Have You Lost Your Confidence As a Writer? Here’s How You Can Get It Back.
Dear Writer — February 15, 2021
I want to make a point before I get into the meat of this piece, so please humor me.
WARNING: As you read the italicized paragraphs just below, please realize that they are a “rough draft,” a “sloppy copy.” I wrote them and published them WITHOUT revision.
Instead of saying to yourself, “Who does this chick think she is? She can’t write a cohesive sentence, correctly structure a sentence, or even make sense with what she writes;” I hope you are saying, “OMG. My first draft looks like that too.”
Durng creative writing class one day, I handed back papers k. most of which needed a lot of work. One student in particular commented loud enough for me to hear at the front of the room, “Why bother?” He had received a “please revise” at the top of his paper awith numerosul comments in the margins / written in red.
During the time I allowed students to read over their paper and then work with one other writer to weed through and find what was good in the paper, I called, let’s call him Matthew, up to my desk with his paper. Oh, yeah, I made him dig it out of the circular file (trash can). It was obvious that he hadn’t had written it during lucnh in the cafeteria or on the bus…
