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Love this one so much! Thanks to you Chris my first fantasy LitRPG novel is still in progress!!!! And thanks again for the helpful Q&A youtube coaching from you the other day!
Great video, man. I've been writing since I was 11. I'll be 37 at the end of the month. Same deal. Quit for years. Angry that I'm not Hemingway. Last October, I finally got back into and started publishing on Amazon. I'm a master self critic. I can think of millions of reasons why I suck and will never succeed. Killing the inner critic will be the story of my career but I'm slowly doing it. I'm landing solid punches on that bastard and closing in on about 5th or 8th grade. Somewhere around there. I look forward to college.
I think everyone should delete the phrase, "Permission to suck," from their vocabulary. "We all start at zero," is truer and feels better to tell yourself. No one would look at a first grader, who is doing their best to learn and improve, and tell them that they suck, so why should we even hint such a thing to ourselves? Rephrasing the journey to going through school is genius, because I instinctively know what I should be learning from kindergarten on, and what grade I'm in now. I started taking piano lessons at age five, and I've approached learning to write in the same way - frustration that I sucked, practicing simple exercises, learning theory, until somehow I gained enough of a foundation that I could work on the nuances. But everyone learns music, or art differently. There's no way to really measure your progress except to compare yourself to someone else. Whereas everyone has gone through school. School takes that pressure off, that flailing uncertainty of not knowing how, and presents the path. Learn. Practice. Improve. Thanks for this video, it really helped today.
i dont mean to be so off topic but does someone know a trick to get back into an Instagram account? I stupidly forgot my password. I would love any tricks you can offer me
@@ChrisFoxWrites I still play and DM as well absolutely love it!!! When can we expect fantasy books from you Chris ;)??! I will be first to buy it haha!
Hey, Chris. I don't know if you'll ever see this but thank you. I've been gearing up to finally undertake laying down a story that's been rattling around and snowballing in my head for years now and I'm so filled with doubt and apprehension that every time I sit down to even begin typing notes for an outline, I just end up staring at a blank document and a flashing cursor for half an hour while self doubt wells up. Eventually I convince myself that I can't do this and even if I did nobody would read it and I shut my laptop down and move on to something else. I came across your videos in doing some research and they've been extremely helpful. Especially as you lay out your workflow. This video, however, is what I really needed to see. You'd think I'd have learned these lessons over the last couple years. As a new student pilot that just ungracefully bounced another landing for the 20th time, I'd watch the airliners gently alight on the runway with barely a hint of drama and think: "I'll never be that good." Two years later, I've just added my instrument rating and I'm working on my commercial now. But apparently that lesson I should have learned intuitively didn't stick. So again. Thank you. These words from four years ago resonate. They've inspired me to just allow myself to spill what's in my head and start writing. Allow it to suck and know that I can always go back and chisel it into what I want it to be later on. But I'll never get there if I don't start. Keep up the awesome work.
I just watched this for the first time and I bought your 8 books on writing last week. Done with how to write 5000 words an hour. It’s working and I enjoyed the video. I am giving myself permission to not be an expert over night. I am giving myself permission to say, I am on the journey, and not at my destination yet. Thanks for the video!
I really like some of your writing videos, but I'm not a big fan of this one, mainly because of the mention of not comparing yourself to people who are further along than you, with no mention of people who are on the same page as you. It reminded me why there are several years between when I wrote my novelette, and chapter book, and when I starting writing again a year ago, which is because my twin wrote a novella after hearing about my novelette, and it was better, and my mother agreed, and then I wrote a chapter book it wasn't that great either. What would you suggest doing when starting to compare yourself (even if you're trying not to) to someone who has been doing something for the same amount of time as you? I'm not sure if I need this motivation, but it would be nice. If anyone who had a similar problem to the one I had as a teenager reads this, please do not stop writing for several years. Part one of the novella or novel that I'm currently working on and the picture book (which is very similar to the chapter book I wrote as a teenager, but better) I recently finished are the two best pieces of writing I've ever produced.
