WRITING

How Confidence Turned a Crappy Writer into a Selling Machine

Confidence separates the wannabe writers from the skilled pros out there living the dream. Here’s how to find it.

When I first started out writing, I didn’t know where to start or what to do. So like any good up and coming writer, I found someone whose writing I admired. I asked them to mentor me and guide me along the path to better writing.

B, my friend and mentor, laughed at the idea. Writing wasn’t a job. It was a hobby. A party trick. It wasn’t something you practiced or tried to learn. You either had it or you didn’t.

But I twisted his arm and convinced him that, no, writing could be a career. Tons of people are doing it by simply committing to the act of being a writer. Hell, he and I could do it together.

So together, we set out on our writing journey. He was leaps and bounds ahead of me in terms of skill, which showed during critiques and discussions we had about the craft of writing.

My stories lacked development, structure, and unique characters. On top of that, I didn’t know most or any literary lingo. What exactly was a turning point or a scene? And, a better question: how was I supposed to craft any of that?

Even though I felt like an absolute joke whenever I shared my writing, I kept at it. After a few months of working together, B remarked that I was getting better at a really fast rate.

You see, while he spent his time musing on about being a great writer—not doing anything more to be discovered or to make it—I spent every second I could, learning about storytelling, working on my craft, and reading.

At first, my confidence came from the sheer fact that I knew the truth about making it as a writer.

Writing Truth #847: The only way to make it as a successful writer is to keep at the craft while continuously growing your skills.

Over time, my confidence became rooted in the fact that I had begun reading way more current published books, stories, and the like. That increased my knowledge of not only the craft of writing but about how to publish my work.

While B was still writing like Tolkien and Brooks, I was experimenting with new forms reminiscent of Lien and Jemisin. In the year that we remained friends and writing partners, I began to realize that he wasn’t really mentor material. B was not interested in growing as a writer and continued writing the same characters and the same stories in the same way.

I, the crappy writer, started writing from prompts, analyzing texts, and reading current magazines and publications within my genre. My. newfound confidence allowed me to see past the critiques and into the future. I knew that if I stayed committed, I’d one day see my name alongside those authors I admired.

Two years later, I work as a full-time writer and B no longer writes. I made the thing he never believed possible—let alone possible for me—happen within a couple of years of starting to write. Now I write for my dream publications and have met my heroes as colleagues.

Here’s the main difference between B and me: I approached my writing with confidence even though, at first, there wasn’t much to be confident about. Then I built on that by learning about stories and reading widely. B stayed stuck in his own ways and never advanced.

The Importance of Confidence

I am writing to you with your career on my mind. In my relatively short career in writing, I’ve seen countless writers give up the pen. It didn’t matter if they had talent or not. They just turned their backs on their writing. Why? These writers didn’t have the confidence they needed to withstand a career as a writer.

There’s this ongoing joke that writing or art of any kind is the most selfish thing you can do. In a way, the joke tells the truth of the matter: You as a writer have to be cocky and selfish about your work.

It goes deeper than just faking it until you make it or caring about your work so others will. Having confidence in yourself and your abilities is what is going to keep you writing after that 300th rejection later. It’s going to get you to try something new in your next book even though no one bought or even read your others.

Confidence keeps the fires of your creativity going.

The confident writer never says “I want.” Instead, it’s all about the “I will” and the “I am.” Confident writers don’t need anyone else to tell them how to make something work because they know they’re going to figure it out. When a confident writer gets a rejection, they accept any feedback offered and move on.

In order to help you become the great writer I know you are, I want to help you find and build your confidence.

Finding Confidence Not Ego

Finding confidence is all about accurately assessing your writing and skills. That may sound super easy, but there’s a catch: You’re what they call an unreliable narrator.

That means what you think your strengths are might not be. I’ve worked with writers who say their biggest writing strength is their vivid descriptions, but they don’t realize they are only telling the audience what things look like. They lack any actual description chops but don’t know it.

Finding your confidence takes risk. It takes stepping out of who you are and accepting you don’t know sh*t about sh*t.

And that’s okay. It’s better to be a learning fool than an unquestioning master.

The difference being that the unquestioning master thinks they are above critique because they believe that they can’t possibly be wrong. On the other hand, a learning fool sees critique as a way to better themselves. They are not defined by defeat. Instead, they use it to guide their success.

Finding confidence takes understanding writing and story so that you can understand your own stories and writing. It takes study, failure, and the continued commitment to the written word.

Places To Find Confidence as a Writer

B isn’t the only writer that I have worked with and grown beside who has let a lack of confidence in writing professionally sack their chances at doing so. I see it all the time. That’s because writing itself is relatively easy. Being a professional writer is hard.

It’s hard to tell yourself the words you need to hear when it comes to your own writing. This whole art thing is subjective and there are more writing manuals and advice out there than you could possibly read.

Every one of us has the tools to start writing at our disposal, but we have to find the things that are going to keep us going. We must find these things and commit to them.

For me what worked was learning, reading, and experimenting. As long as I was learning, I was confident that I was improving. Below are a few ways you can build confidence as a writer.

Examine your strengths and weaknesses

You can’t really grow if you don’t know how or where to grow. Another writing friend of mine has written five 100,000-word books in the past few years. None have been picked up by agents or publishers, but he’s still writing and sending out queries. His biggest problem and setback is that he refuses to assess his strengths and weaknesses.

