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    Self esteem: a writer’s challenge



The first challenge of a writer is to become a good searcher of ideas, a real hound for inspiration.
After overcoming it, you sit with a pen in your hand or your fingers ready on the keyboard, and you are ready to face the second challenge: yourself.

What’s worse than a writer who isn’t inspired? An inspired writer who thinks he/she is not able to write a story.
You surely don’t lack ideas, but you don’t know how to organize them and you end up with a single thought in your mind: I won’t ever do it.
From then on you fall into the apathy of despair.
It’s all useless.
I have no talent.
If it’s so difficult it’s not worth it.

Why are writers themselves the second challenge? Because if you don’t believe in yourself and in the stories you can tell, you won’t ever tell them.
If the first challenge is inspiration, the second one is known as self esteem. Self esteem doesn’t teach you how to write, but a low self esteem is often mistaken for a lack of talent.

Just take a look at the people who believe in themselves to understand the importance of it: they write, write and write. Talent can’t be judged on your efforts and on the stories you tell.
This won’t surely mean that successful or talented writers love themselves, but only those who don’t believe in their capabilities give up writing.

In order to write you need to take care of yourself, nourish sensibly your self esteem and then dive into the third challenge.
A good self esteem alone won’t guarantee neither talent nor success, but a bad self esteem will block the birth of new writers.

This is how you can overcome the curse of I won’ ever do it:

  • Learn to separate thoughts that are driven by your low self esteem from those concerning your writing: if the paper in front of you is still white and you feel demotivated by your thoughts, these aren’t obviously considerations regarding your writing. Identify false judgements, put them aside and start writing.
  • Accept to write the worst story ever written… and write it! Let your ideas take form, don’t worry if a character is flat or there is no coherence in the story: nobody will ever read this first draft.
  • Put your draft aside and do something else. After writing your story dedicate yourself to other activities, and take a break to collect your thoughts.
  • Listen to your best allies: re-writing and revision. When you approach again your first draft you must prepare to face a difficult round between the thoughts of your low self esteem and the thoughts of writing. This is when you demonstrate your capability to recognize them.

    Let’s do a simple test:
    This character is horrible, I’m not able to write.
    This character is horrible, but it has something that reminds me of my sister. How would she behave is a situation like the one I’ve imagined?

    Do you recognize them? Which is the thought driven by a low self esteem? Leave them behind, concentrate on the “good” thoughts and go on writing and re-writing.
    Don’t be scared if your first draft looks like a mix of incoherent sentences, of predictable situations and flat characters. It’s all right, it’s even better because you can put your creativity to the test: take that, erase this, change there… Don’t be afraid of working a lot: if you want to become a good writer you need to sweat. Everybody trains and exercises: athletes, musicians, craftsmen, painters.. why do you think writers don’t?

  • - Train your writing, train your self esteem. Take care of yourself and you will take care of what you love and of your talent. It may seem a “new age” thought, but it tells the stories of many writers who have abandoned writing because of that.

What do you think about it? How does self esteem influence the talent of a writer? Which methods do you use to overcome the fear of not being able to write good stories?

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INFO ARTICLE & PHOTO

Written by Lara and translated from the Italian by Marta, October 2009.

Credits: Photo by Ashley Rose

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