The Self-important Writer: Five Route to Nurture and Defend your Muse

Arrogance has a bad rap. We think of self-important folk as unpleasant to be around, full of themselves, and incapable of taking an interest in anyone else. However, once applied to one’s own writing, a certain measure of well-placed high-handedness can be a useful tool.

Writing can be a scarey enterprise. The writer puts herself out for public scrutiny in a way most else artists and professionals do not. Once the writer publishes, she commits herself to the words she’s written for the rest of her life. Even as if she changes her mind just about what she’s said, others may still react to the piece decades after it 1st appears in print. This can do even as the act of golf stroke pen to paper (or much likely, fingers to keyboard) an anxiety-producing ordeal.

Then there is the schooling most of us received, which treated writing as a task rewarded once well done or chastened once poorly done, as opposed to a pleasant activity for ourselves and our readers. Really few of us had any audience for any the writing we did in classrooms, else than the teachers who instructed, criticized and hierarchic us. It’s no wonder most writers suffer from self-doubt rather than overconfidence. We tend to underestimate ourselves and our words, even as once they come from the most powerful places inside us, even as once we get accolades from the outside world, and even as long after we finally get published.

Practicing selective high-handedness can help disarm these nasty doubts. And, not to worry: If you are not self-important to begin with, practicing the type of high-handedness I suggest wish not transform you into an unacceptable braggart. Rather, it wish help uplift you from the gutters of self-doubt onto the clean, dry road to effort published. Even as if you do not feel in the least self-important just about your writing, you can still follow my simple manual to act as if you do, with the same results: to get published, or to get publicized again.

Selective high-handedness does not mean thinking of yourself as any better than anyone else, or as having reached the pinnacle of your skills. Rather, it means treating every word you write as a precious baby worthy of the greatest care and nurturance. Here’s how to do that:

Never, ever throw thing away, period.

Carry with you at all times a means to record your creative thoughts.

Record your creative bursts, even as if else voices inside you are dismissing them with negative judgments.

Trust your impulses and passions: if you feel drawn to write just about something, write just about it!

Eschew impatience-give your babies the time they need to gestate.

If you’ve see between the lines, you see that these manual have you do nothing much than treat yourself and your writing with respect. However, because many an folk have a hard time doing even as that, I counsel my clients to behave arrogantly. It gets them giggling and cathartic the feelings they have just about their writing, and does it easier to find that respect.

Although you may have see elsewhere to be prepared to throw away your 1st writing attempts, to release attachment to your early activity and the like, nuggets of wisdom and creative thinking appear throughout a writer’s life from childhood through seniority. I advocate assembling and these and treating them with care, mayhap shining them now and again. There is no sorcerous moment once one suddenly becomes “a nice writer.” Thus, your most novice scribblings become diamond mines.

The one time I disobeyed my own proposal and discarded what was I believed was possibly the most poorly written sentence in history (or at least my own history), I rejoiced. Five minutes later, I required the gem in a new sentence, and struggled to reconstruct the one I’d discarded. May you ne'er do that mistake-do as I say, not as I’ve done.

These gems likewise shine through at unexpected times. This is why I advise my clients to carry at least several scrap paper and a pencil nub if not an electronic recording device. The times at night and in the mornings between wake and sleep often yield nice raw material, so support your recording device of select bedside.

The idea behind saving every little scrap, writing everything down and cultivating the high-handedness to believe these activities matter is that finished pieces often assert themselves over time, forming a coherent whole from little scraps, like a Rorschach, or effort that crucial letter right in the Wheel of Fortune. The key is to support feeding the collage and trusting that thing or things wish emerge over time.

Not every sentence wish necessarily lead to an essay, book or playscript of its own. But several strength add that missing piece to do a nice piece great. Even as tidbits that go obscurity for now still give your brain a chance to exercise itself and support your creative pathways well-hacked.

When it comes to choosing which pathway you’ll write your way down, trust your wild and wooly impulses. If you’re drawn to something, chances are you wish do the subject come alive. You’ll seduce your readers by the really fact of your relationship to the material.

Finally, give your pieces the time they need to develop. Being an self-important writer means honoring the gestation period your writings must pass through to be born into the earth healthy and available to engage readers. Honoring this gestation period may mean asking for help. Simply as the dedicated gardener finds the right soil, fertilizer, seeds, watering schedule and equipment, so the self-important writer finds her coach, buddy, copyeditor, ghostwriter, or colleague’s expert eye. I have seen writers come from stagnation to publication with the right combination of assistance. I love being part of that process.

About The Author

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Author Jill Nagle is founder and principal of GetPublished, http://www.GetPublished.com, which provides coaching, consulting, ghostwriting, classes and do-it-yourself products to emerging and publicized authors. Her most recent book is How to Find An Agent Who Can Sell Your Book for Top Dollar http://www.FindTheRightAgent.com.

Jill@getpublished.com

This article was announce on Feb 24, 2005