Got No Confidence In Your Writing?
If you have no confidence in your writing, you’re not alone. LOTS of writers lack confidence, including professional creatives. Yes really!
Being a writer might be challenging, as creative people very often worry their work is not good enough. Lacking confidence can be immobilising and may influence the quality of your writing, too.
But instead of focusing on your lack of confidence, check out these simple ideas and exercises. They are designed to boost your confidence and make your creative genius shine.
1) Use writing prompts
Many creative people know that writing prompts is one of the basic exercises to develop your writing skills. Prompts are extremely useful if you have writer’s block or simply want to develop yourself as a writer. The prompt can be anything:a word, a phrase, a picture, a person or just a thought. It can help you write focusing on one thing at a time and make your creative juices flow. MORE: 6 Writing Prompt Tips To Get You Started
2) Experiment with different styles
It is most likely that you have already chosen the genre you prefer to write. However, at some point, you might get a feeling that you are starting degrading. Looking at things from a different perspective can be a powerful exercise to shake you up and boost your creativity.
Writing about something you are not familiar with might seem to be quite scary but the moment you get out of your comfort zone will give a boost to your creative side. For example, you constantly write texts on a judicial theme where formal language prevails. Try writing an essay in an informal style to give your mind a workout.
If you are a narrative writer, trying poetry may be one of the ways to make you think differently and bring back a spark to your texts.
3) Try the “Dear me” exercise
This exercise is unique and effective not only in terms of waking up your inner creative genius, but it may even help you improve your life in general!
Basically, this task is about writing a letter to yourself. You may speak to your younger self, either a child, teenager or just to a person you have been a few years ago. You can tell about your mistakes, achievements, offer advice, praise and even maybe ask for forgiveness.
This exercise is not a daily one, but it will definitely be beneficial for stimulating your creativity. MORE: 6 Ways To Great Writing Ideas From Social Media
4) Pretend to be someone else
This is another effective exercise for improving your writing skills. Because you’ve got used to writing about everything from your own perspective, it might be quite helpful to try expressing what you see through the vision of another person – especially someone you know in ‘real life’.
You can choose any individual, such as your lovely mom, strange neighbour or a even just passerby that caught your eye. It is better if a person is with a different background, nationality, gender or age, to really challenge you. Try explaining what you see through the imagined character’s eyes and try to be as descriptive as possible. This will help you get a deeper insight into human behaviour and emotions.
5) Try a stream of consciousness (AKA ‘Free Writing’)
Do you end up staring at a blank page a lot? Then this can be a very effective exercise indeed. The secret is in making a throwaway copy of your piece of writing with a promise to yourself that this will not be viewed by anyone else. This will make you get relaxed and get creative without the fear of judgment.
Try writing whatever comes up in your mind without any filtering. Do not try to be logical and just be spontaneous. Let your creative side express itself and do not worry if thoughts that you write are random and lacking sense. This exercise is a lot of fun as well, as you might be surprised what you can come up with. MORE: How Free Writing Can Help You Get Started
Concluding:
You don’t have to get overwhelmed. You can do some of the exercises for just five to ten minutes. The key is to find those activities that are the best for you and do them regularly.
If you love writing but do not feel confident enough, start doing the exercises that we listed. Just imagine how great it will feel when you have finished. From there, you can bring this new-found confidence to your work.
Good Luck!
BIO: Ester Brierley is a graduate student (Computer Science), junior QA Engineer in software outsourcing company, an enthusiastic freelance writer for Darwin blog and different digital blogs. She adores researching cutting-edge trends and sharing them in her writing pieces. You can follow her on Twitter.
