Insecurity.

[BrokenBoy]

I see writing prose like playing guitar. You can do simple stuff, but you can also do more complex, technical, and more artistic stuff. I feel insecure about not being able to do metaphorical "extended solos" and "shredding" whenever I try to write creatively.

I look at the writing of the novelists I admire and my mind is too stupid for me to analyze the inner workings of their writing and find out why their stuff works and my doesn't. There's one writer I idolize in particular who has a fairly minimalist writing style that might not look particularly artsy on the surface, but when you analyze the sentences he makes, it's jammed packed with substance and a deep understanding of the craft and it so fun to read his writing our loud.

His works are particularly moving to me in part because of his prose and his works are an influence on my own writing (I try to write in a minimalist way myself). However, my writing sucks and is horribly shallow despite my aspirations of making art. I cannot construct meaningful and deep sentences like the writers I like. If a famous literary critic like Harold Bloom or Edmund Wilson saw my writing, they would write an angry tirade that tears my writing to shreds and spit at the result.

I just wanted to vent. Yesterday this insecurity and jealousy of mine induced some suicidal thoughts.

 

[Slime_Punk]

You might think I'm giving you a canned response with this, but it's 100% normal.

I'm not a writer, but I do lots of things with my spare time that also spark that impending feeling of imposter syndrome and utter worthlessness. For example, I've been playing guitar for over 17 years and still suck, while there are people who just started who can shred circles around me. I've been drumming for even longer (probably my entire life), but any musician in any band could out-perform me any day.

Most of us mere mortals have a skill cap of sorts, and it's something any creative type has to accept at some point in time. We're not all going to be comparable to the greats, and that's kind of how it's supposed to be. That doesn't mean you should stop though - doing what you love doing makes life interesting and, IMO, worth it when you're going through the not-so-good times.

Here's a fun exercise for you - start comparing yourself to other amateurs. Then you'll realize how good you actually are. Even better - compare your current work to your work 5 years ago and you'll see just how far you've come.

 

[Knower of nothing]

I'd say "growth rate" instead of "skill cap". Most people will never hit their theoretical skill cap in their life time for it to be super relevant as it requires effective and lasting dedication.

I get what you mean though, I'm unable to analyse the work of those I admire too, it's simply above my level. One thing to try would be to start learning analysis itself by starting with simpler works. There's also books on technique to consult. I don't have the will for all that.
Something I do is picking something apart and putting it back together myself. It doesn't explain much of the "how" but you get some of the "what". When done enough I find myself having syphoned some of the design language into my own vocabulary.

 

[Slime_Punk]

I'd say "growth rate" instead of "skill cap". Most people will never hit their theoretical skill cap in their life time for it to be super relevant as it requires effective and lasting dedication.

Yes, I worded that wrong. There's a skill cap but we can continue growing which is what I should've said!

 

[Rodafina]

I know you said you were just ranting, but I just wanted to offer one piece of evidence:

You got a total stranger (me) engaged and interested in what you have to say through your written word.

Can’t be that bad. Though, I do understand the feeling of being disappointed in oneself. That, I understand.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Never measure yourself against others as you learn your craft. Enjoy your writing, but learn to critique yourself and understand the development of your own voice.

I have spent my career writing what can be considered technical or regulatory documents. A creativity killer. But I enjoyed my craft. I still enjoy picking up my banjo though I am still a novice. Let me leave you with words from Kurt Vonnegut:
“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of ‘getting to know you’ questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

“And he went wow. That’s amazing! And I said, ‘Oh no, but I’m not any good at any of them.’

“And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: ‘I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.’

“And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘win’ at them.”

 

[Alaric593]

I see writing prose like playing guitar. You can do simple stuff, but you can also do more complex, technical, and more artistic stuff. I feel insecure about not being able to do metaphorical "extended solos" and "shredding" whenever I try to write creatively.

I look at the writing of the novelists I admire and my mind is too stupid for me to analyze the inner workings of their writing and find out why their stuff works and my doesn't. There's one writer I idolize in particular who has a fairly minimalist writing style that might not look particularly artsy on the surface, but when you analyze the sentences he makes, it's jammed packed with substance and a deep understanding of the craft and it so fun to read his writing our loud.

His works are particularly moving to me in part because of his prose and his works are an influence on my own writing (I try to write in a minimalist way myself). However, my writing sucks and is horribly shallow despite my aspirations of making art. I cannot construct meaningful and deep sentences like the writers I like. If a famous literary critic like Harold Bloom or Edmund Wilson saw my writing, they would write an angry tirade that tears my writing to shreds and spit at the result.

