Beat the Negativity!

[kitty_fic]

When you hear that little voice telling you that you're not a good writer or everything you're doing is wrong. How do you combat that?

I've had several friends tell me that their writing has been crippled by negative thoughts and attitude.

What do you do when you start to compare yourself to others or have that niggling voice in the back of your mind telling you that you can't do it?

What are some things you have done or can do to quiet that negativity and push forward with a positive attitude?


“Comparison is the thief of joy.” ~Dwight Edwards

Comments

[imera.livejournal.com]

I know I’m far from good, both writing and plotting, BUT I do not give up. My eventual goal is to write, even if it won’t be published, a book. It will most likely be like one of those sappy romantic harlequin books, because they have almost everything, romance, plot, angst… I just want to be able to say that I tried.

So why don’t I give up when I read a bunch of stores that are clearly way better than mine? And when someone tells me that the plot has holes or something like that? Because those guys has negative attitude, which is a waste of energy when a lot of people tells me they like the story or think it's ok. That positive feedback kills the negative, and gives me hope.

I have had some reviewers that are clearly rude. I don’t mind creative criticism, because it helps me grow, but I do not appreciate any negative attitude without a reason.
I wrote a semi AU snarry, because I don’t know locations and such in the UK it couldn’t be a complete AU. There was one person who complained about the locations, the plot, the ‘laws’, saying that England is not USA where people carry guns. Well, what should I do when bad guys has guns (because even in UK people have guns *shock*)? Should Severus throw a stick at them?
His kind of negative attitude is a waste with me, not only because I have a pretty good excuse to why I don’t know where the University lies in England (the internet wasn’t very helpful either and I didn't have a lot of time) but because it’s a semi AU, I made up my own town so I was able to write and plot without having to thing that they have to travel for hours to move from one place to another.
The sucky thing is that the person, although he/she added a nickname, left nothing where I can contact him and tell him what I think, I do not like people that hide like that and delete their comments. I might be a nice girl, but I don’t allow people to walk all over me.

Ok, I got off the track for a minute here. So why don’t I stop writing? Because I love writing, it’s a form of creativity that allows me to do things I wouldn’t do in RL, or those things that you can’t do in RL. I could maybe write and never post anything, but I love reviews, it feeds my need to write.

[sara-holmes.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with the point about negativity coming from reviewers. It takes one thoughtless comment to completely throw a writer off track, which then sucks for all the other people who would like to read more from them.

I don't mind criticism from someone who is polite about it and has the guts to be available for conversation after - someone not long ago called me on my warnings which were lacking, and we had a great conversation about it so I learned quite a lot from it. But you're totally right; it's frustrating when people hide.

And just on a tangent - there are guns everywhere in the UK. Seriously. I took a delivery for my neighbour a while back, and when he collected it he told me it was actually a shotgun. Whoops.