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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29839
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29839
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Only everyone ever, to the point where it is a classic cliche of the writer: the writer sitting in front of a typewriter beside a large wastepaper basket overflowing with bits of crumpled paper, and tossing yet another ball of paper over their shoulder. (By the way, after earning my living as a writer for 30 years I still throw away more than I keep.)

This is not unique to writing, of course. If you want to learn to cook you will burn a lot of food and probably a pan or two. You will drop a lot of balls before you learn to catch. You will take a lot of skin off your knees before you learn to ride a bike.

Writing is hard and it begins well before you sit down to put words on paper. Among many other things, you have to learn how to think through a piece of writing in your head before you start writing. You also have to learn how to string words and sentences and images and ideas together into a coherent linear narrative, which is a very different thing from having a conversation. Indeed, if you put 500 consecutive words together on paper that is probably more consecutive words than you have ever spoken in your life unless you have given a lecture or a speech.

People often expect writing to come easily. It doesn't. It take an awful lot of time and practice and study to become even remotely good at it. (Like gymnasts, dancers, and other athletes, most of those who get to be any good started in childhood.)

I don't know about confident. This is hard and most people suck for a very long time before they start getting even remotely good. The real question to ask is how motivated are you? If you are motivated enough you will persevere through your lack of confidence (which is entirely justified at first, since you just have not learned enough to produce anything worthwhile yet). If you are motivated enough you will persevere, and if you are not motivated enough you should not persevere because this is a lousy way to make a living and a lonely isolating hobby.

Original score: 1