I'm definitely my own worst critic, so I'm quick to pick out all kinds of issues in my writing, even if they're not really issues at all. However, I am very confident in my abilities, and am just overall a very competitive person in all forms of art that I participate in. Anyone who actually knows me will tell you just how big my ego is. But it's because I care so much about my work and set such high standards for it that I end up being so picky about it.
I surprise myself sometimes. Since I'm pretty insane I've been known to walk around my room smoking and ranting to my head about how cool a certain literary motif is, and I've got an amazing ability to remember things. Just moments ago I was watching a show on Lunar Soil conversion and I remembered an ancient Ukrainian fairytale about a man who seems to squeeze water out of a stone. But am I good? No. I'm too derivative, not intelligent enough, and not driven like I should be. I have something like 80 poems on this site, all terrible.
I'm absolutely confident in my work, but I think that confidence comes out of enjoying what I do above all else. I admit that it's more difficult to see through my moments of bad writing when I'm "too close" to a piece. I often have to let my work sit and return to it when I've had a bit of distance. I can usually spot the mistakes and the cringe-worthy parts once I've let it sit for a while. I also have a circle of trusted readers that I've collected over the years--people who won't sugar coat things, but also folks who are more sensitive (intuitive) to what I'm trying to do with a story and how to help me make it work. I don't know any successful writers who don't have some kind of support system in place that helps them push through some of those things that we (being close to our own art) are often blind to.
I really like to write. But unfortunately, I don't consider myself a good writer. Or at least not a very good one. I'm very amateur.
It's kind of depressing how few of you consider yourselves to be good writers. I don't see how someone can love writing so much (like many of you), yet not put any real confidence behind your work. It's a bit of a paradox. Ego is an artist's greatest asset.
I think it is possible to really like to do something, and yet know that you are not very good at it. If you try biking for the first time, and you fall all the time and are slow, you can still love to do it without being good at it.
Honestly? I think I am the freaking best writer ever... oh wait thats not what honesty means. Uh... Sometimes I think I am a good writer and other times I think I am terrible and wonder why I am wasting my time. I am going over and doing some small editing on a novel, while the writing isn't the best, I do love the story and how I have set up the characters and their interactions. Also enjoyed how I hinted at possible connections between characters. At the very least, this story has all the things I would enjoy in a story, except the good writing. I do sometimes wonder if I am telling to much and haven't found a good balance. Although I am not always confident and sometimes I wonder if I should give up. I don't. I allow very little room for such nonsene and quickly ignore it. Someday I will be able to say 'Ha!' to that evil critic.
I know what you mean, but to succeed you need to have confidence that you can do well. I don't mean that you have to be convinced you're already a brilliant author, but rather that you need to have confidence that you are competent and can conquer the obstacles in your path with persistence, thinking that you can succeed if you work for it. That's very different from judging yourself as being a bad writer and despairing. By judging yourself as "bad," you are virtually condemning yourself.
Personally, I know that I have the tools and the skills to be a great writer. I can spell well, I am grammatically sound, and I feel as though I can put my thoughts into words pretty well. I took English in school and I've read a lot of books in my life. Thing is, I know I am not a great writer. Not yet anyway. I haven't written anything of note and like others, I second guess my work all the time. I heard a coach of mine once say, "you cannot master something until you have done a million reps." He was talking about Volleyball, but it holds true to mostly everything. One million may be too many for writing, but until you've tried to write tons of stories, or gained a lot of experience with it, you cannot master it. What I'm really trying to say is that (IMHO) it doesn't matter how good of a writer you are, what really counts is how good of a storyteller you are. Look at the Twilight books or Harry Potter. These books aren't written with the greatest prowess, yet they are among the most successful books of our lifetime. I've always prided myself with a pretty vivid imagination (probably like many of us here at WF) and I think that the ability to communicate with others what story, character, or world you have imagined is the real key. I am not a good writer, yet, but if I stick with it and can show the world what I am dreaming, I will be.
That does indeed make sense. However, this question of whether or not one thinks they are a good writer is very much dependent on what you define as a "good writer". It is true that to succeed, confidence is necessary, but in this situation a good writer is referring to one that can "conquer the obstacles in your path with persistence, thinking that you can succeed if you work for it". To sum it up, one need confidence to write well, judging oneself as bad will never help you, and you don't need to be a "good" writer to like writing.
I consider myself a good writer when I get into the zone. Yes, I have a zone. Seriously, when I get into a certain mode of writing, I can WRITE. I'm proud of how good I can do when I have an idea to run on.
I definitely know what Zone you're talking about, Gigi. It always takes me a while to actually start on a story I want to write, but once I get into it it just flows.
