"I fed my ego, but not my soul."
- Yakov Smirnoff
Have you ever had a knack or talent for something? Something that people look at and go, 'wow, you're really good at this!' Well, that is how some people react to my creative writing. Some even go as far to say I should be published based on what they have read of my work.
One of the things I came to realize is, while I absolutely love positive feedback from friends and family, (thanks! <3), their opinions on my writing will only get me so far. My writing might seem out of this world to them, but to a literary agent or publisher it is probably average- for the time being. Even keeping this in mind, my friends and family have shamelessly boosted my ego to laughable levels, however confidence will only get me so far without true skills.
Recently, I subscribed to access tutorials on the Writer's Digest website. After watching my first three, any notions of having a natural talent that needed only minor work crumbled like a real vampire at dawn. I discovered my manuscript was doomed to fail even before hitting the print button. Apparently all I had accomplished in sending it out was screaming to the rafters that I am laughably uninformed in matters of writing publishable material. In fact, almost everything about my old manuscript instantly turns literary agents off.
What were these blunders I wasted forty or so pages, postage, and the time of some poor person at the publishing company? Not to get too detailed, but my big one is data dumping.
My husband has pointed this glaring problem out to me in the past, and I argued with him, vehemently - my data dumping was the only option I entertained for getting all the information to the reader. Tonight, I bowed my head in shame and apologized to him. He might not have known exactly how to correct my problem, but the fact that he pointed it out and all I did was stick my fingers in my ears, close my eyes, and yell, 'la la la, I can't hear you!', was the first of many problems I have begun to correct.
One day, with a lot of work on my part, I am sure I could write something worthy of the paper it is printed on. I'm making changes, and doing my best to correct my bad habits. That is the problem though; they are bad habits, which are notoriously difficult to kill. I'd be happy with just a little mangling at the moment.
So I started writing a little of my first chapter last night, and I actually woke up two hours earlier than usual this morning because I was so motivated to make these changes. For those of you who know me and how much I love my sleep, I won't be surprised if you fell out of your chair in shock at that declaration.
While I am sure I'll need to work on my work in progress, it feels damn good to get those first few pages down.
In the meantime, feel free to continue the ego stroking, and I'll do my best to not let it go to my head again.
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