learning more about writing and seeing how I could improve older work. I'm really pretty happy with the basic plot and characterization and everything of all my published stuff.

Do you fake it till you make it?

Nope, guess not.

I get a rush when I'm about to hit the publish button - my heart rate goes up, but in a good way. Oh man, especially with Valley - hitting publish on a Valley chapter was such a trip.

And yeah, I definitely get comments where I think a reader maybe hasn't gotten the point. Not anymore really, because 10 has a much smaller readership and self-selects for people who get my stuff. But Valley did. I must admit I mostly chalk it up to a difference in personality and perception and expectations and views of the story between the reader and me. I think I generally get across what I mean, but other people are going to see it differently because their internal reality is different and the lens through which they interpret art was ground by different means.

So yeah - I guess I'm in the pretty confident club with Lunar.

OH! This song is also on the new mix CD, Teh Epic Experience, and I was listening to it a lot at work today.

Old-timers will recognize it (our first prompt was based on it, actually) but for the new peeps...

I grew up in the foothills of North Carolina. I come from a long line of fiddlers - fiddlers who are known as some of the best ones around. This song speaks to me.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band

I was thinking, and you could interpret it as the Devil being insecurity and lack of confidence and an inner critic, and the golden fiddle being accomplishing your goals and getting your update out.

So if I feel fear, I tell it "I'll take your bet and you're gonna regret, 'cause I'm the best there's ever been."

[celebkiriedhel]

Stacy and Lunar

If you're feeling confident in your writing - then YAY!!! You've got plenty to be confident about! And that is a very good thing.

Stacy - I know what you mean about praise, and how to handle criticism.

My neice is a writer as well, and does so on deviant art. She had a piece she wrote, and got 75 responses (75! ) and only 1 was negative. She went into meltdown - simply because she'd never had any criticism of her work before. The other 74 responses didn't count to her. Just the one negative. Fortunately, she's of an age where her parents words still count, and they were able to teach her how to deal with it.

I think it's the hardest thing in the world to have to learn how to deal with criticism as an adult.

Lunar - I suppose it really depends what you're confident in. That's why I talk about trusting my voice, rather than confidence.

I'm confident I have a story to tell. And I'm confident that I'll tell it ... eventually.

But I'm not confident that other people will get it. Especially when I don't write for them anyways. And I'm not confident that people won't judge ME harshly based on my writing. <<That's already happened.

But I think the biggest thing is that I'm not confident that the story in my head that is glorious in full technicolour, with surround sound, smell-o-vision and tactile representation, will appear the same or just a watered down version when it hits the page.

What I'm learning as I write, is that it becomes it's own entity when I write, and it doesn't matter so much if it doesn't match what's in my head, because it is it's own creator.

Letting go of the need for perfection. And I recognise it - but I'm not there yet.

[blackdaisies]

I've shared my writing a few times in writing classes and clubs that I joined when I was in college. I got some good feedback from them to be honest, but I never really continued with it. I didn't feel confident that I could pull off an entertaining story and that's my primary goal for sharing what I write. I don't want to bore people to tears, so if I was not sure about a storyline, or I got massively writer's blocked, then I would stop and not continue.

Simtopi is actually the first story I've actually truly published and shared to this capacity, and it is the biggest project I've ever undertaken. It may possibly be the most attention I've ever gotten on the internet for a personal project. I've gotten a lot of great feedback about it, and that most of all has made me feel confident that I'm doing something right and hopefully going in the right direction. But left to myself, I can't be objective and I'm not sure at all. There are some things I like and there are some things I sit back, look at the work and wonder wtf am I doing with this?

I'm happy to say that many times when I finish a chapter I am confident that that's the way it had to go. I couldn't even explain why that is, or what makes me happy with it. Of course some chapters, I'm a complete wreck about and I do second guess myself whether I'm ready to hit the "post" button. I'm nervous and anxious about all the chapters I share, but with some, I'm a bit worse. I second guess myself after these chapters. I worry if I did the right thing with the plot line. I hope that my sentence structure is at least correct and that people will be honest with me in the feedback.

As for "faking it", I'm not even sure how one would do that with sim writing or writing in general. If it's to mean "faking confidence", then lol yeah I think I do that all the time. I don't generally like mentioning right away what I wasn't confident of in certain chapters. I write little author's notes, sometimes about how challenging or how enjoyable it was to work on the chapter, but I don't tell people when I'm not completely happy with anything. Part of that is for fear that they would agree with me (LOL!), but mostly because I'd rather the readers make up their own mind. Some of my readers do seem to touch on to what I might be feeling (without me prompting) and they mention it. It actually does make me feel better strangely enough and it helps me get over it and move on.

Anyway, that was me babbling. I'm tired tonight, but not yet sleepy.

[sb]

Confidence about writing seems to be pretty specific. I have more than enough confidence to tackle most things and don't spend any time worrying about what people are going to think if I get them wrong. Writing is different. It never looks or reads the way I envision it. I always second guess myself. It never gets any easier.

So if the anxiety is never going to go away, and if I intend to continue to write (and I do), I have to accept the fact that confidence isn't going to be a part of my tool kit. Saying I have to accept it doesn't make the worry go away though.

It does help not to focus so much on myself and what I feel.

[Stacy]

I found this post on a blog I've been reading.

Why I Could Write

Really opened my eyes to what it's like to not have the advantages I have had. To the point where I feel really really bad and horrible for that phrasing in that LJ post about a critical voice that you've let yourself internalize.

It sounds like growing up with a hate secret troll. Only the hate secret person is in your face all the time and is always there and is supposed to be the one person you can count on to love you.

[Stacy]

Nov 30, 2010 9:41:24 GMT -5 @sb said:

Confidence about writing seems to be pretty specific. I have more than enough confidence to tackle most things and don't spend any time worrying about what people are going to think if I get them wrong. Writing is different. It never looks or reads the way I envision it. I always second guess myself. It never gets any easier.

So if the anxiety is never going to go away, and if I intend to continue to write (and I do), I have to accept the fact that confidence isn't going to be a part of my tool kit. Saying I have to accept it doesn't make the worry go away though.

It does help not to focus so much on myself and what I feel.

I'm trying to just listen, so I'm just going to say - I heard you.

[sb]

Stacy, I love the link you left.

I have mixed feelings about it though. Mothers want to protect their children, and most mothers (including mine) make mistakes trying to do that. Steering a child away from a risky path is something they do. And mothers come with their own prejudices and expectations and blind spots. They categorize their children: the smart one; the practical one. My smarter brother is definitely smarter although it hurt to be told that as a child. He grew up arrogant and accomplished and I grew up taking care of all the non-smart crap and thinking he's a hopeless child and he'd better get a damned clue. He's probably happier in his role than I am in mine. I'm not one bit afraid of taking on brutally difficult situations, but I'm scared of writing. Does that mean my mother was right? Or did she create that situation?

I also believe some children are born with some kind of confidence gift. It's like a dimmer switch permanently set on bright.

And if I said something offensive here, please forgive me.

[lhasa]

*leeches some confidence off of Stacy and Lunar*

I'm a strange case. I'm pretty darn confident of my writing in real life, but I tend to criticize my work a lot online. Like Stacy, I'm used to being praised for my work by teachers, students, others, etc. etc. I made my one English teacher cry and tell her mom about how my short stories were "the best she has ever seen by any of her students". (The truth is that I wrote that story during the lunch period before it was due, but don't tell her that. ;) ) Most teachers have told me that I should become a writer, but I really don't want to because I don't think my writing will ever be good enough to be published professionally. I guess my confidence isn't that great, haha.

Most of that confidence seems to melt away when I'm online. I think it deals with the larger audience. In real life, a few people are going to read my writing, but online? There's the chance of millions upon millions of people reading it! (Note that I said "chance", because I'm pretty sure I have a very small audience for my work, lol)

I'm often intimidated by the quality of work I see here and other places, so there's basically no room for me to be super confident. I kind of like it that way. It's not like I (completely :P ) hate my work, but I can give myself a pat on the back for writing a chapter without thinking I'm the hottest thing on the block. (Sort of) confident without being cocky about it. And I don't think I'm very fake-it-to-you-make-it because I tend to criticize my work everywhere I go.

It wasn't always like this. I used to have TONS of e-confidence, but it was all based on what comments I received. When the comment count was low, my e-confidence waned to nothing. It reached an all-time low when I received any sort of criticism.

Thankfully, I've pretty much gotten past that. I'm now to the point where I can actually (kind of) my writing while still being able to see the faults in it and actually loving it when people tell me things I can work on to improve it. There are still some bad anxiety issues I need to work out, but it's a start.

[thelunarfox]

I like the idea of acceptance , Beth. That in itself is another form of bravery because you continue despite how you feel about it.

The praise thing in that entry made me a little uncomfortable. You shouldn't ever lie to a child. You also shouldn't knock a child down or box them in. When my niece and nephew were little, when they'd show me projects or neat things they did, I'd always be honest. I never just said, "That's good."

Part of the problem with saying, "That's good, honey," is that children will know you're lying and stop trusting what you say after a while. They stop trusting positive feedback all together. They start to think that any and all positive feedback are just pats on the head that mean nothing.

Plus there's the whole self worth thing. Kids start to associate what they do with their self worth. And that's not right at all.

So when my niece would show me one of her pictures when she was little, I would look at it and tell her specifically what I liked about it. I'd tell her I liked the amount of detail, or I liked the face, or I'd ask her to tell me the story behind it. Now she's older, so I can give her constructive criticism with her compliments. I'll tell her I love some idea of hers, and give her some ideas of stuff that might work (but also might not).

'Course, she was one of those kids born with the confidence switch nailed to on, and no one has ever dimmed it. (And I think you can turn that confidence switch off with kids very easily with only words.)



Kiri, I understand what you mean about trusting your voice, but I prefer not to do a breakdown. When I'm tasked with anything, I ask myself if I can do it, and then I say, "Yes, and if not, we'll fake it until we can."

Confidence doesn't automatically mean that I'll be good at everything, and it doesn't mean that I feel as if everything I've done is good. But it does mean that I won't work with that nagging voice in my head that wants me to doubt myself. Confidence is exactly about learning that it's okay to screw up, and that everything is fixable. If I screw up one update, I resolve to fix it the next time around. It's about always going forward, never going back. (As Dad always said, "What do you do? Keep on marching.")


I saw this quote on twitter yesterday and added it to favorites right away.

"If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin." - Ivan Turgenev

I think you're right, Kiri, to learn to let go of that need for perfection. And I think Beth's way of accepting imperfection goes along with this.

[lhasa]

What a great quote, Lunar. I need to remember that myself.

[laura]

Acceptance is a good word. I would call what I feel for my writing acceptance, but not confidence. I accept it - I know what it is, and what it isn't. I know where it shines and where it falls short. And usually, even at the moment of publication, I know it could be better than it is, but I also know I've made it the best I could at that moment. Criticism doesn't usually knock me down. I can usually take it into consideration, get at the roots of it, and use it to make my work better. And I feel like that's a healthy place to be.

I'm finding this conversation on parenting very interesting as well. I agree, Beth. I think mothers probably do have good intentions when they're doing these things that we grow up to remember as stifling. They just want us to be happy, but the problem comes when their idea of happy doesn't mesh with ours. Or the way they accept and process information isn't the same way we do.

All of our parents have done wrong by us, with usually good intentions. It makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong with my own kid? :\