Who is familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect?
“The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon whereby individuals who have little knowledge about a subject believe they know more than others who are better prepared, leading them to make wrong decisions and arrive at undeserved results. However, their own incompetence restricts them from recognizing their own mistakes. These people suffer from illusory superiority.
On the other hand, real competence can weaken self-confidence and some highly capable individuals may suffer from illusory inferiority, thinking that they are not as capable as they are and underestimating their own abilities, even believing that other less capable individuals are as or more capable than they are.”
Long live Wikipedia, my favorite site.
So, if you’re having a problem with confidence in your writing, it’s probably because it’s good.
Eliminate self-criticism from your creative process.
Moreover, at this stage, it doesn’t matter much how you write, what matters is that you write. Even if this isn’t your big break, it’s worth continuing to try.
In the words of a very intelligent little fish, and adapting it to writing: “Just keep writing, just keep writing, writing, writing.”
Everyone guessed it was Doris, right?
PATRICIA MORAIS
I write bilingual (PT and EN) supernatural fantasy books inspired by mythology and folklore from around the world. But my actual mission is to help other writers write, publish and market their books.
