8 Signs You're a Better Writer than you Think

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[Derekivery]

Typing this before watching this video: I'm kind of scared that rather than learning I'm a better writer than I think, I'll learn I'm a worse writer.

[kempiro]

It baffles me a little bit: writing a novel, sitting down over the course of years often, just putting to paper your own ideas, opinions, visions, enthusiasm. It has to be among the most self-esteem ridden things a human can do with their time. And yet, so many people don't seem to have access to that basic truth of the writing life. Whether the book even gets read by another person or not, you've given this time, all this effort, worked your own creative edge as hard as possible, to yourself. To your dreams.

Whether we realize it or not, writing is self-esteem in action.

[AlexDuggan]

I started writing at the age of fifty. Self published both true crime and fiction. The things ive learnt are: Go through the process of self publishing a book, its about progress not perfection. You will learn more writing your fourth book than rewriting your first all over again. You will know you are good when writing feels like playing music. Nobody picks up a guitar for the first time and plays an amazing solo. Dont write for fame, write for eternity. Your work is something that didnt exist in the universe until you created it, and will still be here when you're gone. Van Gogh never sold a painting while he was alive; if you were the literary equivalent, would you rather has his talent or sell a few mediocre books?

[akeelahbruce]

I write fanfiction.... the most negative thing I've received recently was them complaining that I didn't publish the chapter in months.

I am outlining an original novel. Meaning it isnt fanfiction 😁

[apocalypso]

I have been a writer for over 30 years and have never published any of my fiction due to a horrible combination of imposter syndrome and fear of failure. Currently I fight to even finish a novel because if I'm not going to publish, what's the point? I've also lost my entire stash of finished work not once, not twice, but three times during the past few decades due to a multitude of reasons (house fire, rogue lightning that decided my computer had to die, etc.), which is one of the most gut-wrenching things to happen to a creative. I'm finally fighting to finish my current project and I've got writer friends who are refusing to let me talk my way out of finishing it or publishing it. And even though the imposter syndrome is still showing itself, after 30 years of daily practice and studying the craft, I think I can finally push through it. As for the fear of failure, after 30 years I don't even care if it sells a single copy...just finishing it will be a huge win for me. TL;DR: Keep going. The only way to get better is to keep trying <3

[KatAdVictoriam]

After working on my first novel for over 5 years, taking the leap to self-publish was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done. I didn't tell anyone I was doing it and hoped it might be seen by one person somewhere, somehow. It's first 24 hours up I made 755 KDP page reads and earned almost $4 in royalties. For me, that was an enormous victory because I had zero expectations. No reviews came with those reads but it's the fact it was read and downloaded at all that keeps me encouraged to finish the series and brave the process. Self-publishing and by that I mean doing everything by yourself, sent me to tears multiple times because it's arduous. Tedious. A learning curve. I've had to take the book down to fix formatting errors for example.
Just here to say that this video is encouraging and I want to encourage anyone reading to complete their work and keep writing and publish if it's your dream. The voice that says you're crap or "only" getting a few readers and zero reviews means you're trash might not be entirely accurate. Keep going.

[pmull]

I read in an interview, Stephen King said, "I just wrote a book called, 'It'. Should have called it, 'Sh*t'." It happens...

[ladyjatheist]

bitter and burnt out? Been there did that.. Quit writing for about a decade, it almost killed me to deny the need to exercise creativity, that was after my first book... 11 books (working on number 12) later. I'm happy as a clam just getting them out there.. Doin it for me!

[Garrison_the_Barbarian]

As a self-published author who also posts stuff online, yeah, this video is exactly what I needed to hear today. I constantly feel like shit because it's a long time between writing sessions, or doing anything creative, for that matter. I'm a schizophrenic and autistic person with a broken spirit, so that's probably why I'm mentally exhausted all the time. But you know what? Just like you said, I'm not a loser. I'm just in a tremendous amount of emotional pain. My writing career will continue until my heart stops beating. It'll be a slow agonizing crawl instead of hitting the ground running, but I won't turn back now or ever. Thank you for the encouragement! You're fantastic!

[duckdialectics]

1) Gonna get your book, I was unaware of its existence
2) All you said is true, and there is that plus that I think I commented on your first video that I watched, a couple of months back: writing is mystified by almost everybody. Schools treat it in the worst ways possible, with methods that are not very effective for dozens of reasons, plus it is almost exclusively essays. Almost all people that want to write have no idea what exercises they should do, how practice in the context of writing works, how reading plays into that, how translation plays into that, how having a community is half the job, etc etc.

One of the most fun exercises I ever did was rewriting a Keats poem as a Weird Horror short story. We did that for Grad School (so see how far we were from the average educational experience of the average person), we did that to test semiotic translation (Jakobson jargon for translating one genre/media into another). It was super fun.

Last, but not least, people don't understand how plagiarism works in writing, that kinda clicked for me seeing illustrators discussing their processes, and they have it very well articulated the difference from designing from references/allusion from plagiarism. I don't feel people have "process" very clear in the context of writing.

Keep up the good work

[ianbrooks]

Whether Im any good as a writer is difficult for me to know, nobody has read my stuff yet, but I know Im better than I was when I compare myself to when I first started writing.

[robertrdbrooks]

Thank You. It has been said. It takes 7 compliments to overcome 1 insult.
👍💥

[healhp]

I find it frustrating that other artistic media, like painting and singing, can so readily be shared. You can post a short on YouTube and get massive attention. But there's no quick and snappy way to share writing.

[Arygo]

I recently looked at the best earning movies of the past 40 years and that point is true, money doesn't mean it's good. Making loads of cash with a story probably means it appeals to a wide audience.

[deborahminter]

Criticism does not necessarily mean your a bad writer. It's the same as creating a painting or a sketch, noticing the flaw improves the entire composition. Although authors and critics may occasionally focus on the flaws it does not mean an author is a bad writer. And of course it's up to the author to weigh a piece of advice or criticism and choose which may or may not apply their work.

[jesterjay]

Writing storylines in a group dynamic…head-hopping every other paragraph 😳

[shepherd_of_art]

"It is an honour to even have 100 readers." This is the absolute best takeaway here I think! We should all be writing with this in mind.

[TheDukeofMadness]

One of the best books I've ever read I found in a remainder bin in Dulles Airport. It's called Weight of the City by Will Rhode. I've asked at several top end book stores and they've never heard of the book or the writer. It has of the 13th of June 2024 zero reviews on Amazon and it came out in 2007.

[yoavjacoby]

I'm definitely the second type lol.
I'm only writing my first book and I feel like it's really good, while conciously knowing I should probably not expect too much success with it.

[Oakleaf]

Honestly this video just reminded me why I got the hell out of publishing 😅 I couldn’t write for years after. But now I think I have a better conception of my writing: if it makes me happy, then it’s good!