3 Power Strategies to Overcome Writer's Remorse

Writer's remorse: Similar to buyer's remorse, where after a writing project has been completed, the author agonizes over the details of their writing and wonders if they had made a mistake In this article you will discover 3 strategies to overcome writer's remorse.

1. Turn monsters into investors

When my oldest was 3 years old, my husband taught him a magic trick. Our toddler was experiencing nightmares, and my husband told him that he can control what happens in his dreams.  I thought my husband had real nerve telling our son such rubbish, so I stayed just around the corner to hear what kind of nonsense I would have to prepare to overcome later in training truth to our son while maintaining his father's hero status in his eyes. This magic trick that my husband taught our son was how to change a threatening monster, into a kind helper, with love arrows.

The slight of hand happens as soon as the monster appears, because, you see, it is impossible for a monster to appear in a dream without the arrows that will take him down to appear into the very scene at exactly the same time. Nobody has ever seen it, because they didn't know they were there, but once you know they are there, they will always appear. Always.  It is a rule of dreams.  Also, you are the only person to see these arrows, and you always see them. It's is a fact that cannot be changed. They show up in your back pocket, along with the bow that launches them perfectly into the monster's heart every.single.time. Like magic!

When these flying arrows penetrate the monster, and it can hit the monster anywhere, or even pass over the monster, it doesn't matter, because the influence still causes immediate change, it causes the scary face, the sounds, and the intent of the monster into pure love.  That is why the arrows are called love arrows.  They can't be seen by others, but they cause permanent and immediate transformation.

I rolled my eyes, but kept my mouth shut.

The next morning our boy runs into the kitchen where his dad was eating breakfast, ran right into his dad's legs (because  his dad was standing at the counter), and hugged him, exclaiming, "It worked! It worked! The arrows were there just like you said they were, and I used only one, and the monster turned nice and gave me a hug, and he went away!"  He only had to use these magic love arrows two more times, and the monster never, ever returned to scare him. The power of suggestion to a young child!

But wait! Since then I admit that I haven't changed my dreams quite so dramatically, and my monsters seem quite a bit different, but are they really?  In my dreams it is me running away from an evil person who wants to hurt me, but as soon as they verbalize their plans to hurt one of my children after me, I realize I am in a dream and make a new choice. I become Wonder Woman in my plain clothes, turn around, and beat him up, because I know I can, because I am in charge of my dream.  

"But instead of spending our lives running towards our dreams, we are often running away from a fear of failure or a fear of criticism." --Eric Wright

In real life the monster I am afraid of is criticism. I have come to the conclusion that no matter what I do, half my friends will think I am too strict and the other half will think I am caving to the world. I love all of my friends, and I know they only have my welfare at heart, but I have learned to live my own life and not the lives of my friends. I love them exactly the way they are, even though my decisions are not their decisions.  When they give me their opinions, I feel inside my heart for the truth, and I decide what I will change, if anything.  I know they love me, and their opinions are not taken as criticism.

"The dread of criticism is the death of genius." --William Gilmore Simms

However, the thought of criticism from a cold world that does not know me, does not love me unconditionally, and loves to leave a legacy of destroying anything that doesn't agree with their ideas, this is my monster.  I have allowed my monster, whose name is Criticism, paralyze me. I will write a response on social media, believing at the time that what I have contributed and blesses, then as soon as I press "post", I got back and delete it, because the thought that somebody will criticize me or correct me or in some way tell me that I am wrong just for their own ego, scares the bejeebies out of me! So, I choose to erase my contribution, my blessing in their life, from existence.

How can my husband's magic trick help me as a writer?

I have another dream; a dream of becoming an online marketer, a blog writer, or an influential and inspirational speaker.  The first thing I need to do to be any of these things is to learn to turn my monsters into investors in my dream.

“We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.” – Michel de Montaigne

"If you can learn to take it in stride, with some genuine reflection on how you can use it as a basis for improvement, you can come to realize that criticism can actually be a gift."

2. Practice the art of pen pushing

Find your voice. Find your style. Foster confidence in writing. Realize your worth to others. HOw do you do this? You write. Every day, you write. Set aside ten minutes each and every day to write. Write about anything. Write about nothing. Train your hand to trust your mind, and if you do your mind will send your hand thoughts and words to write.  

Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? It is National Novel Writing Month, a national program that several of my friends have chosen to be part of. I have been a substitute teacher, and one of the schools encourages their students to be part of the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program. The challenge is to write an entire novel in just 30 days, in November.  

Do you have to write a novel for this program? No, but it give an opportunity, or an idea, to write. Just write, even if it doesn't seem to make sense. Chose a word as a prompt. Write about that word or starting with that word for 10 minutes. Find a question to answer. Look at a picture and write the story that is in that picture that only the imagination can see. Write an experience and what you learned from it. Just write.

When you feel more comfortable with "just writing", challenge yourself to writing a certain amount of words, which can be over 500 words, under 80 words, or exactly 250 words. Make up your own parameters.