He thinks he’s good at telling a great story, but he refuses to share his writing with anyone but his wife and the agents who are rejecting him. He has no idea what’s wrong with his work, so he’s stuck spinning his wheels.

By knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are, you can learn what you are really good at and what you need to be better at to be a well-rounded writer. You can find this out by sharing your work widely and listening to what people have to say about it outside of praise. Or you can do what I did and read widely so that you have a grasp on storytelling elements and can identify when a craft element is faulty

Read Slush

Slush is what the pile of manuscripts sent into a publication is called. The first round of readers to see those stories before they reach the Big Editor’s desk is called a multitude of things. Here, we will call them slush readers.

Becoming a slush reader is beneficial to your writing because it allows you to see a wide range of stories at different levels and stages of revision.

When you read a published piece of work, it has been touched by several hands and eyes before making it in front of you. It’s been bashed into working order.

When you read slush, there isn’t a filter. You’re the filter, and as that filter, you will begin to pick up common tropes that make stories bad; get an idea on what editors and agents are looking for; and get a behind-the-scenes look at the publishing process.

Reading slush will build your confidence by showing you the best and worse of what is being written currently. You can become a slush reader for a publication or publisher by checking their openings and applying. Most slush readers will have to undergo a test to prove that they have an understanding of story and what the editors and readers are interested in.

Join a Critique Group

Critique groups are wonderful for writers for a variety of reasons. We’ll focus on the confidence-building aspect for this article. Working alongside other writers who are all trying to make this writing thing work gives you a community to tap into to spark your confidence.

Find and stick with the critique groups that offer constructive critiques and knowledgeable feedback so that you can build your confidence through learning what works and what doesn’t in your own and others’ stories. This is like being a slush reader except you get to throw your story in the mix and interact with the other writers.

Share Your Work

By sharing your work, you are taking yourself out of the protective little bubble you wrote the story in. In a way, your story isn’t yours anymore. It’s become something more and will continue to grow in readers' minds. This moment of having your story become something else is imperative to building the confidence you need to submit your story out for publication.

Many writers think that having a story accepted is all kittens and burritos. It’s not. It opens up a whole new door of anxieties and failures you didn’t even know were there. Sharing your work early in your career and building up your confidence to hearing and seeing how your story changes and morphs will make those bad reviews and low reader views nothing but a push to do better next time.

Detach From Your Work

Detach the right way, of course. When I say detach from your work, I mean pull your ego and self out of it while still leaving some of your blood and charm on the page. I’ve worked with too many writers who have turned their real-life pain into a fictional story without detaching in a healthy manner. This led them to feel like every critique was a personal insult.

People come to our work because we are unique and have a way of telling stories no one can. Keeping yourself in your work is a wonderful thing, but not understanding where the line is between your story and yourself will hurt you and your work. Learn that a rejection of your story is not a rejection of you personally by untangling your emotions from the piece and viewing it as a work separate from yourself.

This will also help you during the revision stage to cut what needs to be cut from your stories without coddling them because of what they mean to you.

Read Like a Writer

Whenever you read or experience a story whether through a game or movie, pay close attention to the writer’s use of storytelling techniques. Read for how they do it and the outcome of their method.

Build your confidence, like I did, through learning story, so that you have a grasp on what works, steering your craft with knowledge and insight. Many writers try to do this but end up failing because they read with this frustrated air toward the text that stops them from picking up on the teachings laid within.

Whether a work is good or bad, it has something to teach you. Accept that and roll up your sleeves for the hard work of gleaning insight from a text. This method requires a lot of focus, rereading, and analyzing to really work.

Befriend Writers

No one knows the pain and passion of creation like other artists. Having writers in your life that you can talk to about writing and your career will help to normalize this crazy act you are doing. Of course, stick with people who are friendly and welcoming to other artists.

You’ll find the confidence to continue by hearing about how other authors are struggling or succeeding in their own crafts and stories. Their fire will be contagious. On days when you aren’t feeling like a writer, your writing friends will be there to slap some sense into you.

Stop Talking to Non-Writers About Writing

I love my non-writing friends and family, but they don’t get it. They don’t understand when a plot issue makes me upset or when the fact that a publisher started following me makes me excited.

Talking with other writers has shown me that more than once in their lives, a non-writer has in some way discouraged or misled them about writing. It’s not their fault. They aren’t writers and can say harmful things without meaning to. Those comments can lead to you second-guessing yourself and your craft.

It’s best to keep conversations with non-writing people strictly in the figurative. Tell them about a story idea you’re working on, but don’t get into the craft details and all that jazz. Stick to the fun stuff.

Accept That You Suck

Like I’ve mentioned before, coming at something with the acceptance and knowledge that you don’t know anything allows you to take in information without letting your ego get in the way. Be confident without being egotistical. The difference is that a confident person is open to experience while an egotistical person isn’t.

Looking back at my experience with B, I accepted that I was an awful writer and used that to push myself to learn as much as I could. B believed he knew everything about story and wasn’t open to learning anything. His overconfidence and ego held him back from becoming a career writer.

Moving On

Like happiness, confidence isn’t a peak or plateau you reach. It is an ever balancing scale to be examined, lest it fall out of whack and lead you to the egotistical or pessimistic.

Use my example of starting out as a crappy writer as inspiration. If you’re one of those writers confused about the craft, that’s OK. I was once, too. Don’t let it stop you from being a writer. Don’t let other people’s discouragement keep you from living your dream. You can be a writer.