Still Learning - Claire Allan

Last year I went to see a medium - which is something I do every now and again to convince myself there are higher powers at work out there.  So we talked for a while about my writing and she told me how I was still learning, and still needed to learn more before I achieved the success I so dreamed of.  Part of me - the big part labelled 'ego' - bristled at the notion that I had still more to learn. 

Sure hadn't I written four books and had them published and  (for the most part)  received lovely reviews for them? I knew what I was doing, I thought as I crossed my arms  with my lip petted  and sat back  to  listen to her tell me what else the future would hold.  With the hindsight of one year and a pretty intense writing /editing  experience I have realised just how very arrogant I was to think I knew what I was at and to assume that because I had achieved a certain level of success there was no need for me to continue learning. 

The simple truth is, all writers, are perpetually on a learning curve.  If you want to be proud of your work, and challenge yourself with each new project, then you have to realise that you are a student. And being student means leaving your ego firmly at the door.  That's not to say it is easy for us writers, especially those of us who have been doing it for a while, to leave our ego at the doors. While I write books so that they will be read (and hopefully enjoyed) by the general public,  the writing process is at it's very core a solitary and personal experience.

When I write, and I know many writers who feel the same way, I put my heart and soul into a book. I am putting myself and my "talent" (and I'm cringing even suggesting I have a 'talent') out there for people to pour over and dissect.
If someone doesn't like a book that I write, the rational side of me is often shouted down by the side of me which sat up to three in the morning crying over my characters' latest escapades and who typed each and every word painstakingly onto the page.

Upon receiving a bad review the rational side of a writer knows that, simply put, you can't please all of the people all of the time. Sometimes a book simply won't resonate with a reader. It may not be their preferred genre. The neuroses of your main character may annoy them. They may be in a place in their lives when it wouldn't matter what you wrote, they just wouldn't like it anyway.

The irrational side of a writer just feels as if, personally, she has been slapped around the face with a soggy copy of her own book, handed a dunce's hat and told to stand in the corner until she has written  something half decent.   When you receive a pile of edits back from your editor - red penned and ready for your eye to cast over - it is easy to fall into the same funk.  The thing is, the more books I read, the easier I thought it would become to take criticism, especially the constructive kind - but ego is a very fragile (and in my case hormonal and crabby) thing. 

The further into my career I progressed, the more I would berate myself with a real dose "but you should know this by now" and then would sit in a paralysed state of depression until I was eventually able to write again.  But as I said, the last year has taught me many things - not least that I'm certainly not alone in feeling paranoid about what I write. That I have an editor and an agent for a reason. That no writer is an island and perhaps the combined years of experience of both my editor and my agent can be utilised to my advantage. That writing support groups are brilliant and surrounding yourself with writer friends is essential because only writer friends really understand what you are going through. Most importantly I have realised hat I'm not the only writer in the world to receive a red-penned version of her/ his latest work and I won't be the last.

I've also accepted that just because sometimes it feels as if I can't do right for doing wrong, doesn't mean I'm broken in some way. The more you do as a writer, the more you want to do.  I want each book to be better than the last. I want to push myself a little harder. I want to write a little better. When each and every book is finished I want to sit back, exhausted, but proud of what I have achieved.