Insecure Writer's Group - February

Alex's awesome co-hosts for February are:
Sheena-kay Graham, Julie Musil, Jamie Ayres, 
and Mike Swift!   
 Please stop by their blogs and say thank you.

Today I listened to a really inspiring video podcast which really helped me identify this month's topic - fear of rejection. 

I've been working hard on getting my second novel ready to be released, and this is even scarier than last year when Shadow Embraced was released into the world. I think it's scarier for me because this novel is one that is really close to my interests, but also one outside my comfort area (since it's situated in a foreign country), and now I have all those nagging thoughts rolling around my head - will people like it? will people want to read it? what will they say about it? is it too different that they won't like it??? But I guess everyone has those thoughts - or similar thoughts - when handing over something they have worked hard on to the public for review.

In this podcast, the speaker says what it takes to keep personal expression, no matter what anyone says, or the weird reactions you get because people don't understand (or like) what you wear/say/write is to ask what you really want (do you want to write for fame & money... perhaps that's not exactly the right motive to be writing for, or do you just write because you love writing and need to write?), and ask whether you should care about what people say. Yes, it's good to accept some of the feedback that you receive from your writing, but let's face it, not everyone is going to be a fan of your work, and negative reviews are inevitable, but so are the good.

I know the fear of rejection is a major part of writing, but one thing I know is true... if you don't put your work out there, if no one gets the chance to read it, you will never know whether anyone will like it. And yes, there will be people out there that will like your work.

So, one thing I can say about rejection is to learn from it. If the negative review offers any constructive criticism, any suggestions or feedback as to what they would have liked to see improve, then you can work on improving that in your next work. If the negative review offers nothing but harsh comments, then just push it under the rug, and move on. There's no point lingering on negativity when you have something else you can be writing.

What's your insecurity for this month?

For a last piece of inspiration, here's the podcast I found so inspiring :D