Growth

How do you feel you've grown as a writer since you've started or in the past months or years? Are you happy with what has changed in your style if anything? Do you feel like you're nearing the pinnacle of your abilities or do you still have hopes of growing even further?

While I do admit I've no doubt improved since coming here and had much more motivation to write in my works for reasons other than me to just read over, I can't really say (in my eyes at least) I'm a decent writer. I dunno, I just don't see the Awsome or Good in my works or get drown out in all the good styles and stuff I read from others. I can say I've grown, but I wouldn't say I've moved up much in terms of skill or ability.

I certainly don't hope I've reached the pinnacle of my abilities. I'd like to say I've improved somewhat, though. Just the act of engaging in the act and being self-critical should be helping me improve. I don't consider myself publishable yet though. I'm aiming for that towards my 28th birthday.

I think I have improved a lot since I first started writing with any regularity. I've always been able to come up with cool (at least I think so) concepts, worlds and plotlines but so much of what was happening in my head was always lost in translation to words. Now I've gotten a lot better at communicating what I imagine through text. Of course, there's always things that can be improved.

In the last few years in particular I've been exploring different styles more and improving in areas I was much weaker in, in the past. For example, comedy and dialogue have always been the weakest aspects of my writing but I've grown to a point where I'm at least comfortable (but not complacent!) with my ability there.

I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near the pinnacle of what I could be yet - at least I hope I can still improve. I'm at a point now though that I am reasonably confident in my ability as a writer. I'm even working on a children's story that I intend to publish right now which I'm pretty excited for.

Basically, I've come a really long way from the kid writing crappy disaster stories and I'm happy with what I've grown into. There's a long way to go still though.

Vragon said:

While I do admit I've no doubt improved since coming here and had much more motivation to write in my works for reasons other than me to just read over, I can't really say (in my eyes at least) I'm a decent writer. I dunno, I just don't see the Awsome or Good in my works or get drown out in all the good styles and stuff I read from others. I can say I've grown, but I wouldn't say I've moved up much in terms of skill or ability.

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Yeah I feel the same way. There are days where I feel I'm a good enough writer, but then because I compare myself to others so much I feel I can do better. But yeah, we all tend to be self critical as mentioned and will always look for ways to improve our craft.

Myself, there are some stuff I'm getting the hang of like tone and body language, but otherwise I do feel I came a long way from my first time posting my writings several years ago, that's for sure.

Bardothren said:

Yeah, I definitely suck at comedy and dialogue, and while I haven't worked much on the former, I've tried to address the latter by speaking aloud the lines I have in mind. All in all, I haven't taken risks that often in writing, and when I do, I tend to be unhappy with the results. Best stick with what you know, eh? That's my mindset, anyways.

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I think it's better to take risks sometimes really. The more diverse your skill set the more interesting and varied the characters and plotlines you're able to create and work with.

I feel like I've grown much more in the past year than I did in the year before it but I don't have the depth of writing that I truly want yet. I've gotten much better at actually keeping my stories together and not running off on tangents, but my endings are still lackluster for the most part. I'm definitely not in my prime yet, but I feel like it's coming sometime soon-ish like in the next 6-12 months. I think that if I continue to grow at my current pace then if I continue to aim higher after another year then my writing will become too contrived and I'll lose the interest in it I (and some of the charm that certain parts of my writing) have now.