on Writing Forward:
Putting yourself out there isn’t easy. When you share your writing, you open it up to criticism. What if people don’t like it? What if it gets negative reviews? What if nobody reads it?
I share my writing all the time, thanks to this blog. In the early days, shortly after I launched Writing Forward, I would sometimes wake up in a panic the day after I’d published a new post. Had I said something stupid? Misspelled a word? Misplaced a comma? A few times, my fears were realized. I’ve published posts with typos in them, and I once spelled a famous author’s name wrong — in a title. Needless to say, I felt like an idiot.
But I kept going. I fixed that typo, and I moved on.
Here’s the thing: you’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes, a piece of writing that you thought was brilliant will turn out to be a dud. Other times, a piece you thought was dull will catch fire and go viral. Some people will like what you’ve written, but there will be others who don’t like it or don’t care to read it. You never know how people are going to respond until you share your writing.
Thanks Chris and even I agree with Melissa. I too keep on writing my short stories and then sometimes I post to my friends who tell me at times where I need to put what and I do agree with them and I write what comes into my thoughts. I have not taken any writing lessons from anyone and my friends do like my style of writing too.
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Good – Keep writing, and enjoying it, Kamal
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Thanks Chris for your kind words 🙏🙏🙏🙏
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Thanks for sharing this insightful piece, Chris. I agree that not every piece of writing is for sharing. One point not covered in the article (and which is, I believe worth making), is that authors should never respond to negative reviews. If a review contains glaring inaccuracies then, in some situations a note to the reviewer pointing these out may be in order. However the fact that someone doesn’t like your book is not a reason for trying to convince them that they should, in fact like it. I’ve seen a minority of authors get into spats with reviewers. I understand why this happens, but one should move on and not engage in what can easily turning into a slanging match. It is, however (in my view) OK to thank a reviewer for a review (I always do this if I have a means of doing so). Kevin
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Agreed, Kevin
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