You know the ones, can't sing, can't act, can't dance but they come along to the auditions, wait in the queue and when they get their 2 minutes everyone but them knows they are shit.
They think they are good, they think Simon et al are plain wrong, but they are not good. They are bad, very, very bad and they need to give up, but they can't see it.
I only started writing a year ago. I was awful at English at school, I'm dyslexic and I didn't even do Eng Lit at GCSE and I have it in my head that I can write a book. Sometimes I think well, why not? Someone has to write all the books, and other times I think my Dad is going to punch Simon Cowell for not appreciating that singing off key and out of tune makes me the next Lady GaGa.
How do you know? Do you just wait to be laughed off stage?
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Do you ever think that you might be the equivalent of the joke acts on the X-factor?
IThinkOfHappyWhenIThinkOfYou · 26/08/2013 21:51
That's such an interesting question.
I think you are confusing two things - talent and the quality of what you've actually produced.
Thing is with writing, you can come a hell of a long way from where you started. It's possible that what you are producing NOW is comedy-X-Factor standard, but that doesn't mean that's all you're going to do in future. The agents who do the #askagent webchat on Twitter often get asked 'Do you ever tell people to give up writing?' and they all say 'No way - I don't know what they might write in the future.'
The other thing to remember with writing is that it's all about multiple drafts. I have enough talent to have published a few stories but OMG I have submitted some crap to agents, mainly because I didn't get how many drafts I should have done of the same piece of work before submitting it.
It's possible you've written a crappy book but actually it's not just a crappy book, it's the first draft of a brilliant book.
You will also see lots of crappy self-published books on Amazon. What I actually find quite gutting about some of them is I can see how they might be massively improved, but the author has rushed to self-pubbing. They're not short of talent, they've just not gone through the processes they could have gone through (revising, beta reading, revising again, editing) to really make the most of the talent they've got. Or maybe a large part of what we should think of as 'talent' is the determination to do that?
I don't know, I'm thinking aloud really.
One thing's for sure - there are plenty of writers out there who have dyslexia and grew up being told they were useless at writing. Sally Gardner (Maggot Moon, I Coriander). Lynda La Plante, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jules Verne (supposedly), whatever the bloke's called who writes Captain Underpants.... When I was a lecturer I had some brilliant students with dyslexia and there was a bigger gap between their first draft and their final draft of essays than with the other students, but their final draft was just as good.
You need to be hard-headed enough to look at what you've written and say 'yes, this is crap' (comedy X Factor level) while keeping the drive to push on with it and take it to the next level. You should listen to the inner voice that says 'I can do this. I can write a book even though people say I can't' not tell it to shut up for being deluded. OTOH if the inner voice is saying 'Your book is brilliant, never mind that everyone else thinks it's crap!' then it's more likely to be in X Factor territory.
I'll shut up now 
Something I found was that the more I get into the technical side of it, the less personal criticism feels.
I used to feel exposed by showing people my work but now all I want is to make it better. It doesn't feel like 'Here is my soul. Judge me!' at all, but more 'Look, I'm having trouble building this Lego set. The pieces won't stick. Can you figure out what I'm doing wrong?' And that's despite the fact that I spend more time and energy on writing than I ever have before.
I do try to avoid talking about it to most people though. People have such strange ideas about writing. They assume that you are instantly going to be a millionaire or they say 'Have you got a publisher?' and you feel like a twat when you say no. My mother is pretty good but she doesn't understand why I need to do so many drafts and I think she secretly thinks I'm engaging in some kind of self-defeating probably mentally ill behaviour by doing all this rewriting
Creative writing classes sound like a good idea though I have never done them myself (wish I had). Another thing you should do is join this forum which, among other things, is a good source of craft book recommendations and above all will make you feel normal about your aspirations.
Hi OP.
I think your feelings are enormously common. Certainly when I started writing, over ten years ago, I kept it to myself, assuming I'd be laughed off the stage.
We didn't even have an internet connection in the house. So I didn't even share my passion with strangers online.
Then I met a woman at the library and she told me she was writing a book and she was a member of a writing circle and did I want to come along. I was unbelievably nervous. But it was the best thing I ever did. They gave me enough confidence to finish the book and when the time was right, to sub it.
I've never looked back. And I still go to my writers circle ...
The best thing I can advise is to try not to worry about the quality of your work. At least not too much. Just write. Then let others judge.
Wordfactory, how much writing did you do to your first before you sent it out?
You always make it sound like writing it was so easy
Yup, 17. I've sent it out to a few in between and had a couple of interested agents but it's never amounted to anything 
I've paid someone fab to edit it so this is the last rewrite unless I manage to find a publisher for it. I'm hoping to get it finished by the end of October so that I can enter it into the Chicken House Times comp. It's never been sent to a publisher.
Was that first book easy to write? Good question.
In many ways yes, because I wrote it for the LOLs and had no real expectations of it. I certainly didn't pay anywhere near enough attention to things I pay attention to now.
Also, the lack of information out there reduced the pressure. I knew so little ...
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