un/conscious in/competence
What if you don't even know what you need to learn in order to improve?
Sometimes, you can tell that something is out there, lurking on the horizon, but you can’t for the life of you make out what it is. Sometimes you can tell that something isn’t right with whatever you are doing, but you have no idea how to fix it. Sometimes you’re just getting rejection after rejection and they all read “there’s nothing wrong with this story, but I’m not going to buy it.”
What the hell are you supposed to do?
Sadly, there’s a simple answer, although not an easy one. The answer, as near as I can tell, is “do thing harder.” Write more, because practice is everything and practice is how you develop voice. Read more. And critique more—even if it’s critical reading of published work.
But sometimes, it really helps to critically read some unpublished work, or a lot of the apprentice work that gets printed in amateur ‘zines, just because it’s so easy to spot when something isn’t working. And once you know the mechanisms by which a story can fail to really work, it’s easier to find them in your own writing.
So I guess the answer is, “develop your critical faculties, and then try not to get depressed at all the stuff you now feel like you have to fix in your own writing.” At least, it is for me.
There’s always a place to level up.
Unfortunately.
Best,
Bear