Today I decided to take most of the day off from writing and allow my head to clear. As I did this, many things came to mind and I thought them over. First off writing isn’t for the faint of heart. Even the best-selling authors get piss poor reviews on works that end up being classics. Thus, a good writer needs to have a thick skin and not let every negative review get to them.

Second, write for the audience, not another writer. Another writer will always end up being more critical of your work than the average reader and sometimes it can do more harm than good. Same thing goes for writing on the forums and letting the amateur writer try to tell you what’s wrong with it. This definitely becomes the blind leading the blind.

Third, things are made overly complicated by many beginning writers. The trap they fall into is trying to write something that’ll be considered both a literary classic and have legendary workmanship. Instead of shooting for the stars and failing miserably, it’s sometimes better to shoot for Jupiter and write a good story and not worry about whether is the best written story. There’s plenty out there that suck ass and still sell good. Don’t get me started on that shit called Twilight.

Fourth, the mark of a mature writer, whether he or she has been published yet, is the ability to write stories and characters that are totally unlikeable. Mareth is one of them for me. There’s nothing good about her; in fact, she’s rotten to the core. But she’s still enjoyable to write. Who doesn’t like writing a bad boy or bad girl character?

I could go on for hours writing down my thoughts but I’m not going to bore you. Hopefully you can glean something from and be able to move forwards as a writer.