defiant dreamer

I get asks like this every now and then, and they always contain the problem.

Your writing is not shitty. It is not worthless.

Bloggers using these terms to describe early writing are often being either glib or depressing. Ignore their advice if it is making you feel bad.

Do you write for pleasure or for praise/accomplishment? If the latter, then you are simply in the practice stage. Practice is inherently worthwhile and no effort in this regard is a waste.

If you write for pleasure, then everything you create fulfills its purpose by being entertaining to create. A small child does not drop the crayon when it realizes its drawing will never be in the MoMA, does it? No, they don't care they just like drawing stuff. Adopt that mindset. Just write to get words on the page and ideas developed because you want to.

My advice for the insecure writer:

Stop re-reading your own work; you're a very biased critic right now and that in itself is holding you back.

All improvements are for later drafts. Trust me, you'll have whole new ideas by draft three so put off the nitpicking and focus.

Avoid outside opinions, writing advice, and blogs like mine for a while; we tend to inadvertently make you feel like you've done everything wrong and need to start over.

Stop starting over. Stop deleting your early drafts. Save all of it (this was the best advice I ever received).

Read and watch books and movies for motivation, and to analyze their strengths and weaknesses.

Do. Not. Compare. Yourself. To Other. Writers—your art is about you and what concerns you, other creators have nothing to do with it.

Remind yourself dumber people are doing it wrong confidently. Copy their confidence.

When you feel self-doubt creeping in again, tell it to take a hike, you've got a story to write.

Whatever you write, no matter the quality, take pride in being a writer at all. Lazy suckers just use AI.

There's nothing wrong with making a mess. How are you supposed to learn from constant perfection? Scratch out dumb sentences, leave afterthoughts in the margins, and side tangents in brackets. If the writing isn't going well, write ROUGH DRAFT in big letters at the top to remind yourself it's just a sketch of what you had in mind, not the finished product.

"...i’m worried it can never get better" I have great news for you! This fear will only be realized if you quit. Since you feel the pull to write there's clearly no point in quitting, your brain already knows writing is the answer. Ideas don't like to wait, and life will keep trying to interrupt you with bigger things, so there's really no time like the present. Go write!

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Please review my pinned Ask Policy before sending in your ask. Thank you.

and here he made his first fatal error. his moment of hubristic sex pesting. because of course i know where the term blow job comes from, i love learning about sex and the history of sexual terms! i know so much about oral sex that i could write a book on it!

You pause before reacting, even if it’s just for a second.

You notice your thoughts instead of immediately believing all of them.

You have moments, small, quiet ones where things feel a little lighter, even if they don’t last long.

You are starting to recognize what hurts you, even if you don’t know how to fix it yet.

You come back to yourself a little faster than you used to.

You let yourself rest sometimes, without as much guilt.

You are more aware of what you need, even if you struggle to give it to yourself.

You are trying. Even on the days where it feels like you are failing, you are still here, still moving through it.

You have days that feel okay, and instead of them feeling impossible, they feel… real, even if unfamiliar.

You are learning that not every thought deserves your attention.

You are still hurting sometimes, but it doesn’t feel exactly the same as before.

Healing doesn’t always look like big changes.

Sometimes it looks like this, small shifts, quiet awareness, softer moments that come and go.

And even if it doesn’t feel like progress, it is.

You are not stuck in the exact same place you were before.

Something in you is changing.

Even if it’s slow. Even if it’s subtle.