To Writers Who Cringe at Their Own Writing

The fear of failure is one of the top factors in procrastination and lack of motivation. When I was younger, this used to feel deeply relevant. I dreamt of being a writer, yet I always put off putting pen to paper because the words I ended up writing read so far off what I wanted to say.

The “taste gap”

The “taste gap” describes how someone’s refined tastes — from having consumed and understood high-quality media — results in one cringing at their own work that reveals itself to be a far cry from their usual high-brow tastes. Because you are so used to reading works by professional writers with 20+ years of experience, you recoil at your own amateurism.

Cringe is felt when one becomes self-aware of the contrast between their hopeful internal self-image and underwhelming external true self. When you wanted to become a writer, you thought this way because you think you have what it takes. But when it comes to actually writing, you realise that it is harder than it is, and you cringe at your initial attempts.

What usually happens to new writers is that they put off writing not because they cannot write or have the alleged “writer’s block” but because they do not have the emotional reserves to deal with strong feelings of cringe. Cringe feels unbearable because being confronted with external realities that do not match up with your internal self-constructs threatens your self-image.

The common advice to ignore negative feelings and pretend they do not exist does not work when dealing with cringe because it is not just a surface-level feeling.

Cringe is felt when core components of the self are being questioned — which is a big deal. It is an indictment to reconstruct our frame of self, with a “frame” being the narrative lens through which we view ourselves or the things about ourselves that we “know” are true.

If your goal is to become a professional writer, your frame must be that you are good enough as a writer to achieve this goal in the future. Your frame must also tell you that you might even be as good as the writers you admire. But once you put the idea into practice, and the result threatens this self-conception, that realisation forces you to re-evaluate your beliefs about yourself.

This is especially a problem for people who lack robust self-esteem. Many writers base their self-esteem on their ability to write, as it is natural for people to base self-confidence on what they are good at.

You might consistently get A’s in high school literature and be a better writer than your classmates. But when you actually delve into the world of writing, you are not competing against Josh, who wants to be an accountant.

You are competing against other top English students who are also good enough at writing that they think they can become successful writers. This is the point at which you might realise that you could no longer be as competitive against this raised standard.

Closing the taste gap

What helped me push through these feelings is, paradoxically, to convince myself that I am a bad writer. Around the time that I began publishing on Medium, someone told me in a debate competition, “Your accent is so thick that I didn’t think you could speak English properly.”

For context, English is my second language, and I completely agree with their assessment. But because other people’s expectations of me were low, if I achieved a low bar in writing, such as not making spelling errors, that already feels like an achievement.

Having realised this, I also framed my self-concept with low expectations. I started writing not thinking I was a good writer who could compete with the likes of Hemingway, but as an ESL student who writes to improve their English. My first articles were, admittedly, super shitty. Like explosive diarrhea-quality turd.

But because I didn’t care, I kept publishing, getting editor feedback, and gradually improving every time. Whenever someone calls me a shitty writer, I just call them an elitist whitewashed big-city snob. Most people, especially experienced writers, are charitable to people still practising their craft. Experienced writers know that consistency and showing up matters instead of being overly reliant on initial talent.

As a result, I went from being “unable to speak English properly” and not knowing how to correctly use punctuation to having published around a hundred articles to dozens of publications. Editors used to comment plenty on my articles, and I had to make many iterations before it was good enough to publish.

Now, their only comment is, “Excellent article. Will publish tomorrow.”

Redefining what “success” means to you

Recently, when I face failure, I feel weirdly nonchalant about it. Like, “Everyone fails. So what?” I don’t feel negative about failing because I discovered something new about myself or the world. I don’t experience much guilt and shame about my failures now because I also had a lot of successes that can validate me when I am criticised by people (whether real or imaginary).

If my article flopped, I didn’t care because my goal was not to have a successful article; I could not predict how others would react. My goal was to publish an article — and I did.

Likewise, even when I got rejected by publications, I was okay with it because my goal was: “Submit to Fashion Journal” and not “Get accepted into Fashion Journal.” If I got accepted, that would be a pleasant surprise because I didn’t expect it.

Outside of writing, as a professional UX designer, I don’t feel bad if my prototype gets bad user reviews because I am looking for criticism. Every failed prototype is one step closer to a successful one.

Conclusion

Many people think experiencing failure says something about their personal qualities, but I disagree.

Failure is often predicated on external situations: Whether you get accepted into a job, whether the person you fancy likes you back, and so on. You largely do not control other people’s decision-making.

While you can try your best to control external situations so that you get the desired result, external situations still involve uncontrollable factors outside of you.

Hence, it is important to redefine success as something you can control, such as showing up, instead of factors you cannot control, such as getting accepted.

So, take a pen and put your ideas on paper. Embrace cringe! Because cringe is a sign that you are changing, improving, and evolving.

You can start by writing this affirmation:

“I love cringe, and cringe loves me. By cringing, I am one step closer to reaching my goal. I will continue pursuing cringe until one day I can look back and appreciate how far I’ve gone.”

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This post was previously published on Writers’ Blokke.

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