Believe in your story
Originally published at K.T. Hanna. You can comment here or there.
I was going to title this post “Believe in yourself”
But then I realized, as creative types, that’s a bloody hard thing to do. In fact - it’s a difficult thing to do as a human being. Society throws all these different norms at us, all these expectations that have been bred into it over hundreds of years. Finding yourself in all of that kerfuffle? It can be debilitating.
Society even has this cool new trend of not wanting to pay creators for their work… but I digress and that’s a rant for another day, and not what I intended to write here.
If you can’t bring yourself to believe in yourself, or perhaps even your writing - then believe in your story. It’s in your head, and it wants down on paper. It is YOUR story, to be told in a way that only you can tell it. You are its vessel, and the reason it popped into your head is that only you can tell it in the way best suited to it.
Sure - you might need to practice and research, and edit and read… but it’s all part of it.
You may have critique partners, beta readers, editors - but at the end of the day, it’s your story. Don’t just blindly dig your heels in and refuse to make changes, because sometimes suggestions can lead to bigger and better things and make you smile in all sorts of new ways.
But whatever story you’ve chosen to write (or if you’re me it’s the one that bashed all the others into submission and fought to be put down first), remember the reasoning. And whatever your reasoning - it is yours.
If you can believe in nothing else - believe in your story. It is a part of you, and it wants to be written.
And maybe, it’ll help you believe in yourself.