NPR's Ira Glass Explains Why Your Writing is Not Good Enough

It's a common fear among writers that their work isn't good enough, that it's actually pretty bad. And while there's a lot of stuff out there on fighting through that and believing in yourself, the truth is that sometimes...you're right. Your writing isn't that good. But writer and host of NPR's This American Life Ira Glass explained in his series "On Storytelling" why that's not a bad thing. Sometimes, it's that very gap between your writing and your expectations that makes you a good writer. Here's the animated text version.


[Via Goins, Writer]
To hear about my new releases first and get a free book of fifty 100-word short stories, sign up here. Your email will never be shared, and you'll only receive messages about new releases.

Why "Too Short" is a Good Thing #IWSG

Welcome to the Insecure Writers Support Group!

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

4 Brilliant But Insecure Writers Published After Death #IWSG

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Insecure Writers Must Keep It On the Market #IWSG

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Heinlein's Rules: Insecure Writers Must Put It On the Market #IWSG

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Heinlein's Rules: Insecure Writers Must Refrain From Rewriting #IWSG

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Heinlein's Rules: Insecure Writers Must Finish What They Start #IWSG

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Heinlein's Rules: Insecure Writers Must Write #IWSG

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The B-Word: Writer's Block #IWSG

This is my entry for the Insecure Writer's Group...

I don't want to be one of those bloggers that feels the need to explain why he/she isn't blogging. I'm not under any illusions that I have a legion of followers on the edge of their seats, clicking refresh on my homepage over and over, and waiting for my next post. But at the same time, I don't want people to think I've stopped blogging altogether. So I'll just say that I don't have reliable Internet access right now, and I don't know when I'll be able to blog regularly again. That said, I want to stay active, so here's my entry for the Insecure Writer's Group.

What If No One Wants To Read It? #ISWG

This is my entry for the Insecure Writer's Group...

What if no one wants to read what you write? That's a question that's plagued me throughout my writing career to the point that I stopped writing altogether. I freely admit what I write isn't what most people write or even read; comedic sci-fi like Flying Saucers isn't a big genre, and Toons doesn't fit into any genre at all. At times, I've tried to write more conventional fiction. I've written genre fiction like straight-up sci-fi, thrillers, and even a disastrous attempt at romance. But my heart really leads me to write what I've never seen before. In the end, I decided to just write what I like to write, and hope my audience is out there. That's the great thing about self-publishing. I don't have to justify selling thousands of copies. Every sale of my experimental work is one person who wouldn't have seen it otherwise, and hopefully they get the same thrill out of seeing something new that I do.

Good Writers Are Insecure #IWSG

This is my entry for the Insecure Writer's Group...

There are writers who aren't insecure. They're convinced every word they put on paper is gold. Some are right. Most are wrong. I firmly believe that good writers are insecure. Insecurity, the fear that your work isn't good enough, leads in one of three directions.

1) You throw out what you write, deciding it's crap.
2) You review your work and try to find ways to make it better.
3) You seek out someone you trust and have them give you an honest opinion of your writing.

Two out of those three directions (and in some cases, all three) can only lead to improvement. If you're believe your work is perfect, you won't try to make it better. Trying to make it better can only succeed. The trick is not to give in to number one, where you become so paralyzed with insecurity that you never finish anything. If you're on number one, try two and three first.

What do you think? Does insecurity lead to improvement? And be sure to check out the other members of the Insecure Writers Group!

To hear about my new releases first and get a free short story, sign up for my newsletter

All Writers Have to Be Egomaniacs and Completely Insecure #IWSG

This is my entry for the Insecure Writer's Group...

All writers, and really any creative person, have to walk a fine line in terms of their ego. We have to waver between believing we're awesome and believing we're lousy. We have to have enough confidence in our work that we can say, "Yes, I think this story or book is awesome, so awesome that people will actually pay money for it. Maybe even a lot of people, and I'll be a millionaire!" Without that confidence, we would never submit our manuscripts to publishers or self-publish them.

But we also have to look at our work with a critical eye and say, "Okay, it's not perfect. It needs to be edited. This part needs to be rewritten." Sometimes (and it happens to all of us) we have to admit that the story we've written isn't working, and scrap it or re-write it completely.

The tricky part is striking that balance. Too much in one direction, and we become an egomaniac, thrusting terrible work into the hands of others and refusing to change. Too much in the other direction, and we hoard our work or never complete it, and never become what we all dream of: a published author.

