Cheers,
Nancy

Keep doing what you are doing Kevin. Your blogs have been an encouragement to other writers especially myself!

My wife and I just discussed this tonight, the ups and down of writing and how different we are.

I used the following story in our conversation, a story I don’t remember but my parents assure me is true:

My brother and I learned how to read about a year apart. When he crossed a word he couldn’t read, then, in his mind, he COULD’NT read. On the flip side, I was a horrible reader and had to skip over a bunch of words. But when I crossed a word I could read, then I COULD read.

This is how I operate as a writer. It’s such a strange, twisted blessing because, in all reality, the core of me is just ignorant—ignorant to the fact that I have a long ways to go.

Whereas my wife receives a critique on her work and falls into despair for a day or two, I eat up critique like candy. It’s as if I crave to know just how bad I am in certain parts of the craft, and then, for some messed up reason, it fires me up.

I don’t LIKE red ink, but I like knowing that with each critique, I’m forced to get better. Forced to kill telling. Forced to cut passive voice. Forced to hack all the summary narration. Forced to write in strict third-person view. All those things.

Hope swells because writing is a discipline and a craft that can be learned through sheer hours and hours of writing, reading about writing, reading good writing, and having your writing critiqued. In other words, writing isn’t like becoming a professional football player. I’m not even close to 160 pounds, and never, ever would I be able to WORK my way into the NFL.

But I can work my way into becoming a good writer. And that fact injects energy into me, even in the times when the red ink is splattered all over my pages.

It’s a never-ending circle (yay-rah to all the fellow Circle Series nuts out there) of 1) working hard; 2) getting broken down; and 3) becoming a stronger writer than you were in step 1. With each rotation, the confidence builds, the words become alive, and publication becomes that much closer.

I couldn’t write a summary in English 100 in my first college class, but now I write for a living. That gives me hope when it comes to facing the gate-keepers of the publishing industry. I can, you can, everyone can ALWAYS get better. I love that!

And, ah-hem…I just rambled my way to a beast of a post. Does any of this resonate?

I’m glad I’m not in this writing thing alone…