Measuring Your Growth

I had an interesting discussion with my critique partner this weekend as I voiced my inability to see growth in some of my writing. My point was that if I pulled out stuff I wrote near two years ago, I could see a great measure of growth in my writing, which is fine and dandy by me. The problem for me is that if I pull out my manuscript from three months ago, I can't see the progress. So I sit and I ask myself if there even has been any.

Out of all jobs, fields, careers or whatever you want to call writing, I believe we do this quite a bit—many times to an even harsher degree. How many times have you sat there and wondered whether you are cut out for writing, whether any readers will even like what you write, whether you'll ever get published or if you even deserve to be published? I'm willing to bet quite a few times and if not one of the examples listed above, I'm willing to bet you've insulted yourself in some kind of completely illogical way.

Why? When we have our day jobs as doctors or bankers or nurses or miners or stay at home parents, etc., we don't sit there and say patients don't deserve to be cured by us or our children will never love us. For many of you who have day jobs, you have a boss who will tell you where you're messing up or where you have improved. As parents, you learn through high-pitched cries, sleepless nights, teenage shouting matches and the list could go on. As writers, I feel it's a bit different.

As writers, we have our critique partners and beta readers but the truth of the matter is that all in this industry can be very subjective. So when my critique partner says to me, "You should only be measuring your work against itself, not anyone else's," I sat there stuttering for a few moments with explanations while my mind processed her words. Only after a few minutes of thought did I get and agree with what she was saying (thank you Mason).

You see, I do not write as much as I wish I did. It is something I am working on and have written about it in other blogs. My crit partner however, writes as if she has a full-time job writing. So, I can see the difference in her writing going back only a few months, whereas I have to go back in mine quite a ways to see the difference. The same with others in my critique group and RWA chapter.  Some I see rapidly growing while others might have a slower pace. I like to think of our improvement as a circle of writing and depending on the subject it may be slow or fast.

Currently, I am working on dissecting plots. This is an immense topic so I expect to be here for a while but one day I will reach and understanding of it and move onto another topic (basically a circle as it keeps going without break or end).

The point is we all have our own circle and in it, our own voice, style and way of learning.  We can look to the market and our support groups for ideas and trends, but at the end of the day, you are you and your measure of growth is yourself.  If you've mastered amazing characters or plots, or settings, description, etc., that is all that matters. Set goals for yourself. Being published is nice but it will happen when it's time. When it does happen, it is not the end of the line but the beginning of a new era. The importance of measuring your growth is to ensure you are ready to handle the new era when it comes.

Filed under: Toni Kelly, Writer's Life, Writing Topics