Life is full of wonderful beautiful things. We know this through our discovery of the world around us.

We see them walking through a park, hear them at a concert and smell them at our favorite restaurant. Then why is it so hard to believe in our writing?

There are many reasons for our lack of belief. but the main ones I’ll list here, then I’ll make you believe.

• We’ve been told by someone we trust that our writing is horrible.
• We think there is some kind of magic those who’ve been published possess.
• Your family doesn’t support you, this is the hardest to deal with.
• You don’t believe in yourself.

Let’s begin with the First disbelief: It’s not that your writing is horrible, it may be that the person you’ve let read it doesn’t understand your story.

My wife doesn’t enjoy reading sci-fi or fantasy, she’ll read some of my stories and just stare at me. That’s how I know I need different eyes on the story than hers, because hers aren’t the correct lens to view the story and I have to find someone else.

You have to find someone who enjoys the same type of story you’re writing or there will be issues with whether they like it.

Second disbelief: There is no magic pill. There is nothing to change your writing from having grammar issues to not.

When I first started writing I bought a lot of books on writing. I did this because I believed in the myth that there was a magic pill or book to help me. What I learned is this, The only thing that will improve writing is to write. The more you write, and nearly more importantly read, the better your writing will be.

There is no magic book to help you. You can learn a lot from those books, but mostly you’ll only be frustrated and envious of the book’s author, which is never good.

Third disbelief: Having a support staff is wonderful, but sometimes there isn’t one.

When I was writing short stories and angst ridden poems in my teens, I never showed them to anyone because I didn’t want to be judged by my peers, parents or teachers.

Unless it was for my writing class, no one saw it, not even a girlfriend. That last part was mostly from learning that those you date will use things you’ve told them against you in the harshest ways possible.

I didn’t have many friends in high school, and even less in middle school, but those I did have had no interest in my writings. Showing them to my parents would have been a one way ticket to a therapist’s office, not a good thing.

Fourth disbelief: Your lack of faith in yourself is always the thing which holds you back from doing so many things.

You worry about the consequences. About the after..

Look at what you do as if there were no After.

We should think about life as right now. What you’re doing right now, what you’re writing right now is the most important story in the world.

Remind yourself of this daily, either through meditation, prayer or notes pasted around your dwelling.

These subtle things will keep you wanting to do the things for you. They’ll remind you of a couple of things, 1, You’re important…2, What you write is important and 3, You’re important.

Finding yourself and not doing what the world wants is what makes each of us unique.

Keep being unique, never let anyone change that and keep writing…