After seeing some people make it, I think I'm good enough. I have my downs, but most importantly, I have my ups, and I feel like they shine, outweighing the cons. Also outweighing the cons is my imagination and creativity that really defines my work. Since I'm not the best writer, I try to make up for it with my plot and story-line. Both my major projects do that.
I have my ups and my downs. It's hard to say, and I guess it depends on my mood, lol. I am usually hypercritical of my own work, but after having a couple pieces of my work critiqued, I came to realize that I shouldn't be so hard on myself. So, I guess I'm a good writer, but my goal is to be great.
I was terrible, but after reading A Game of Thrones my sentence structure got much better and it gave me hope. Now I'm writing three pages a day and I feel confident.
I consider myself someone who writes; I don't grade myself and I don't let myself worry about it. I find if you try to be too good, you try to be too literary, and it takes both the fun and some of the quality out of the work. Sometimes you can write a good peice and think it worthless, only to return to it later and like it (and sometimes you dislike it still), sometimes you write a bad peice you think is great. What ever your first opinion of it is; it shouldn't stand in the way of the work itself.
I think I might have potential. I'm still on my first draft of my first novel and I'm focused on getting it down on the page right now. I'm sure that the stuff I'm writing in the draft is mostly utter crap, but I'm confident that once I'm done I'll revise and rewrite and reorganize and do whatever it takes to make it shine. I read somewhere that most successful writers are good revisers. I think that must be true.
The short answer is: You're asking the wrong person if you want an honest answer. I think I am a work in progress. I know I have stories to tell, I know I need to work on the telling, that's why I'm here. Cheers M
I'm probably not very good in the eyes of others. Personally, I'm just okay, given that I only started writing recently. I know for sure I have massive potential. I have a wicked imagination that spews plots and characters out at an alarming rate. Now that I been getting into the habit of writing down and working on my ideas, I've been improving the skills I posses right now. I'm going to invest my full effort into crafting my writing style. I know for sure that I will become something great. eventually. I have no delusions that I will become some kind of virtuoso writer over night. It's all about how much you want to express your ideas to others. I think I will have something to say eventually, and that makes me all the more excited to work on my writing.
NOOO I'm terrible, dreadful, etc. Sometimes, though, I think, "Wow, I think I could be good at this."
In terms of the actual writing aspect, I think I'm decent. My biggest problem is thinking of things to write!! When I have an idea though, I do think I get it down quite well.
I start on loads of projects, but I hardly ever finish one. Does this make me a bad writer? I don't know.. I just see it as practice, so when I finally finish my novel it will be good. writing is one of the few things I know I'm good at.
The introduction is not just a "This is why you should like me" process. It is to let people get to know you, yes; but it is also intended to help people understand where you are as a writer and what you hope to get out of your participation here. One thing it definitely is NOT is a popularity contest.
Ego can also be an artist's downfall. I don't know if I'm any good or not. I've been published but not enough to 'quit my day job'. There are times when I'll become so engrossed in the proofread of something I've written and I'll read something and think, "Damn! I wish I'd written that!" And then I realize I DID write that. So, yes, I am skilled with languages. I have a creative mind that constantly suggests new ideas to me (more than I could ever bring to fruition). I think I am good at weaving an interesting, engrossing tale. I have second-hand readers, acquaintances of beta readers, who do not know me in any way, who, curious about what my readers are reading, also want to read and really like my work. I have one reader who will fly through the first eighty or eighty-five percent of a manuscript and suddenly slow to a snail's pace nearer the end. Her explanation is that, the closer she gets to the end, she tries to make it last longer so she limits how much of it she reads in a day's time to just a few pages. Does that mean I'm a great, or even good, writer? No. It just means that I have exercised good judgment in selecting readers whose interests, sympathies, and preference for reading material are suitable to my writing style. But hearing such comments about my work does wonderful things to my ego. On the flip side, if you don't have enough confidence in your work to put it out there in front of the agents and others, you are just writing for your own pleasure and it doesn't really matter if you are good at it. You do it because you enjoy it and that's that. I have been writing - creative writing - for most of my life. Positive reviews give me a positive feeling about my writing ... right up until I get a 'Thanks but no thanks' from an agent. But sometimes, even those rejections, when accompanied by a personal note of encouragement from an agent, help to boost my confidence in my ability as a writer. I want to say it was Kurt Vonnegut but I think it was another writer of comfortably well-known status who said something to the effect that "Everytime you publish a new book, you hold your breath and you know that this is the time they will discover you are a terrible writer and a fraud and everything you wrote before was just pure, dumb luck." I think it is that piece of the writer consumed with self-doubt that drives him or her to keep working at it, trying to get better, pursuing the excellence that they hope is within.
