We writers get asked questions every day, about what it feels like to write, what it means to write, and the old chestnut, where do we get our ideas from?
It's often thought we bear our souls in our writing, and take extra lengths to go where many others cannot - to the depths of our very being to come up with the finished product, perfectly polished, that you hold in your hand at the end of the day. At least, that's what some like to think.
I write fiction. I write stories. It's true , some part of myself has to go into what I write, but at the end of the day that's all my writing really is - a story. Of course that doesn't stop me becoming attached to said story, but to acknowledge that it's just a story somehow makes it less personal than thinking of it as a part of myself. Which of course, it's not.
It's easier to take criticism that way too.
If I were to start a writing workshop one day, that's one of the first things I'd teach, to try and separate the writer from their work, take a step back and see it how everyone else sees it. Don't take things too seriously.
Peace out,
B.
Regis