By Ratika Deshpande
I’ve been writing for about eight years now, during which I’ve gone through several phases of rejecting my writing before others could do so. Over time, I’ve learned to recognise these thoughts and developed ways to fight them. Here they are:
1. You think you are not ready
This thought is especially strong when we first begin writing (professionally or otherwise). We feel we first need to get an MFA or attend a workshop or read books on writing. While these things certainly help, you become a writer when you write.
One can never feel ready enough. Writing, unlike baking or algebra, doesn’t have a fixed, step-by-step formula you can follow, because each thing we write is new both for us and the world. And how can one be ready for what has never existed before (except by practicing)?
As long as you know a language and have a pen and paper, you are ready to write (and you can start even if you’re working in a second or third language, like me—writing improves language proficiency as well). You don’t need to learn more before you write—even when you’re writing something like historical fiction or medical thrillers. Just get started, then fill in the gaps as needed. Because if you keep waiting, you’ll never feel ready.
2.You think your work is not original
As a young writer, I discarded a lot of my stories (and sometimes even ideas that could have been stories) because I thought that what I wrote wasn’t original. Who needs yet another fantasy story about a knight rescuing a princess from a dragon? Who needs yet another essay on coming to terms with our mortality? Everything has been said before.
But as Jerry Saltz said in his guide for artists, “Originality did not conveniently die just in time for you and your generation to insist it no longer exists. You just have to find it. You can do this by looking for overlooked periods of art history, disliked and discredited styles, and forgotten ideas, images, and objects. Then work them into your own art 100 times or 1,000 times.”
Think of the last time you really enjoyed a book, thought “I want more of this,” and then immediately went online looking for similar books. As thrilling as it is to encounter something original, we often look for stories that we’re familiar with. One reason fans read so much fanfiction is because they want to experience the same tropes over and over. It’s also why retellings are so popular.
So tell your stories—there are, at the very least, several hundred thousand people who are looking for the kind of stories you want to write. Don’t worry about originality. Worry about never telling your stories in the first place.
3.You think your work is not good enough
Some writers have a Muse that lives inside them. In my head, there resides the Demon of Perfectionism. It’s constantly telling me that my ideas are terrible or that I can’t write a particular story/essay (see #2). When I do manage to fight it off by writing anyway, it attacks me by telling me my writing is not good enough. Often, that’s when the Demon wins, preventing me from sharing a blog post or submitting my writing to a magazine.
And this happens because “good enough” is undefined. It means something different for every writer—for some, it’s about the writing style, for others, it’s the plot. Every project has its own needs and guidelines, so should we set strict rules for each of them? A better approach, as Campbell Walker suggests, is to ask, “Can I make it to at least 70% of perfect?”
Here’s another way to think about it. Don’t ask if it’s good enough. Ask yourself, “Is it bad?” If you’ve been practicing your craft, most times, the answer will be “no,” in which case, put your work out into the world. You might be surprised with the responses you get—our familiarity with a piece of work can often make us overlook the parts of it that make it magical.
4.You think no one would read what you write.
Another common way writers reject themselves is by fearing obscurity. There are so many writers out there, so many books being published every single day. Who will read your stuff?
When I feel this way, I think of what Neil Gaiman once said:
“You can’t control whether or not people read what you write. You can control what you write and whether you write.
If you do write the poems someone may read them and someone who needs a poem might encounter it and take what they needed from it. If you don’t write them, other people are guaranteed never to read them.”
No one is going to come knocking at your door, asking to read what you have written. You have to take the responsibility to share your writing on your own.
5. You think your writing is not important or needed
When I was 18, I spent several months in despair, unable to do much because of my climate anxiety. In the face of the crisis, writing felt pointless. Who needs stories and poems when there are floods to be prevented, treaties to be signed, climate refugees to be resettled? Shouldn’t I be trying to save lives instead?
But stories are part of how we save lives. Can they save the planet from extreme weather events? Probably not. But stories can make people do something about it. And what about the daily lives we lead meanwhile? That’s where art comes in, as Ethan Hawke describes: “Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry […] until their father dies, they go to a funeral, you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart, they don’t love you anymore, and all of a sudden, you’re desperate for making sense out of this life, and ‘Has anybody ever felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud?’ […] And that’s when art’s not a luxury, it’s actually sustenance. We need it.”
We need your writing and we need your art. Please share it with the world.
Bio: bio: Ratika Deshpande (she/her) is currently writing an online book on the art and craft of writing, one blog post at a time.
