How many out there...

How long have you been writing and submitting? If you're questioning your skills, perhaps you could take a class in short fiction and study the craft a little more.

-di

Rubbish

I may not be the one to talk about this because I sold the first three short stories I ever wrote, and the first novel I ever wrote, but I never really thought it mattered much what a writer thinks about his own writing. I never have considered myself good or bad. I don't believe this is my call to make.

A long, long time ago, an editor said, "It's isn't the writer's job to judge quality, it's the editor's job. So just write it, send it to an editor, and let him do his job."

For me, this took all the pressure off. Every last bit of it. This belief allowed me to simply write, and to write a great deal, which meant I got in lots of practice, and to submit everything I wrote without worrrying about quality.

I simply write the best way I can. If I see somethng I think is wrong, I fix it, but I don't worry that I'm submitting rubbish.

The thing is, I have no doubt that at times I have written and submitted rubbish. So what? It was the best I could do with that particular story at that particular time. I wrote it, I submitted it, and it got rejected over and over, and again, so what? I'd already moved on to the next project.

And experience has shown me I haven't a clue, anyway. I once wrote a story that I thought was the worst thing I'd ever written, and by a wide margin. It sold for great money first time out, and has resold several times since.

I also have a story I thought was the best thing I'd ever written, and again by a wide margin. I loved it when I wrote it, and I still love it, but it's been rejected so many times I've lost count. It doesn't even draw nice, encouraging rejections.

You're not alone Dolly, I've been writing for years and I still sometimes question what I've written. But the very fact that you were able to get published should tell you that there are people out there who think you can write.

Don't let the rejections get you down - one acceptance and two rejections sounds like pretty good odds to me!

If you are interested in a writing course, might I suggest a correspondence course? I took the one through Writer's Digest and really enjoyed it. You can check it out on their website: http://www.writersdigest.com/wds/

Good luck! Sounds like you're doing great so far

Lady Cat

Scotland?

Okay, go to www.writersnews.co.uk and check out the website. This writer's magazine runs a series of excellent writers' correspondence classes. The tutors are well published and know their stuff. Their crits are good and if you need a confidence boost they'll give it to you. They are also based in Nairn.

Good Luck!

Dollywagon said:

that think they are not 'very good' writers?

I wonder about this quite a bit, especially when reading how many mms get rejected.

I seem to question my skills quite a lot and will beg and plead for honest criticism, but still worry that I am one of the writers that editors report as being rubbish.

The thought of my submissions getting a few tee-hee's from editors makes my blood run cold - especially if my submission isn't meant to be humorous

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My opinion (for what it is worth considering my spectacular lack of success in ever getting anything published), is that most writers probably are over-critical of their own work. In my case, when I read something just after I have finished it, I think it is the greatest thing to ever have been put to paper. After I have read it the third time however, I think that a better job could have been done by a Mongoloid hippopatamus in the middle of an amphetamine bender. If I go back to it a couple of months later though, I like it again.

My works have been rejected so many times that at this point, I am writing primarily just for the love of the medium and have developed a rather lacksadaisical approach to submitting for publication. I think as a result, I am more relaxed at it and a better writer for it, no longer feeling the pressure to get published. Somehow I know that one day my success will come. That may sound kind of arrogant, but I think a writer should have that kind of attitude in order to keep writing, and no author will acheive success unless they do exactly that. The more writing you do, the better you will get at it and that is true whether you really are as bad as you think you are, or the undiscovered Second Coming of Shakespeare.

Either way, the best of luck to you. Keep it up no matter what!

...on writing...

Dollywagon:

The more I worry about how good a writer I am, the less I write.

The more I write, the less time I have to worry.

Putting that another way, when I don’t worry about the quality of my writing, it’s sure a lot easier to crank out the words. Sometimes I even write good stories.

Bear in mind, too, that a stack of rejections may mean less that you’re a bad writer and more that you’re a bad marketer.

Do I sometimes think I’m a bad writer? Yes. Particularly when I’m not writing, but sometimes when I look at something I’ve written and find it wretched. In that case, I change the wretched parts. If that still doesn’t work, well, no harm in tossing it aside to go write something new. There’s always the chance that what seemed so bad, or so irreparable, may one day seem easily fixable, and worth saving.

Cheerio--

Personally I think I'm great, within parameters. But as James says, it's the editor's job to judge.

Having worked as an editor for a while, I can confirm that the majority of writers have no idea of how bad they are, otherwise they'd stop submitting.

I think I'm less of a bad writer than I was five years ago, and so I keep hoping

I can't for the life of me tell whether I'm good bad or indifferent, but I think I've finally gotten out of cliched ruts.

(Mike Coombes, I'm not actually stalking you <g> )

I thought I was stalking you, Shweta!

I thought you were pretty good 5 years ago.

It's true:

the more time you spend worrying, the less you spend writing.

The stories in my head are fantastic but I think of myself as a so-so writer who is thankful to receive a few lines of Divinely-inspired prose from time to time. If I can get them on paper in just the right way, I feel wonderful.

But like the experts here have said, getting your work accepted depends on what a particular editor feels about your work. Editors are the Supreme Rulers of the writing world.

Mike Coombes said:

Having worked as an editor for a while, I can confirm that the majority of writers have no idea of how bad they are, otherwise they'd stop submitting.

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That's true. I'm not an editor (that's my boss), but I have seen a fair amount of crap being submitted by people who think their writing is the best, and then my boss and other editors have to do a near-complete rewrite. Editors make writers look good. I've written stuff that have gone under the editor's knife, and it's sometimes amazing how much better the final product looks, and then I bang my head on the table and ask myself why I couldn't have done it this way. You just keep learning as you go along, I suppose.

I have the problem of thinking I'm not all that good. But like James A. Ritchie pointed out, whether or not my writing is good is up to the editor. In twelve rejections on a manuscript I thought was decent, but not great, I've had four of those rejections tell me that the work was pretty darned good.

The point is, we are our own worst critics. Don't judge your work; just write it and do your best with it. Then let the reading public decide for themselves what they think.