Writing from the heart

For many writers, especially those new to writing, every word you create feels like an extension of yourself. Those words feel important, like have some mythical quality, it often feels like might reveal something about you that nobody knows. And that's fine once you decide you aren't going to show anybody your work. This is a phase almost every writer goes through, and for many this stage occurs at one of the most awkward stages of life: adolescence. I have piles of awful poetry and stories, written in my formative years, hidden away.

They're hidden in a cave just like this. 

If you want to earn money for your writing, you're going to have to alter your perspectives a little. You have to think of your writing as a product: something that is produced for the benefit of others. It can be entertaining and/or informative, but it has to do something for the reader.


Love poetry dedicated to your aging cat

It's at this point that you must learn to tread the line between writing for yourself and writing for others. You don't want to throw your soul away at the first sign of money and write things that go against your personal beliefs. Doing that is the first step to burning yourself out. On the other hand, you will get nowhere writing love poetry dedicated to your aging cat in rhyming pentameter for the local newspaper. As with anything you do in life, you need to find the right balance. In the case of writing, it is in that special place where you enjoy what you're writing just as much as your readers enjoy reading it. It can take a while to get there, but when you arrive, it will feel great.


Gaining perspective

One trick to read your writing from the perspective of someone else is to lay it aside for a while, like a few days or even weeks. When you read it again, you will have forgotten all the effort you took in crafting those sentences and you will read it with new eyes.

You too could have eyes like this
if you read over your writing after a few days!