Marie here.
When it comes to our own writing, yes, we are. Go ahead and deny it. Keep pretending you fart rainbows and poop candy. Denial is just one of the many things writers deal with when it comes to our craft. We either believe we suck worse than a kid trying to get that last bit of chocolate milkshake through a straw, or we are the best and can do no wrong because one guy told us one time that we were talented. In my experience, there is no in-between. Writers are weird creatures.
Now that the truth is out you can go ahead and breathe a sigh of relief as you realize I wrote “we’re all” up there. Take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. The crazy thing about being human is that we make mistakes. We make them quite often, in fact. And even when we learn from them, we tend to make them again. Yep, humans are idiots.
For example, I’m one of those writers who uses the word “that” a lot in my writing. I know, shame on me. It’s one of those things that I realize about myself, but still forget to catch when I go back over my work. You would think I would take my time and sift through the scribbled notes and pages of typed up mumbo-jumbo to look for these specific flaws I know about myself. I usually don’t because, honestly, I forget.
I know what you’re thinking. Holy crap, not another post about editing.
Yep, this is indeed another editing post.
I’m just here to beat you over the head with the one concept that we have been blogging about for weeks now: everyone needs help. No one is perfect. No one gets it right all the time. I mean, have you seen the spelling mistakes in the Harry Potter books? No one is perfect, but that’s okay. Hey, even editors make mistakes. I look over Aurora’s writing and point out things for her to fix just like she does for me. (Though, admittedly, I make way more.)
When it comes to our own work, we’re all idiots. We don’t see every plot hole or misplaced word. We don’t see that our main character is a stereotypical jerk because from our point of view, they aren’t. Oh no, he came across that way? Well, looks like I have some work to do. And on we go to lock ourselves up and lament our lack of talent to the skies as we binge eat ice cream and watch full seasons of Rick and Morty on repeat. Or whatever you do when you seriously mess up your work. To each their own.
The point is, we can’t assume that our work doesn’t need help because one person said it looked fine. Get another person. Get five more to look at it. One person will not catch every little problem. You know, that whole human thing.
Now excuse me while I go count how many times I used “that” in this blog post. Okay, maybe I’ll get my editor to do it.
Hollow Hills 