Insecure Writer's Support Group

First, welcome to anybody part of the IWSG coming over from Alex J. Cavanaugh's great blog. So…what part of writing am I insecure about? Every single word!

Seriously.

But I think every author is. No one writes a perfect manuscript off the top of their head without some rewriting (unless you're Bobby Anderson from the Tommyknockers). The fact I go over and reread every word, change a bunch, reread, change a bunch more, reread, change, reread, change, reread, change is a textbook case of being insecure.

Of course the trick is to know when to stop. I heard a bit of dialogue in a movie that went something like this:

"Great painting! Is it finished?"
"A painting is never finished. You just have to know when to stop."

The same goes for writing. You can edit and rewrite ad infinitum. You can do it for ten years. You'll never get it perfect. Usually a writer will be forced to stop by necessity when his publisher starts asking for the manuscript. If you don't have a publisher yet, then make your own deadline and stick to it. Move on to the next book, and don't look back.

So…insecure about word choice, syntax, etc? Definitely. It's a part of writing. How to get over it? Stop when it's time to stop and move on.

Also, here's some great advice by the late Steve Jobs that I think every writer–insecure or not–should take to heart:

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do," he told the Stanford grads in 2005.