Taking Stock by Allison Symes

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images.

Every writer has their share of ups and downs in their writing journey. Rejections don’t stop even if published. Sometimes a story you feel, genuinely, has a good chance gets nowhere fast. The positives include acceptances, nice reviews etc. 

Given the writing journey is a rollercoaster, it pays to take stock sometimes to find out where you are, where you are likely to head, and where you have come from. It also gives you chance to change direction. I did when I branched out into short story writing and then flash fiction, moves I’ve long been pleased about!

Whether you have had work published or not, unless you are a new writer, you’ll see where you are doing better than when you started. Think back to that time. Think about where you are now. Think about what you have learned about improving your craft meantime. 

You will have picked up tips from other writers, learned from workshops, and your work would have improved for implementing said tips. It took me a while to get my head around show and not tell but my fiction has taken off since I got to grips with that. Workshops helped a lot here. 

For the new writer, this is the exciting bit. Why? Because, yes, you are starting out and there is much fun to be had as you create your stories. At the same time there is much to learn (but this is fun and you should get to meet lots of lovely writers!), and you will improve your work (and chances of acceptance). 

That process is ongoing too. No writer can sit on their laurels and think “I’ve made it”. Aside from being arrogant, where is the fun there? The idea is to keep improving. You want to get better at creating characters who engage with readers. You want to find out what you can do with those characters that wouldn’t have occurred to you when starting out. There is much fun to come!

I can look back at my earlier work now (published or not) and see how I would write it now bringing into play all I have learned. That’s fine. I apply what I’ve learned to what I write now. Those earlier works stand as a marker as to where I was then but they also show how I have moved on. I look forward to finding out where my writing journey will take me next.

There is a next to look forward to - there will be for you too. As you learn more about writing, you find out more about potential markets, even forms of writing, and you can add more strings to your bow. 

Even if you stick to one writing form, you can learn how to get better at it. This is one great aspect to the writing life. Not only are you creative, you are giving your brain a good old workout because you continue to strive.