Let go of any inclination you have to identify with your work and interpret critiques of your work as critiques of you. Critiques of your work are critiques of your work. Your job is to use them to make your future work better.
writing
#26: Maintaining Story Momentum
You ask for the bones of plot, but it sounds like you already have those: start, middle, end, some drama. What you need are the muscles and tendons of plot, the pull and thrust and tension that turns a skeleton into something that moves and breathes.
#24: Semicolon Surgery
I love semicolons; they're great. The issue is what you're doing with language and content that leads to the use of so many of them.
#22: Passion Projects and Practice Projects
You can't thrive by only making art that feels safe and easy. But you also can't be brave all the time; you need rest, and play, and learning, and sustenance.
#21: Stopping and Starting
Nothing gets in your way more than a creative writing degree and a lot of practice doing other kinds of writing, both of which fill your head with all sorts of ideas about what writing should be like.
#20: How to Choose a Title
If you think of a title as communication, rather than as a summary that is somehow meant to encompass everything the story is while not giving anything important away, that can help you decide how to shape it.
#19: Love After Angst
Today is the fifth Tuesday of the month, which means that my answer to this heartfelt letter is available exclusively to my Patreon patrons.
NaNoWriMo: Reassuring Your Inner Critic
If you're feeling the urge to go back and fix (or despair over) what you've written already, and if it's getting in the way of powering on toward your goal and your deadline, this post is for you.
#15: How to Create Original Work
What makes an original work original isn't that it exists in a vacuum, because no work exists in a vacuum. It's that you layer originality in with the elements that respond to the canon, the genre, and the world.
#13: “Should I Just Give Up on Writing?”
Self-criticism is incredibly painful, because we know where all our own weak spots are. But by that same logic, we can also be our own best allies, cheerleaders, and friends.
