Crisis of Confidence

I am in the middle of a little crisis. A crisis of confidence. As with most writers (or so my reading indicates) confidence comes and goes; travels up and down and like so much else in my life, it cycles.

But I have wondered lately if it is truly possible for me to do this.

Can I write?

I try but I know I could do more.

Do I write well enough?

I’m not after a response here, I’m not asking for affirmation. I just need to talk it out.

Actually there is a lot I need to be doing, all of which will help build my confidence and skill.

Firstly, I need to write more.

Although I think about my stories a lot, I am actually writing very little at the moment. And I need to be doing some more exercises to keep my writing brain active.

One exercise suggested at a workshop was to write about an object in detail for 10 minutes; and to do this for different objects every day. It made sense to me at the time but I never followed it up. This morning I spent 10 minutes writing about my cup of coffee. Does that sound dull? I actually found it extremely useful. The exercise focused my mind on the detail and I tried hard to use appropriate descriptive words.

This brings me to my second step. I need to improve my vocabulary.

As I read I often think “That was the perfect word to use.” I don’t do enough of that in my own writing. 

There are several ways to improve vocabulary: subscribe to A Word a Day; use the thesaurus and read widely. I subscribe and read anything I can get my hands on; I need to be making the conscious effort to use the thesaurus more.

These seem to be my main weaknesses and the more I work on them the better I will get and the more confident I will become (I hope).

Happy Scribbling