Confidence

Remember how confident you were with words as a child?  Or perhaps not.  But generally children have the confidence to sit down and write a story.  They rarely worry about what others will think about it.  It is only as they move into a higher class and are subjected to adult supervision, some of this probably unduly harsh, that the lack of confidence creeps in.

Well, I think it is time to get some of that confidence back. In the end writing is a task like any other and if you write others will eventually  read it.  What they think about your writing is important but that should not be enough to stop you from creating stories and writing them and putting them out there.

I once thought that the criticism of other people would wound me and I would not be able to write. In fact I have been wounded by what reviewers and others sometimes say about my published work.  But the older I get the less I care.  I suppose that is small comfort to the young, inexperienced writer.  But believe me the greatest joy is to put those words on the page, to write the stories that come from the heart, to create the characters, the times, the events, build the relationships:  all of these are part of the joyful journey of writing.

I read a lot of stories.  And I have been reading a lot lately about how some of the characters I enjoy reading about once were children and how they came to the page. A writer is not born but made.  Writing is about practice, practice, practice. The more you write the better you will become at it.  Each writing journey is unique. No one writer is like another. Each writer finds the writing pathway to suit them. The entry point for each of us will differ.  But they do have one thing in common, eventually they write.

Cheers

Christine de Pizan presenting her book

1363-c 1430

The City of Ladies