Do You See Yourself Reflected in Your Words?
You’ve written a draft — puked your ideas into the page, so to speak. Yay! Good for you. You’ve completed the first step.
Now, it’s time to review, edit, and revise. Please tell me you do this. Even if you don’t make any changes. Before you send your work into the world, you need to make sure that it reflects you.
We are all here writing for different reasons. Perhaps you want to make some money. Maybe you just want to get some practice at your craft. Perhaps you want to build a community, or like me, just want to share a piece of yourself with the world.
No matter your reason, you want to serve up something that is undeniably you.
At the very least, read over your draft. How do you know when it’s ready to post? For me, it’s when looking at my words is like looking in the mirror. When the same 26 letters that everyone else is using have somehow morphed into my own personal reflection. Do your words feel foreign? Is it tough to pick out what you are truly trying to convey? Use the thesaurus if it helps you get where you are trying to go. But it becomes an issue when you rely too heavily on writers’ tools — your readers know when to call bullshit. They can tell when you are trying to hide behind big words.
Writing tips abound say not to over-edit your work. I agree. You don’t want to edit out your essence. But you also need to make sure your essence made it into the piece in the first place.
Maybe, as you are reading through, you become disgusted and want to throw the whole thing away. I know I’ve been there.
Ask yourself why.
Are you disgusted because your writing misses the mark?
Then keep adding to it, wrestling with it — make yourself its boss!
Or are you disgusted because you see yourself reflected in the words?
Just like many of us hate looking in the mirror, we also freak out if our writing bares a little too much of our soul. I’d argue that you should post it anyway — disgusted or not.
Because once that baby is public, so is your soul.
This bothers some people. But why? We read everywhere that Medium readers appreciate raw and vulnerable writing. I’d argue that all it takes is painting a portrait of yourself with your words to gain a following. And it’s not supposed to be comfortable — in fact, anything that moves you forward in life is not comfortable.
So, if you are currently struggling with a piece of writing, take another look. This time, as you read, ask yourself,
Do I see myself reflected in these words?
If not, it’s time to do some soul-searching. Write until those words look like more than text on a page. Write until they look like something that only could have come from you.
This is my post #1 for Frank McKinley’s 30 Day Writing Challenge. Join us on this journey!