If you spend some time on my channel you will learn that I have quit writing multiple times, and each time I quit I did it for at least 5 years. I am 42. Right now it sounds like your twin is a better writer than you are. I suspect you don't like this video because it is painful to accept that someone so close is better than you are. I can relate. My brother was an amazing athlete. I was a scrawny intellectual weakling. My brother had constant dates. I couldn't get a girl to even notice me. If your brother is a better writer than you right now, then you should be envious, not jealous. Envious means you want what they have. Jealous means you want what they have, but also don't want them to have it. You become an author, and he stops being an author (or she, I have no idea). This video has helped a lot of people, because it's designed for those waking up to the world. Those who realize that no one else is their path. They walk it alone. Your twin isn't you. After you turn 18 odds are high you will not live with them. You will venture into the world and live your own life. The only person measuring your progress on that path is you. It doesn't matter what your mom thinks, or your twin, or your principal. It matters what you think. Who do you want to be? If your twin is a better writer, then study writing until that's no longer the case.
@@ChrisFoxWrites Thanks! That was pretty helpful. A big reason to why I eventually started writing again was that my stories were more original and her's were cliche, even if my writing style sucked in comparison to hers and had a lot more grammar errors, but being more mature now, I started giving myself permission to suck. My big life goal also changed from wanting to be of equal ability to my twin (she's always been better than me at everything, not just writing), to wanting to stop keeping score (I think this was partly because we no longer lived together, but mostly from starting to grow up), and I suck at not keeping score, but I'm trying.
@@neigh102 I'm proud of you. I realize I don't know you, but the humbling experience of accepting that someone will probably always be better than us at something is the most cathartic kind of growth. Interestingly, it was after that realization that my writing improved and finally surpassed a lot of the people I was comparing myself against. If you want this, not only will you someday be a better writer than your twin, but you'll also be helping her to improve and inspiring her to be better. You'll lift each other up. If you have the funds or access I'd highly recommend checking out a book called Mindset. I wished I'd had it when I was your age. It changed everything for me.
Thank you Chris for doing videos like these. I dream of someday earning at least a part of my income through writing. Being a non-native speaker sometimes I struggle with finding the right vocabularies. Often it makes me focus too much on the grammar instead of telling the story that I want to tell. Funny thing is, I'm also an English teacher in my country. And what you've told me is what I always tell my students. It takes time to learn and it's unfair to compare themselves to others that have studied for years. Everybody starts at zero. It's ironic that now I'm the one that needs the reminder. Thanks for sharing your experience and humanizing the writers in a way. It gives me hope that even if it takes me years, I can still practice and hone my craft and that it's not the end for me and other aspiring writers out there.
I am so glad you started making these videos. My favorite are the story craft lessons, but this one ranks right up at the top. I like your logical and experimental approach to everything. Motivation surely must be one of the biggest obstacles for any writer. I know it is for me, so I couldn't wait to watch this one.
Love your videos, Chris. You're inspirational, passionate about what you do, and your genuine interest in mentoring and helping others shines right through! Good luck on your own entrepreneurial dreams!
I've watched and re watched your videos. This one came just on time. I was just telling my husband that I feel like I'm writing crap. I was ready to go back to working 9-5 and stop writing. I'm so OCD and a perfectionist. One thing you said resonated to me "I gave myself permission to suck." I will keep writing. Don't want to wait until I am at retirement age to begin. Thanks!
Yes, this was really good to listen to. I also quit writing for almost ten years, and came back a few years ago. It's been a slow progress, but I keep trying, keep plugging away. Reminders like this keep me going.
Ya know...I'm toiling away at my first real attempt at a novel, and I just hit that point where I hate it and I want to just start over or leave it alone and move on. Decided to look up some of you, Jenna Morceni, etc. I'm glad I came across this video. It's very delayed, but thank you for uploading. Hopefully I can say in a year that you're the reason I finally finished and published my first book.
I think you made this video just for me. Timely. I received my second manuscript back from my editor and her comments were spot on--but devastating at the same time. A huge rewrite is needed. I was knocked back and discouraged. So the question is to give up or keep going. Even though I've tried to tell myself the same thing (as what you said in the video), I think I just needed to hear it from someone else. Thank you for these words.
