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@katthewriter Thanks for reaching out, Kat!

So you’re aware, if you want to get in touch with one person in particular, there’s a “public post” button on everyone’s forum profile. That’s the preferred replacement for direct messaging on SE.

“But i didn’t feel like arrogant pride cuz I’m like this is okay i think, then all my friends tell me it’s great so i started to believe it is.  (Cuz i have hate/love relationships with anything i make,  art, writing, whatever.  I usually go ‘ughhh its awful” and someone reads it and goes ‘no its pretty good’ and a week later i like it… so… xD)”

Ach, I feel you there =P That’s frustrating. I guess you know the first step—you need to stop showing your stuff to friends who will tell you it’s good, at least before you’re finished with it. Daeus’ article has made me spend the last couple days looking around to what other artists believe about perfectionism, and I found this video extremely insightful.

The things which stood out to me were:

• Volume, not perfection – I mean, this was mostly because it gave me a selfish sense of vindication that people agreed with me that you should be failing as much as possible to learn quickly instead of tunnel-visioning on one thing, but whatever.
• Steal well – I strongly believe an artist needs to actively and deliberately draw from a variety of influences instead of just trusting their style and voice will arise organically from thousands of hours of generic work, and that’s exactly what this is.
• Conscious learning – This is what’s described in one of the books that changed my outlook on life. It convinced me that when I learn, I need to be deliberate and purposeful instead of just believing that enough practice will somehow make me good at a thing. It’s a principle that has quickened my growth in both writing and drawing, far more than I ever believed my “talent” would take me. Not that I’m much good at writing or any good at drawing, but at least I’ve moved beyond stick figures =P
• Feedback – This was the part I found most interesting, because it wasn’t something I came to the video already fully agreeing with. I’ve known for a long time feedback is important (When I was active on it, my YouTube channel was all about giving writing feedback in real time. I strongly suggest you check it out and see if any of the critiques are useful to you.) but this video really drove it home. The speaker describes the greatest computer graphics school in the world, in which the difference between those who were the greatest in their field and those who weren’t was that the greatest artists actively sought criticism, and actually acted upon it. This has shown me I really need to get feedback from skilled writers who can advise me on my writing.

The problem I’ve found with the feedback step is that nearly no people who have been in a place to critique my writing are people whose writing I think is very good. These are often people who can quote all the same writing books I’ve read myself, and can point out easily where I deviate from standard writing advice, but can’t move any further in criticism. That is, I think most writing critique I’ve ever seen, on my own or on other peoples’ work, is garbage =P

The problem being that when I tune out all criticism as a rule, I end up missing the good advice along with the terrible, because I don’t have the skill to differentiate between it, and that does me no good at all >.>

So my advice is to be very picky in finding a few people whose writing you really respect, and to ask them specifically for advice before you show the work to anyone else. Don’t just look for people who seem to give insightful and popular advice. Look for a result you admire, and figure out how the artist got to that point by asking them as much as they’ll tolerate you. (In case you haven’t guessed, I have a bit of a reputation for being annoying…)

You’ve said, for example, you admire Jane Maree’s writing. What separates hers from yours? What are your personal writing weaknesses? I’d be happy to help you find solutions to your issues if you have the time and if I can find them.

And you’re welcome! I know what it’s like to go ignored in a big community. Not fun at all =P Hit me up any time and I’ll try to help as I can. And, well…

“I actually already posted it on here and am murdering it cuz its horrible and i rushed it for the word count.”

I guess you know at least one thing you need to stop doing =P