Doubts About Writing Professionally

Posted on: June 23rd, 2009 By: Shen-Li

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I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a teenager. The kind of writing I loved best was creating writing. It was my favourite part of English. I’ve always thought I write well – decently, at least. However, lately, I am beginning to question whether my creative writing is really all that.

Sometimes I can have the most wonderful ideas for stories and they play through my mind like a TV screen, but when it comes to recording them down on paper, or on the computer, they seem flat and severely lacking. It is said that we are probably the most avid readers of our own writing. Well, if that is true, then my writing is dead, because even I am not sure I would want to read it.

They say that if you want to get good at something – practice, practice, practice! But I struggle with that notion because I never like what I write. When I don’t like what I write, I get discouraged from writing more.

I’ve thought of taking a writing course. It sounds like a logical plan. I want to write professionally so what better way to improve your writing than to get a professional to give you some pointers?

Currently two reasons hold me back:

1. Lack of follow through. Even I will admit that I have an issue with this. Given the fact that I’m pregnant with an older child that hasn’t started going to school yet, I know I’ll have even less time to pursue this even if I had more dedication than what I currently feel.

2. Fear. What do I fear? That I will be told the undeniable truth that I am terrible at writing.

And yet, when I ponder over the latter, I can’t help but wonder if I could really be that bad. I have written articles that rate well on Helium. Although most of my articles on Helium aren’t in very competitive titles, I do think 3 out of 42 on corporal punishment and 2 out of 46 on oral hygiene is noteworthy, isn’t it?

Admittedly oral hygiene is a subject of my element since I did study dentistry and neither of these two articles are in any way creative. Although Helium has a creative writing segment, I’m afraid I haven’t written anything specifically for it. Why? I’m afraid of finding my article at the bottom of the heap.

However, if you don’t look for criticisms, how will you ever get better? Surely the more critiques you get for your work the better you will eventually get, no? Not that Helium is the best place to get critiqued since all you find out is how well your writing rates against other writers, but not specifically what you can do to improve it.

I return to the point at which I started. I can accept defeat without even trying and admit I’m a lousy fictional writer, I can continue writing blindly with the hope of stumbling across the right formula on my own, or I can take a writing course and start shooting at a target instead of at nothing in particular. So which is it to be?