I think the key to striking that balance is impartial criticism. We need beta readers, editors, critique partners, and even friends and family who can read our work and give their honest opinion. It won't always be right - sometimes someone may love our work when it's crap, and someone may hate it when it's brilliant - but it's crucial to breaking out of that insular bubble of our own heads.

How do you strike that balance? Who helps analyze your work? Let us know in the comments.

10 Famous Quotes About Editing #IWSG

This is my entry for the Insecure Writer's Support Group...


These days, I'm doing more editing than writing. I hate editing. Looking at all the flaws in my work makes me insecure and frustrated. Maybe you feel this way, too. So here are some quotes from famous authors about editing to get you through it, courtesy of Goodreads.

1. "I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles."  - Shannon Hale

2. "I edit my own stories to death. They eventually run and hide from me."  - Jeanne Voelker

3. "It’s easy to see what to do once it’s already been done. The difficult time is before it’s to be done, and while you’re doing it. This is the difference between writing and editing." - Jarod Kintz

4. "Editing fiction is like using your fingers to untangle the hair of someone you love." - Stephanie Roberts

5. "Apparently, my hopes, dreams and aspirations were no match against my poor spelling, punctuation and grammar." - Red Red Rover

6. "I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers."  - Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

7. "Editing is like pruning the rose bush you thought was so perfect and beautiful until it overgrew the garden." - Larry Enright

8. "When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest." ― Stephen King

9. "Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear." - Patricia Fuller

10. "Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity...edit one more time!" - C.K. Webb

Did any of these help you with editing? What other quotes do you know about editing? How is the editing process for you?

And be sure to check out the other members of the Insecure Writers Group!

Editing Makes Me Hate My Writing [Bloghop]

This is my entry for the Insecure Writer's Group...

I'm working on the final draft of a manuscript right now, and I'm at that point in editing where I've come to hate my book. I always get to this point while I'm editing. The typos make me angry. Like "Seriously? You couldn't figure out how to spell that?" I'm tired of the grammatical errors that make me want to send myself back to school. I'm at the point where all the focus on the problems and mistakes makes the book seem like the worst novel ever written and I want to throw it away and write something else. I have to remind myself that I always feel this way when I edit, and eventually I'll get through it, and come out the other side with a book I'm happy with.

That Moment When Your Work is "Finished"

This is my entry for the Insecure Writer's Group...

It's a scary thing to put your work out there, and the temptation is to delay it as long as you can. I've been at the point with my manuscripts where I keep looking for typos, tweaking and tweaking, adding lines in and taking lines out, just to put off calling it finished. No creative work is ever "finished" to the point where it can't improve, but there does come a point where you have to accept that it's as good as it's going to get. At that point, I have to force myself to put the manuscript down or close the document file, and prepare to send it out into the world. That first envelope I seal to mail off to publishers, that first email I click "send" to forward to a publisher, that button you click on Amazon.com to publish my ebook, is always a moment that makes me pause and think, "Did I do enough? Could it be better? Is it ready?"

How about you? Have you ever had that moment of uncertainty about whether your work is good enough? How did you handle it? Have you ever sent out work and later decide it wasn't ready, after all? Let me know in the comments.

And be sure to check out the other members of the Insecure Writers Group! 

Am I the Literary Ed Wood? [Bloghop]

This is my entry for the Insecure Writer's Group...

I once saw Tim Burton's Ed Wood. He was portrayed as a filmmaker with deep passion for movies and his craft. He idolized Orson Wells, and was determined to follow in his footsteps and create the next great movie. There was only one problem. He was no good at it. He was a terrible writer and director whose most famous movie is Plan 9 From Outer Space, considered one of the worst movies ever made.

Ed Wood, hard at work

Throughout Ed Wood, he brushed off his horrible decisions and mistakes, focused on the goal of "making a movie." When someone tried to point out that one of the actors just bumped into something during a scene, Wood just said, "People don't care about that. All they care about is the big picture." Of course, he was wrong. I just wanted someone to walk up to him, tap him on the shoulder, and say, "Dude, let it go."

That's what I think about sometimes when I'm struggling with a story. What if you really aren't a good writer? How would you know? How many short stories and novels do you write before you decide you can't do it? At what point do you let it go? Writing advice is filled with platitudes about determination, persistence, keep on trying, keep on writing. But what if you're Ed Wood? What if, at the end of the day, you're really as bad a writer as you think you are?

What do you think? Do you ever feel like giving up? Have you ever read something in a published book or online that made you think the writer should've given up? Let me know in the comments. And be sure to check out the other members of the Insecure Writers Group!