It's Good to be Bad
Our writing session today helped me deal with one of the things I find difficult when it comes to writing - tone. Probably because I've been a blogger for so long, I'm so used to being purely subjective and moody about any topic, and it's become difficult for me to turn it off when I need to write, say, a magazine article.
Like I said before, what I love about the workshops is that it's a safe place for us writers to admit that we are Not Good (Enough) as a way to improve our craft. When I do this around non-writers, it always comes off as low self-esteem or a glaring lack of confidence in my skills.
This Lifehacker article really said it for me.
It's true that when I first started writing, it was very important for me to get praise. I thrived on compliments, I loved it when people told me they couldn't stop reading something I wrote and that they shared it with someone else, and it tickled me silly when people would say how FUNNY they thought I was. It still does.
But to improve, I've learned that the most valuable compliment is the one that comes with criticism, especially from people who understand the process. When you can set reactive emotions aside, the things you will do! The places you'll go! *cue infomercial on Jeddah Writers Hub workshops*
Bottom line, Bad is Good. It's even Better when you can spot where exactly, and quantify just how Bad you are.
JOIN US. WE COME IN PEACE (most of the time). Just fill out this form to jump in.
Today at the workshop session, we learned how to differentiate writing tone from writing voice, how to tweak our writing so that it's not something so painfully personal that we wouldn't want to share it, how to get a message across without speen-fooding the readers, and how to write in a tone that you've never written before (for me it was to be objective instead of subjective). We mostly failed to do this, but it was such a fun failure.
Check out my writer friends Saad, Sahrish, Menelik and Hassan.
Like I said before, what I love about the workshops is that it's a safe place for us writers to admit that we are Not Good (Enough) as a way to improve our craft. When I do this around non-writers, it always comes off as low self-esteem or a glaring lack of confidence in my skills.
This Lifehacker article really said it for me.
I have a friend—a designer—who's convinced she's not very good. She doesn't believe her work is anything special. She doesn't even believe the fact good work is a result of her own discipline, preferring instead to give the credit to her environment or others' expectations. This belief is very deeply ingrained in her, and it's been amplified as she's interacted with others. You'd think they've give her so little reassurance that she loses her self confidence.
She must never feel comfortable, she must never sit down. She forms a belief set that ingrains a sense of inadequacy. With that in hand, she has no option but to march forward, to make herself better and stronger. She cannot exist in a world where excellence is a prerequisite and where she is awful and so by grading herself down she drives herself ever forward, becoming ever better.
It's true that when I first started writing, it was very important for me to get praise. I thrived on compliments, I loved it when people told me they couldn't stop reading something I wrote and that they shared it with someone else, and it tickled me silly when people would say how FUNNY they thought I was. It still does.
But to improve, I've learned that the most valuable compliment is the one that comes with criticism, especially from people who understand the process. When you can set reactive emotions aside, the things you will do! The places you'll go! *cue infomercial on Jeddah Writers Hub workshops*
Bottom line, Bad is Good. It's even Better when you can spot where exactly, and quantify just how Bad you are.
JOIN US. WE COME IN PEACE (most of the time). Just fill out this form to jump in.
Today at the workshop session, we learned how to differentiate writing tone from writing voice, how to tweak our writing so that it's not something so painfully personal that we wouldn't want to share it, how to get a message across without speen-fooding the readers, and how to write in a tone that you've never written before (for me it was to be objective instead of subjective). We mostly failed to do this, but it was such a fun failure.
Check out my writer friends Saad, Sahrish, Menelik and Hassan.
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