Gain confidence in your skill. Discover the elements of writing that you struggle with or that you feel uncomfortable with. Dedicate your writing for a month working on that particular skill. Read, read, read. Reading improves your writing skill by expanding your vocabulary, feeling the rhythm of phrases, and opens your mind to new possibilities and extends your knowledge base.

It is very, very common for writers to be afraid to put their writing out there. It is more common than those writers who haven't felt this at one time. At first, requesting payment for one's own writing can be difficult, but with practice it is accepted.

3.  Accept the 85 percent rule

Ben Michaelis, PhD, wrote this dialog in a post on huffingtonpost.com.

"I want to do it but I'm afraid."

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid that people won't like me."

"And?"

"And that's it. I don't want people not to like me."

"Let me let you in on a little secret: If everybody likes you, you're doing it wrong."

A study by Business Insider about the difference between hot and not showed some surprising results. (They apologized and admitted objectifying women for the purpose of these results. I will mentioned that the word "sexy", or alluding to anything of that nature, was never even mentioned, except for the word "hot", which I think they used more as something extra desireable.) The results demonstrated that the looks a girl given by genes, which is not under your control, is not what makes her "hot". Having above average looks doesn't make her "hot".

What makes a girl "hot" is accurately found in the lyrics of Uptown Funk:

"If you sexy then flaunt it; If you freaky then own it."

The first part was an obvious to me. The second part had me fascinated.

I have spent my whole life hiding the parts that made me "weird", so that I can look more beautiful and accepted, because I thought being different, or weird, or freaky was a bad thing. About the time I turned 40 I had a meltdown, because suppressing my fun side that made me unique was boring to me, but whenever I showed my colors, which I found beautiful, there was always somebody around to talk bad about me.

I decided to find out the truth by opening my eyes and counting those who professed to be delighted by me and those who did not accept my behaviors. I was on a staff over a meeting that met monthly with 60 leaders regularly in attendance.  One month I was in the back of the room, with all of the participants facing mostly away from me. I was standing with my back against the wall, my weight on one leg.  After several minutes, I needed to switch legs.  All I did was transfer my weight from my left leg to my right leg. I even did it quietly.  I was surprised when 60 heads whipped around, with hope and expectation, at my movement to see what I was going to entertain them with next! 60 adults in one room who liked me because of my colorful personality.  

In every area I have lived, moving about every 2 years on average, I become quite acquainted with about 30 people per area. In every area I have experienced about 3 who appear to be somewhat uncomfortable with my unconventional ways and almost always 1 or 2 who are verbal about their unacceptance.

I then did the math to find truth.  Sixty at one venue, 30 at a time at varying places, and I have experienced 5 who apparently disapproved of me, and I let my fear of their disapproval stop me from blessing others.

The 85 percent rule: "If about 85 percent of the people you meet like you, you are probably doing something right. If it’s much less than that, you probably not doing enough to get along with others (a topic for another time and article). In contrast, if much more than 85 percent of the people you meet like you, you are probably doing too much to get along."

As a girl, I had been accustomed to hiding my flaws. Hiding the parts of me that are different. In other words, I believed that people would like me if I was a plastic doll with nothing that stands out as different.  Come to find out that nice, pretty, cute girls are often considered nothing of interest and, therefore, ignored. (Oh, how I wish I understood this when I was dating. My dad kept telling me, but I didn't believe him.)

"Take whatever you think some guys don't like -- and play it up. Show off what makes them different, and who cares if some people don't like it. minimizing your "flaws" is the opposite of what you should do. statistically, the guys who don't like it can only help you, and the ones who do like it will be all the more excited."

What the Business Insider study found was that it was those girls who found ways to not hide but maximize the parts of them that made them stand out that made them "hot".  A snaggle tooth, a bumpy nose, a tattooed section of their body, a quirky manner of dancing, a funky style of fashion.  The interesting part is that while more men agreed that the cute girl with pretty features is better looking, the girl who took risk received both some disapproval from some guys because of her uniqueness and also had a much higher amount of guys who found her "hot".  You get the most attention by taking risk.

In conclusion, growing confidence in writing is largely a mind game. Foster the art of the skill with practice, recognize criticism as a blessing, and realize that, "While we would love to have no criticism, probably if we had no critique, we wouldn't be doing anything meaningful." (Erwin McManus). Finally, Bob Hope maintained that he was a comedian to afford his true life, the game of golf. He left two sound pieces of advice that I would like to leave here. "Gold is a hard game to figure. One day you will go out and slice it and shank it, hit into all the traps and miss every green. The next day you go out and, for no reason at all, you really stink." and "I get upset over a bad shot just like anyone else. but it's silly to let the game get to you. When I miss a shot I just think what a beautiful day it is. And what pure fresh air I'm breathing. Then I take a deep breath. I have to do that. That's what gives me the strength to break the club."

"Never retreat, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl." --Nellie McClung

Writer's remorse is a thing. When you are comfortable with who you are and how you write, it will be easier to overcome writer's remorse. What ways have you found to escape it?