Both because writing is both exhausting and energizing. It all depends on what step I’m at in the process whether I mentally and emotionally sag or whether I look at what I’ve done or am doing and realize that it’s pretty good.
Traps for new writers? They are all mental:
- Thinking you’re not good enough, which is a trap because writing is a craft that, like every other craft, can be learned.
- Thinking that your writing is good enough ‘as is’ and falling in love with your own work to the point that you’re not willing to change a single word. Or sentence. Or paragraph. I can’t count the number of times I’ve mentored a new writer whose work would have been wonderful — and more than up to publishing standards — IF they’d have been willing to rearrange or eliminate a few words. Okay, a LOT of words. Because new writers tend to use way more words than are necessary!
- Thinking that you just write what you want to write and it will be published and read by interested readers. Wrong! Publishers — and readers — want to be able to find what they are looking for easily and that means looking in familiar categories for something that they will like. So if what you write falls easily into some genre — any genre — you’re good to go. If not, you’ll struggle to find readers.
- I’m sure there are many more but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.
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