Writing Confidence

Something that helps is if you can write one sentence.

Write a sentence of something you want to breathe life to, it can be as much as a paragraph if you like. Then take that and look at it again. Pay attention to whether it says what you want it to, whether it flows like you like it, whether it feels right. It won't, so keep tackling it until it does. Keep tweaking and editing it. Get a feel for when you've gone too far and lost what you wanted to say. Understand the origin of the sentence often has a grain of truth that can be obscured with over-editing. Reel it back in, go back to the original, and get it right. It might take you half an hour, it might take you three hours.

But you'll get there.

And when you get there, you'll know that you can do it.

From there on out it's just a case of realising that you can't write out a story with that level in mind, but you can make it like that after it's done. And that's the point. It takes a rare genius to get things right the first time, but it takes only dedication to get it right in the end. And you can do that, you already proved it with the sentence.

Good luck, writer.