I Know I Should Feel Guilty, But It Is What It Is

I know I should feel guilty, but it is what it is 🤷‍♀️

take your time, they said.

the words will come to you, they said.

“You’re Not a Good Writer.”

I once received a DM comprised of just that sentence. Nothing else. No constructive criticism or any reason as to why this person clearly agreed with my own view of myself.

For someone who has never told anyone in their real life that they write anything, reading something like this from an anonymous user only solidified in my mind the fact that this person was right.

I’m not a good writer.

After an embarrassing amount of minutes passed, in which I thought about deleting every story I ever posted, I decided to delete the message instead. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean I could delete the feelings it caused or change the fact that I’m not a good writer.

Two weeks went by and I didn’t write anything, let alone post. Then I received a comment on a story I had posted three years prior, one I’d written after a death in our family. The comment read, “Thank you for sharing this heartfelt story. I really needed this. I just lost my mom and this really got me today.”

I stopped thinking about being a good writer after that. I thought instead, “what if I had deleted my stories and that one person three years later hadn’t read it that day?”

Here’s what I realized: no one is a good writer.

Good means to be approved of, but stories aren’t created from approval. They’re built from life experiences, feelings, and emotions Therefore, the impact of anyone’s story isn’t good or bad. It’s a million other things.

Heartfelt.

Sad.

Funny.

Inspiring.

Romantic.

So to all the story writers out there, hold your head up, write what is in your heart, and never doubt that there isn’t at least one person out there that needs to read your story.

So, no.

We’re not good writers, but why would we want to be?

This is a fucking awesome advise and I will definitely use it

My advice when folks are struggling with writing in the third-person omniscient is to Lemony Snicket it up. Give your omniscient narrator strong opinions about what’s going on. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that the third-person omniscient perspective must also use the objective voice; those are two separate things, and many of the most popular and successful writers who’ve written in the third-person omniscient do not, in fact, use the objective voice.

Sad part is that as of now I’m not even procrastinating, just that my college professors are being bitches that send tons of homework without giving actual class as if they were the only subject in the semester. Now I have less time than begore which is crazy and it is almost tearing me apart.

Sorry for the sleep deprivation fueled rant.

Writers during quarantine: Yes! Free time! I’ve been longing for this my whole life. I’m gonna get so much writing done

Also writers during quarantine: Procrastinating so bad that you’re writing less than you did before quarantine.

I’m definitely gonna start doing that

Adding small moments of existence to your writing 

What I’m talking about is proof of life outside your characters in your world. Not in the sense of ‘talking to the cashier at the checkout’, but things like:

Graffiti etched into a desk your character sits in during an exam

Realising that someone has come along and arranged the cans on the shelf so the labels say something stupid

Dirty vans that have ‘wash me’ written in the dried mud

A coin that has been stuck into a piece of gum on a handrail

Little things that show the world still goes on despite whatever is happening to the characters. 

This helps make the world a world, not just a setting. There are other people with other lives doing stupid, funny, dangerous, things that in no way impact the protagonist. You don’t have to dwell on them, they can only be mentioned briefly in passing during the set up of a scene, but it will help create life within the background of the story and give the characters a chance to briefly think about something other than themselves/their situation.

Me: I need to stop obsessing towards my faves and everything they do.

Them: *breathe*

Me: *inhales* you are the cutest thing i love you so much and i would die for you and keep you safe and give you lots of hugs and lots of kisses and make you breakfast in the morning and i'd make sure you were always happy and make you smile and laugh *exhales*

faves meaning: Newt, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Caspian, Peter Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, etc

This is my life, these are my choices