I spend a decent amount of time on online writing forums.
It’s a great feeling to be able to interact with and help out other writers directly. I love being able to read what they’re working on, and give the occasional piece of advice or input. For someone like me, these communities of writers are like some sort of heaven…
But the best part about frequenting these forums? The other users are always asking questions.
Full discloser here: I’ve gotten quite a few ideas for blog posts from questions I’ve seen online. Sometimes it’s just more effective to answer these questions in depth on my own blog as opposed to a quick answer as a comment in a long thread of comments.
Lately though, I’ve noticed a very annoying question popping up more and more often.
Am I good enough to be a writer?
Seriously? Are you good enough? You have to be joking.
Of course you’re not!
Out of all the stupid questions that you could ask as a writer, this one is easily the most tiresome for me to deal with. So here’s the simple answer…
No, you’re not good enough, but that doesn’t matter.
It never has mattered if you’re good enough. It never will matter if you’re good enough. The only thing that matters, ever has mattered, or ever will matter when it comes to being a writer, is if you want to be good enough.
Whether or not you are “good enough” (at the moment) to be a writer is eventually made irrelevant by your desire to be “good enough.”
Here are the facts of the matter—you will never be as good as you want to be…
Sorry, but you won’t.
You’ll never be satisfied with your own writing. It will always seem like you can do better; and, most likely, most of what you write will even seem mediocre to you. There’s no getting around this.
No, it’s not your fault. It’s just what you are.
You are an artist: and what artist has ever called their work “good enough?”
…because you can’t judge your own work…
As an artist you are blind to how good (or bad) your work really is.
It seems like most people I see asking if they’re good enough have the same problem… They’re all trying to judge their own work.
This is the part that makes me the most frustrated…
Surprise surprise: artists who are trying to judge their own work—which they will almost always find extremely lacking, no matter what—are coming to the conclusion that they aren’t good enough to be writers.
…and you will always have something that you need to do better.
As a result of being artists, writers will always be trying to improve.
But through the magic of self-judgement, some writers will always find their own shortcomings (real or imaginary) and those shortcomings will always seem worse than they actually are.
I guess that could be a good thing in some twisted reality where the chaos of being completely directionless and not knowing exactly where your writing needs to improve is considered a good thing…
That’s not a reality that I would ever want to live in though. I prefer to have someone I trust tell me where my writing is week—instead of relying on my own compromised judgment—so that I know what I need to work on to make my writing better… but at least these writers are always working to get better at something.
*initiate sarcasm* That’s got to be good for them, right? *cease sarcasm*
In the end these writers are doing the right thing—in a way.
You do need someone else (other than yourself) there to tell you if your work is good or not. However, these writers are doing things backwards!
They’re judging themselves, deciding that their work is not very good, and then asking for an outside opinion—but not on the quality of their work.
No, these writers are asking whether or not they should even be writers!
How does this situation make any sense at all? It doesn’t! And the way these writers react to the situation—asking if they should even be writers anymore—makes even less sense.
Sure, writing is hard, and messy, and without support, it can be discouraging—but no worries.
Hakuna Matata my friend. That is the way it’s supposed to be.
Photo courtesy of: flicker
Writing is a mess, yes.
Writing is hard, yes.
Writing can be discouraging, yes.
But is it messy enough, and hard enough, and discouraging enough to make you want to be a writer any less? Or does it make you want to be a writer even more?
You see, this is where your desire to write comes into play…
Remember this?
Whether or not you are “good enough” (at the moment) to be a writer is eventually made irrelevant by your desire to be “good enough.”
Do you really want to be a writer? I mean do you really want this? Enough to push through the hard times? Enough to roll with the messy nature of being an artist?
Do you want to write enough to work, even when you don’t want to do the work?
Do you want to write enough to keep writing, even when you think you’re not good enough?
The funny thing about writing, is that you get out of it precisely what you put in.
If you have a real desire to be a “good writer,” put in the work.
Learn.
Apply.
Improve.
Act on your desires and make yourself a “good writer.”
On the other hand, if you don’t have a real desire to be a writer, then go ahead and keep asking yourself if you’ll ever be good enough. Because without that desire, without the drive to improve, you will never be “good enough.”
So to really answer the question…
Are you good enough to be a writer?
I don’t know.
Frankly, I don’t care—and neither should you. You shouldn’t be worrying about it. Like I said, it doesn’t matter if you’re good enough…
So, is that really the question you should be asking?