BTW, if you’re one of those writers who looks at other writers and thinks, “God they’re so much better than I am, how can my work ever be worth posting compared to that?”
If that’s you, then a few thoughts for you:
1: Some writer of great fame and competency (probably Ray Bradbury) offered the advice that it takes about a million words of writing before you start getting good. Some writers start working toward that word count earlier than others. If you meet a 20 year old who’s getting published? It’s entirely possible they started drabbling around when they were like five. Their age has nothing to do with it. It’s how long you’ve been practicing compared to them. I know a guy in his early 20s who’s such a painfully good writer that I, over a decade older than he is, sometimes feel despair if I let myself think about it too hard.
2: When you compare yourself to a writer who seems amazing to you, have you asked them to let you glance into their WIPs folder? Because chances are, all you’re seeing are the successes and not the charred and mangled abandoned bodies of all the fics they couldn’t finish and the drafts they haven’t fixed yet. Believe me, the carcasses are in there, and it’s not a pretty sight. I’ve got at LEAST 3 times as many dead and mangled WIPs as I have finished stories.
3: Frankly it doesn’t matter how good they are, because stories cannot be swapped for each other. They are not commodities. That writer you admire will never write the story you’ve got lurking in your head. Even if you gave them the prompt and a 2 page synopsis outlining the characters and basic plot, they will never produce the same story from it that YOU would. Your stories are unique to you, and they cannot be replaced. You are unique and precious and irreplaceable as a writer, and the things you create have never been seen in this world before and never will be again.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2eJQTT5