Confidence for Writers: How To Believe In Yourself & Your Fiction
I'm new here. My name's Callie, and you can call me that or Rebel. My pronouns are they/them, and today I'm sharing somethings that helped me when my confidence took a hit and I couldn't write for a while.
A while ago, I lost my confidence in my writing and I was really struggling with it. I have since regained my confidence and now I know I'm amazing MUHAHA.
What I’m saying is I lost my confidence and regained it and… well, there’s more to it than that. I was also quite badly depressed. Depression comes and goes for me, and this time it hit hard. Anyway, my confidence tanked, my depression skyrocketed, and I couldn’t write for a long time. A very serious relationship I was in had ended, my job prospects were zero, I had just realised I was transgender for the third time, and unlike the first twice I couldn’t quite bury these feelings (but boy, did I try).
I decided to change my life around. And I started various things, such as exercising, eating better, and so on. Some of those things I still do.
One of the things I started doing was improving my self-confidence. All of it, through my whole life. And my confidence in my writing improved. See, you can improve your writing confidence, and I’ll come back to ways to do that later, but first I want to go over improving overall confidence.
Okay, since you’re reading this piece… one of three things is probably the reason for it. You maybe follow my tumblr (all like 3 of you, thanks), not really into this post, but reading out of loyalty. Thank you if you are, you’re so sweet. I heart you.
The second thing is that you could be really really bored and just reading anything. Oh, I thought of a fourth thing. I’ll put it now. The second and a half thing is curiosity.
The third thing is that you lack confidence and you’re looking for help.
But before I help you, are you confident at anything? If you lack confidence in one area, it’s not uncommon to lack it in other areas, too. If you do lack confidence in more than one area, the general tips to improve your confidence that I’m about to tell you will help. If it’s specifically writing related confidence you need, I’ll cover that after the general tips.
One last thing before we get to the tips: I've already said I was depressed at this time, and that will come up in the post again later. These are not tips for beating depression. You don't beat depression, you manage it. If you have depression, you need to see a doctor.
Tips to Improve Your Overall Confidence
First of all, get enough sleep. That might be 12 hours, or it might be less. For me, I get between 5 and 7 hours sleep a night, and maybe two or three nights a month I have a 12 hour super sleep. Do what works for you, but if you feel tired all the time… it might be because you’re tired all the time. It could also be illness or depression or something, but at least consider sleeping more. I’m not saying don’t go to the doctor.
Being rested makes you less stressed and more able to handle things.
One of the best ways to free your mind of stress and worry is through exercise. This is something I was doing a lot last year – but an injury in November with a long recovery means I haven’t been this year. I’m hoping to start again soon, I miss it.
The healthier you are, the better you feel.
If you act confident, people will assume you are confident. They will treat you like you’re confident, which makes you feel confident, and the difference between feeling confident and being confident - THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.
If you feel it, you are it.
be clean, dress nice, look good
Depressed people often don’t do this - when I was at my most depressed I wouldn’t shower unless I was going out, and I could be in the house for days at a time, wearing the same clothes, all sweaty and rank. Even if you don't shower often, if you aren’t putting effort into your grooming, it can affect your confidence.
reframe negativity into positivity
Everyone has internalised thoughts that they never really pay attention to, and often these thoughts are negative. It’s probably a survival thing - I’ll never survive jumping off that 100 feet high cliff is a good thought, I’ll never survive jumping off that two feet high cliff can cripple you with fear for no reason. Pay attention to your internalised thoughts, reframe negativity into positivity.
I will survive jumping off that two feet high cliff.
Even if it’s something you can’t do, try to reframe it into something you can do. I’ll never survive jumping off that 10 feet high cliff unless I practice smaller jumps first and set out crash mats. Okay, yeah, you might not survive anyway - maybe if you jump into the sea?
I’ll never write an 80,000 word novel unless I plan it out and write one 2000 word chapter at a time
The cynical view is that the more you help others, the more they want to help you, and the more people help you, the more you see yourself as a person worthy of people’s time and attention. The more positive view is still pretty cynical - if you help people, it’s a nice thing to do and doing nice things makes you feel good, unless you are a sociopath. Either way,
Tips to Improve Your Confidence In Your Writing
First of all, you're not an aspiring writer. Take the aspiring and throw it away. You write. You're a writer. You can aspire to be a better writer, or a published writer, or someone's favourite writer, but you can't aspire to be something you already are.
You can make an aesthetic or document of all the compliments you're writing receives and look at them when you're feeling down. Negativity is more memorable than positivity; this helps us remember the nice things people have said about our books. But to do this, we need to let people read our writing.
Putting your work out there can be fiendishly difficult. It's a really, really stressful thing until you do it and realise it really isn't that stressful a thing. Yet the next time you try, it seems to be just as stressful as the first time. But it's one of the best and most sure-fire ways to improve your confidence in your writing. People tend to suck at self-evaluating. Some people overdo it, other's can't manage it at all.
Positive criticism can make you a better writer, and when you're a better writer you'll get more compliments, so that feeds back into your confidence.
Sometimes people will pretend to be help you but will actually attack you. They will tell you that you are a terrible writer, but will rarely say exactly what is wrong or how to improve. If pinned down, it usually turns out your story just isn't to their taste. Watch for people who pretend attacks are criticism, and remove them from your life or, if you can't, don't give them anything to read and ignore their opinions.
Hopefully these tips help improve your confidence. They worked for me.
