04-19-2013, 05:14 AM
One of the problems with getting better at something is that you start to realise how bad you actually are 
. It is not that your writing has gone backwards -- it's exactly the opposite. Now you're at the stage where you know instinctively that you haven't got something quite right and, as a bit of a perfectionist, this bothers you. You question your own creativity, your own innovation -- but that's because it's yours and you're familiar with it. What we often tend to do as we improve as writers is devalue our own work because to us it doesn't seem all that clever -- we see other people's writing and say to ourselves "why didn't I think of that?" -- and the answer is you didn't because you've got your own voice now, your own ideas that you should have confidence in. Rest assured there are people reading your poems and saying exactly the same thing, wondering if they'll ever be able to express themselves so well. And they will, if they persist, but it will be different again. I started out writing easily a poem a day, many many years ago, and after a while that slowly dwindled until now I'm lucky to write a poem every six months or so, except for little bits of silliness and spontaneous verse. More times than I can count, I've decided that I'm done with it -- it's too painful, too difficult, the expectations are too high, I'll never manage to be any good, why should anybody read what I write, they're all just doing me a favour so they don't hurt my feelings.
Sound familiar?
. It is not that your writing has gone backwards -- it's exactly the opposite. Now you're at the stage where you know instinctively that you haven't got something quite right and, as a bit of a perfectionist, this bothers you. You question your own creativity, your own innovation -- but that's because it's yours and you're familiar with it. What we often tend to do as we improve as writers is devalue our own work because to us it doesn't seem all that clever -- we see other people's writing and say to ourselves "why didn't I think of that?" -- and the answer is you didn't because you've got your own voice now, your own ideas that you should have confidence in. Rest assured there are people reading your poems and saying exactly the same thing, wondering if they'll ever be able to express themselves so well. And they will, if they persist, but it will be different again. I started out writing easily a poem a day, many many years ago, and after a while that slowly dwindled until now I'm lucky to write a poem every six months or so, except for little bits of silliness and spontaneous verse. More times than I can count, I've decided that I'm done with it -- it's too painful, too difficult, the expectations are too high, I'll never manage to be any good, why should anybody read what I write, they're all just doing me a favour so they don't hurt my feelings. Sound familiar?
It could be worse