I is for Ignore

This year for the A-Z Challenge, I'm attempting to act like I know what I'm talking about and offering advice about writing.  Let's see how I do!

Also, don't forget to stop by the Parallels blog to see more posts about the upcoming anthology, which will be available on May 3rd!

Hopefully most of us have our cheerleaders.  These are the people that encourage us to keep writing when we get discouraged.  We should listen to them, because they remind us of how much we love what we do.  On the flip side, we all have our detractors.  They are the people who question whether we should “waste our time” with this writing thing.  These are the people we should try to ignore.  (This, by the way, is not the same as someone offering constructive criticism.) 

It’s easier said than done, I know.  Those words of discouragement often burrow deep, because they piggyback on the insecurities we already had.  Even so, as writers, we’re always going to have our detractors, but if we’re going to keep doing this thing we love, we need to have a thick skin.

How do we accomplish this?  How do we ignore the harsh words?  We should focus on our supporters and make sure we never forget how much we love writing.  If we can’t see ourselves living without writing, we must do all we can to keep that love alive.  We owe ourselves that.