I'm currently watching the one movie that made me stop writing creatively. Well it might not have been solely this one movie that discouraged me from continuing my fiction stories. However it did have a huge impact on my decision to give up. What movie is this you ask? I'll get to that in a minute.
One reason for my giving up was partly a lack of confidence. Then part English teacher who made it sound like becoming published was compared to winning the lottery. It wouldn't happen. Ever. I can't blame her for that, looking back during that time it was excruciatingly hard to get published. Now with all the resources at our finger tips its much easier to self publish. You just get lost in the sea of ebooks and other digital media. With that being said I still lack confidence that I would be able to stand out above the rest. My other more confident side says, "Go for it! It wont hurt anything and you never know what could happen."
Now I sit at a crossroad trying to decide if I should take one more crack at it. Set a side a little time each day to clean up my old stories, add more value to them. Start writing for fun and not work related. I guess only time will tell.
On to the movie that crushed my dreams of becoming a New York Times Bestseller. A movie about a girl winning a wonderful vacation trip from a local radio station. Which doesn't turn out that wonderful, being stranded with no where to go. Every one she knows gets picked off one by one. Sound familiar? It's the exact synopsis of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. I had my story almost finished when I saw a trailer for I Still Know, it was exactly what my story was. The only major difference was character names, and the protagonist being stranded on a cruise ship in the Bahamas rather an island.
I knew if I finished it and let others read it they would say I plagiarized or at least copied I Still Know. Even though I know for a fact I knew nothing of that movie prior to my writing. I still couldn't finish, I didn't want to be thought of as an unoriginal copycat.
So my question is, how does one become confident again? How do you not feel like your ideas are five minutes too slow?
1 comment:
Hello. I just started following you on Twitter, primarily because you're an RSL fan and, well, I write about RSL. You understand.
I've been struggling with this same issue in confidence with my personal writing. My creativity gives me inspiration to write, but I eventually get to a point of asking myself why I'm writing. I can't see how it'd be important to anyone to read my writings. And I fail to convince myself that my writing is valuable enough to begin with.
I've always struggled with self-confidence, and that translates to my writing, too. My gig covering RSL has helped me in this because I get positive feedback from the world at large (or maybe just a small sample of it...). I think what everyone needs is that positive reinforcement in what they do. And just perusing your site tells me that you definitely have the abilities to write. Creativity is definitely the much harder thing, and it pays to collaborate with people in the brainstorming process. That's one thing that's helped me.
Oh, and don't be discouraged by your ideas being realized by someone else before you. I think everyone's been there before. I know I have. What's important is the action you take with your ideas. Being quick to bring them forth is crucial, but tailoring them to fit new characteristics when you see the old ideas being done by someone else is even more so.
Keep up the work, and don't lose hope in what you do. Even if you're writing only for yourself, keep doing it. Don't forget that you're not immune to the change you can affect on people. Some things are meant for the individual that creates them.
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