That criticism is such a punch in the gut. Every time we feel like we've 'made it' and are now decent writers we get feedback showing just how much more we have to do. Kudos for pushing through and continuing to write =)
Thanks Chris. It just about sunk me but I don't want to give up and then two years down the road regret not pushing through. Thanks for sharing your own story!
I've always been fine with starting at zero. I think I'm one of the few. Never truly compared myself to others, or been envious of successful people. Things that cause me to sometimes give up: I suffer from chronic migraines and they often cause me to quit writing for long lengths of time. And then I would have trouble starting up again, feeling like I needed relearn everything cuz it suddenly felt alien to me. In recent years I've been trying to teach myself to just write anything, even in the dark, or near dark, even when my brain's in that fog, so that I don't feel like all those days are wasted. And now, thanks to so many recent positive writing videos, like this, these migraine-days are when I'm trying to embrace "the suck". Cuz, I know my writing will be terrible, in so many different ways, on these days. But there's so many more of those headache days than not, so I just tell myself that I need to try my best, even my best at sucking, to get something, anything, done. Cuz, I have these migraines for life, so I have to try to ignore their effects on me. The other thing that causes me to question continuing with my writing is all my toxic relatives & current roommates. It's all very distracting and it's probably some kind of miracle I haven't quit entirely. All that negativity is soul sucking. Also, these people, in the past, actually made me afraid of having any kind of success. But, I'm hoping a unobvious pen name will help me to hide from them. Even if I only ever make $2k/mo, lol, I just don't want them to know about it. This is a really great video with such a great message. Thanks for making it. :D
Thanks for this video, Chris! I'm at the very start of this journey. I know getting discouraged is coming, so it will be helpful to watch this again when I'm not where I want to be 6 months from now.
Thank you so much for the great inspiration in your videos. I've quit writing for years, too, and regretted it. I'm just glad I'm back doing what I need to do (with the help of your videos!) so I can graduate one day!
I’ve only been writing seriously for a couple of years, but I’ve learned so much in those few years just by practicing and writing consistently. My writing “sucks”, but I’m getting better and I’m having fun. When it comes to story-crafting, I’d say I’m probably a third grader on your “grade-school analogy” scale. Conversely, since I’ve been drawing all my life, I’d say I’m probably a sophomore or junior when it comes to drawing. Because I’ve drawn so many “bad” drawings over the years, I’m able to draw a realistic likeness of just about anything today. The only difference in our skills is the hours spent honing them. I have a “learning-to-draw” book recommendation for you: “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards. After reading this classic drawing book and doing the exercises, your artistic skills will accelerate exponentially, and you will “see” everything through an “artist’s eye”.
Great video, Chris! Exactly what I needed to hear as I'm currently struggling along with Camp NaNoWriMo. I just need to keep reminding myself that what I'm writing now might not be a masterpiece, it might be absolutely terrible, but that's OK, because I'm doing it! Can't remember where I heard it, but I remember reading something about people being afraid to do something if they can't make it 100% perfect, but what they don't realise is: no matter how far short of 100% you manage, as long as you do it, it's always going to be better than 0%. Please, more videos like this!
This video gave me chills. Like… I am writing stories since I can, well, write. But I never trusted myself enough to take all the ideas I have an put them into a howl story. It's always bits and party, but never more. I know, I don't have to be perfect. Still I am afraid at listening to the critics and to fail. Over and over again. And more often it's just so demotivating I just stop writing… But your videos was really amazing. Maybe it will once again, push me to write and to try it. Maybe I will do the 21 Day challenge once… So a big thank you for this video. It is amazing. I love it an I love how you try to take away the self-doubt.
It all comes back to being taught that making mistakes is bad, and that we should be embarrassed about it. Once we take away the ego attached to something like writing, it becomes okay to not be very good yet. And then we can practice without worry =)
+Chris Fox It's the first of your books I have read and I am loving it. Can't wait to read more. What I like about the story is, it a 'smooth' read - it flows well. Exactly how I like my books. Keep up the great work and thanks for responding to my post!
