Anju Gattani's Blog - Posts Tagged "squirrel"
Writing - The Thick Skin
Hi,
They say you need to be able to take criticism to write.
They say you must have a love for structure to get your grammar right.
But what about professional writing? What does that take? Time? Energy? Your emotions? A huge (and I mean HUGE) portion of your life? Dedication? Devotion? I could go on... but over the years I've learned that it takes a thick skin (and I mean thick) to stay afloat.
It's all too easy to throw in the towel when the going gets tough. I'm sure we've all done it at one point... some ideas:
Tried to burn the manuscript (but saved a copy before you did).
Tried to kill the manuscript (but chose a blunt knife).
Tried to run your car over the manuscript (but avoided the imaginary squirrel that happened to be sitting on it).
Tried to forget you wrote a manuscript (but kept going back to fix that missing detail, and oh yes! That punctuation mark).
So... because you failed to detonate the manuscript, do you call yourself a failure? No. You tell yourself (at least I did!) that you had a nervous bookdown and you had to let it go - for a while. Put it to the test, like you do with your characters, and then see what you, the author, does next.
And you did something. Right? You saved it! Because you know you have to save yourself. There's only one way. The right way.
So sit down and write. Right?
They say you need to be able to take criticism to write.
They say you must have a love for structure to get your grammar right.
But what about professional writing? What does that take? Time? Energy? Your emotions? A huge (and I mean HUGE) portion of your life? Dedication? Devotion? I could go on... but over the years I've learned that it takes a thick skin (and I mean thick) to stay afloat.
It's all too easy to throw in the towel when the going gets tough. I'm sure we've all done it at one point... some ideas:
Tried to burn the manuscript (but saved a copy before you did).
Tried to kill the manuscript (but chose a blunt knife).
Tried to run your car over the manuscript (but avoided the imaginary squirrel that happened to be sitting on it).
Tried to forget you wrote a manuscript (but kept going back to fix that missing detail, and oh yes! That punctuation mark).
So... because you failed to detonate the manuscript, do you call yourself a failure? No. You tell yourself (at least I did!) that you had a nervous bookdown and you had to let it go - for a while. Put it to the test, like you do with your characters, and then see what you, the author, does next.
And you did something. Right? You saved it! Because you know you have to save yourself. There's only one way. The right way.
So sit down and write. Right?
