Finding the Courage to Share Your Writing

Writing doesn’t have to be a solo activity. In fact, creativity and productivity are often stimulated by writing with company. Today, participant Chris Knight shares how to find the courage to share your writing… and what to look for in a reader:

Sharing your work with other people can often be troublesome. There’s always this weird feeling living on the inside of your skin that scares you into keeping your writing to yourself. You’ll think maybe if you don’t show anyone what you’re doing then you’ll be safe. 

All writing is subjective. I learned a long time ago that you can’t appease everyone. You’ll never write something that 100% of people enjoy; no matter what, there will always be people that don’t enjoy what you’ve done with your words. The sooner you realize that as a writer, the sooner you can let the words flow free.

As a writer, I’ve found that sharing certain aspects of my writing is necessary to get a good understanding that my story is on the right track. When I was writing my book, Past and Pending, I conducted a few experiments with readers that helped me weed out who would be honest with me and who would be nice just to spare my feelings.

One of those experiments consisted of me sending the first few chapters to everyone and then listening to what everyone had to say. A lot of them had critiques, notes, and lists of things they didn’t get or understand. After hearing everything they had to say, I would take a few days and resend everyone the same exact chapters while telling them that I had made changes based on what they had to say. It was unfortunate when most of those people came back telling me that the updated chapters were such an improvement to the previous ones.

Blunt truths and critiquing sessions is where I live and breathe as a writer. Hearing what I’m doing wrong, or what people aren’t necessarily enjoying is my favorite part. I can’t begin to understand what I think is right if I don’t know what everyone else thinks is wrong. I prefer my critiques to be filled with salt, instead of sugar. 

In the end, it’s all about being able to best tell the story I have brewing inside of me.

Chris Knight is a recently published author that operates out of New York City. His first novel is titled Past and Pending , with another novel already on the way. Chris first began throwing words on paper when he was just a young little boy and while he has grown in age, his size has remained the same. It has been said that if Disney World were a person, that person would be Chris. 

Top photo by Flickr user geese.