I just wanted to vent. Yesterday this insecurity and jealousy of mine induced some suicidal thoughts.

You're also reading the result of them writing over and over and over again countless times. One of my favorite writers is historian and philosopher Will Durant who wrote the twelve volume Story of Civilization which I can't recommend enough. But he wrote, Aristotle and many others have written variations of the same understanding.

" “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

If you want to be a writer that can shred, then read and write continuously.

I've had many in my life tell me I should write for a living because of the way I use language. I didn't get that way by accident. I haven't had cable for nearly two decades which left reading and writing as things I did for entertainment until the internet opened up a different form of writing, video on demand of that which I find interesting, and my children were born.

I'm not writing it for publication except to my children, but I'm writing a history of Western Civilization as I understand it from experience in many areas of it and source documentation they will have inspired by Durant's Story of Civilization so they have evidence of what was known before the censors and historical revisionists decided to allow their brains to fall out. I don't have much time to do it which is why it's just for my children, not publication. It's going to take many many years.

 

[Darkkin]

Writing will stand or fall on its own merit. It is not dependent on the author once published. This is the function of the fourth wall. Basic objectvity.

People also have a tendency to be their own worse critics because we are too close to the project and the process to be objective.

(Personally, I know my own work is good only for toasting marshmallows or lining the recycling bin. Readers say otherwise and I still don't quite understand why.)

Want to improve as a writer. Critique. Take a piece apart and be honest with what you think, and most importantly...why. Keep the critique objective to the work itself and consider what works, what doesn't, etc. It is truly the best tool for learning how to write effectively.

 

[Fino]

Read and write for hours a day, and after many years, you will improve.

 

[Thinx]

I have dipped in and out of writing poetry and prose and non fiction all my life. However the most progress I have made has been more recently reading blogs by people who specialise in explaining how to write, how to structure writing creatively, what can go wrong, etc.

I recommend you look out for those type of blogs and guidance and use them to develop your skills. You will likely find you do some or even many things these guys regard as rooky mistakes. I certainly did, and after a lifetime of having this hobby and even publishing some fiction, poetry and a text book...

Depends what you are writing, who would work best to read, I like CSLakin and KMWeiland for structuring and writing fiction. Great writers didn't become great overnight. It's a craft we have to learn. Like we can't pick up a guitar and be a star at it tomorrow. Or ever in my case. Not even close. But some things we practice, and get good guidance on, yes we can develop, if it's in our skill set.

This was the longest post of yours I have ever read, and I thought it was sincere and well written. Keep at it. Don't wait to your 60s to get good guidance!

 

[BrokenBoy]

Here's some well written passages I like:

(From "Glamorama" by Bret Easton Ellis)

There was no system to any of this. At that point Chloe Byrnes wasn't a real person to me and on that afternoon in the house on Ocean Drive a few decisions had to be made, the priority being: I would never dream of leaving any of this. At first I was confused by what passed for love in this world: people were discarded because they were too old or too fat or too poor or they had too much hair or not enough, they were wrinkled, they had no muscles, no definition, no tone, they weren't hip, they weren't remotely famous. This was how you chose lovers. This was what decided friends. And I had to accept this if I wanted to get anywhere. When I looked over at Chloe, she shrugged. I observed the shrug. She mouthed the words Take … a … hike … On the verge of tears — because I was dealing with the fact that we lived in a world where beauty was considered an accomplishment — I turned away and made a promise to myself: to be harder, to not care, to be cool. The future started mapping itself out and I focused on it. In that moment I felt as if I was disappearing from pool-side in the villa on Ocean Drive and I was floating above the palm trees, growing smaller in the wide blank sky until I no longer existed and relief swept over me with such force I sighed.

(From "Kafka on the Shore" by Murakami Haruki)

It was probably always there, hidden away somewhere. But when the time comes it silently rushes out, chilling every cell in your body. You drown in that cruel flood, gasping for breath. You cling to a vent near the ceiling, struggling, but the air you manage to breathe is dry and burns your throat. Water and thirst, cold and heat—these supposedly opposite elements combine to assault you.

The world is a huge space, but the space that will take you in—and it doesn’t have to be very big—is nowhere to be found. You seek a voice, but what do you get? Silence. You look for silence, but guess what? All you hear over and over and over is the voice of this omen. And sometimes this prophetic voice pushes a secret switch hidden deep inside your brain.

Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, full to the banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart.