The need for Validation
Let me tell you a simple story.
Imagine for a moment you are in a meeting. More like a party and everyone is engaging in small talk with a glass of drink in hand.
The first person is asked what do you do.
“I am a Doctor,” he replies.
Wow everyone replies, even you.
Every other person takes turns in answering the question.
Now it’s your turn. You pause . Everyone is looking at you.
“I am a Writer”
The next question is what is the name of your book.
After which they ask for your name. As though popularity is a validation of your profession.
******
This scenario is one of the many reasons why we seek to get published.
To have something to show that a bunch of smart people consider my work good enough for publication.
When you publish you start asking yourself if that work wasn’t luck. When you sit to write again. Starting from scratch no leverage from the past work. We are back to zero.
The reverse is the case also. Your work might not be accepted and you think your work is terrible and all your skills are crap.
We have seen works of writers rejected yet went on to be masterpieces.
How do we know if we are lucky or we know what we are doing?
To say that being published is a byproduct of me being a good writer. And I am not a good writer because I am published.
I use a simple perspective to look at it.
As writers who also read, when I read a great piece of writing I feel it and see it. I have read books without title pages and covers.
Yet I so much loved the work I had to look for the author. Using that perspective the question I ask ( Note I do this months after writing the piece.) Will I read this work objectively?
Does this work gladden my heart. I tend to be brutal with myself.
Until next week keep writing
