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12?

12. How do you deal with self-doubts?

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THAT TOO ANON. Self doubts are tough. I feel everywhere I go there are writers better than me, more skilled than me, writers that can tell the same story i want to tell but better, writers that more people like. It doesn't help that I've been trying to apply to a jjk zine for months now and got rejected from every single one hbhjbhj nothing will put more of a bullet in your self confidence than flat out rejection.

Honestly I think most of the time I try to ignore it and just keep trucking. It's encouraging when I think of the level of skill I had like, last year compared to this year. I've made clear improvement and I think these last few months alone I've made so much breakthroughs writing wise. From readers stand point it's hard to see but just a few months ago the biggest word count that i was able to reach was 4k and this year with curse au and especially gang au I've broken that ceiling to bits like, so far curse au chapters were like 4k 7k 10k 8k THATS SO MUCH FOR ME. Dance with the Devil was supposed to be a one shot, its almost 30K now!!! Me and my beta are gonna separate it into chapters just cuz it would feel brutal to make ppl sit through so much at once. I've gotten so much better at planning my fics, at figuring out what i want to say and how, at dialog, even fighting scenes which is my worst field. And there are people who like my work, that's what's most comforting honestly. Whenever I'm in a slump or I've hit writers block or I feel discouraged I go to my ao3 and browse through my comments and think about all the people who like my fics, who are excited for them, who like my weird lil writing style and think my ideas are cool. So even if im in a slump and I can't see worth in my own work it's obvious there is some, people obviously see something there that is worth digging for.

I dunno self doubt is a bitch and it works different for everyone. Most of mine stems from comparing myself to others so i try to redirect that to comparing myself to an earlier version of myself. Prior to 2020 I hadn't written anything consistently since 2014, the most I've written since then was 2018 with 3 pieces. For comparisons sake in 2021 I wrote 17, a few of which are multichaptered and it's not even over yet. From 2014 to 2020 thats six whole years of relative inactivity, years i could have spent polishing my skills and learning new tricks, years that have left me feeling unbearably rusty and inferior to other content creators my own age. It's tough. But hey, I'm here now, I'm doing my best and I'm making fast progress. I know that the progress I'm making is gonna slow down soon enough because that's how things work and it will be harder to point out things I've improved on so clearly. But my biggest weapon is still just gritting my teeth and pushing through, stubborn as I am. I don't think I'll ever be fully satisfied with my own writing, such isn't the nature of writers, but I'll do my best to remain positive and keep my eyes on the next step I want to take, next thing I want to improve on, next story I want to tell just a little bit better. I'm gonna doubt myself stupid along the way but I damn well know I aint gonna get any better unless I keep writing so that's what I'll do.

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