Are you overly critical of your writing?

Beverly Level X³

October 7, 2016, 1:08 pm

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Are you overly critical of your writing?

I'm my own worst critic when it comes to writing just about anything - especially longer articles. I have no problems writing those initial drafts, but when it comes to editing, I just keep editing for hours and days on end. This is one of the reasons I don't sell my articles often as they take days and not hours to complete to my own satisfaction. I think one of the things that has helped me most with this issue is to turn a copy of the content over to the buyer before fully finished (but at a very good stage, not rough draft) to allow them to inspect and make sure it's what they want. You might be surprised how many times you will think you are going in the right direction and only to find out that your buyer had something else in mind. Alternately, they might like your current copy just as well with no revisions! It always helps to have another point of view on your writing, or at least that's what I've found.
Please talk to me about how you deal with this issue; if you over-analyze your writing or critique endlessly and if so how you deal with it so you can move on and produce a finished written piece for your buyer.

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Cristian

Cristian

I was, but only because I was insecure in` my English, but also the general idea and context I was putting out. I used to endlessly edit my articles. Sure, correcting and re-checking content a couple of time is required but you have to be careful not doing it over the top, you can easily change the whole context of the article without having that intention. Now I just look for general grammar mistakes and that's about it, maybe I'll add a paragraph here and there but I defiantly won't edit to point of no return.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

Yes Cristian that is what I find too. If I allow myself to keep editing it then at the end it looks nothing like the original outline I created for that post!

8 years ago

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jeffreyjose48

jeffreyjose48

If I have the luxury of time, I will be able to check carefully my article. But when I am catching my time, I just leave it as ease.

6 years ago

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hitmeasap

hitmeasap

Most of the times I would say yes. I am my worst critic. I'm not native in English and that's obviously something I have against me whenever I'm writing. And that's also the reason I edit and make changes to my content multiple times before I publish it. It doesn't matter if it's an entire article, an ebook or this specific post I'm writing right now. - I would probably never be able to make a living out of selling articles for instance. I wouldn't be able to charge enough for the hours I put into the articles.

At some point, you just have to be satisfied enough to send it to your client or to publish your content. However, I would never sell an article without offering revisions, so even if I send something I'm not 101% satisfied with, the client would be able to tell me to make changes in the content. That way, both of us will be satisfied.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

Oh yes I am overly critical of my writing. I used to spend ages going over and over my articles and tweaking things here and there.

As a blogger I just can't afford to spend so much time rehashing over things. If I do that I will never every publish anything at all.

I have a system now. I research, I plan, I write. Then I save it and check it over once. I make spelling corrections, grammar corrections and maybe a tweak or two... then I schedule it to be published. Once I have scheduled it I am not allowed to look at it again.

8 years ago

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wiseagent

wiseagent

Yeah! Since when I didn't even know how to organize my ideas or write in the right way, haha! I always very self-critical to myself in everything in my life.

This path is a two-way street, I'm aware of this, but it's something that I have improved a lot (considering some aspects of my life), however... My writing still "suffers" a lot of it. For me, to finish some article always takes longer than normal because I make "millions" of revisions before being completely satisfied.

7 years ago

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aeon

aeon

I feel the same way too. Sometimes If I'm done my writings and all I need is to read it again, and actually it's very easy to do. I wonder why I need to spent almost a whole day by just correcting or input additional information to my article.

7 years ago

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Krisleen

Krisleen

I am critical about my writing. I really want to make sure that it is of high quality because I understand the side of the readers. I myself is also a reader sometimes and I know how it feels to read articles with poor quality. It's really a turn off. Wrong grammar and misinformation is a big turn off to me. Wen I write my article, I really do my research. I intend to inform and educate people when I write. I want them to appreciate and enjoy learning from my article. I make sure that my article really portrays the message i want to convey by checking my ideas and sentence construction, spelling, and grammar thoroughly. I also check the structure of the article. I make sure that it's readable. Those are the things am very critical when I write to get the objectives I have for my readers.

7 years ago

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Judas2018

Judas2018

Every writer or person who considers themselves a professional in anything is hard on themselves at some point. The trick is to know when you're slacking off or not putting forth your best effort - and light a fire under yourself to step up your game. There's no need to beat yourself up if you know you're working at your optimal level. Some writing assignments or projects take a little longer to get the hang of is all.

7 years ago

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mildredtabitha

mildredtabitha

I am also overly critical of my writing and I would prefer someone else to read my articles before I submit them. But since I never have someone near me to read what I write, I always submit to the client some hours before the deadline so that they can tell me if there is something I need to change.

I still like my own writing and I know everything is perfect if I would be writing for myself.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

It is difficult for me to judge my writing that’s why I always ask someone if the blog I had written looks like a real blog. What I mean by that is would the reader like it? I know it is not easy to judge one’s work but it is harder to judge your own work. In the office where I work, one of my duties before was to check the communications of my boss. That’s how I got the habit of looking for mistakes. But when I am reading for entertainment, I do away with that habit and I just try to enjoy what I am reading.

7 years ago

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Pixie06

Pixie06

I am critical of my writing and I like my work to be perfect. I usually spend a lot of time to write my articles as I need to ensure that my work is perfect, I have used the right words and there are no grammatical mistakes. I also make someone else read my articles before I submit them.

7 years ago

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treecko142

treecko142

I used to be very critical and refusing to submit anything when I feel that it's not perfect, but I realized that while it is important to check your work, you shouldn't be overly critical about it because your productivity will plummet and you'll take a long time before you write anything.

7 years ago

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aeon

aeon

I do the same things too. That's why I don't know how to start my career for being an article writer. I know that I gathered enough information about this possible extra income, but the doubt is still there, because every time I read my article again, there're a lot of words that I need to edit.

7 years ago

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jaymish3

jaymish3

I so know what everyone is talking about. I am my own worst critic. The more I write the better I'm getting, before I used to hang onto my work forever because I was afraid that it wasn't good enough. I used to miss many deadlines because of this. I have learned that so long as I work hard, this is good enough. I write my first draft revise and then revise some more. This is my process for perfection. So long as I've done it, this becomes good enough.

7 years ago

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mdayrit

mdayrit

I always try to check my work for errors before submitting them. But I don't see it as being too much of a critic. I just make sure that wordings, punctuations and grammar are correct as much as possible. I read my work sometimes more than twice to find which one I need to correct. But I guess these things that I do are just the basic and common practice in writing, nothing special.

7 years ago

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jeffreyjose48

jeffreyjose48

Yes of course. I am very careful to see whether my writings are good or not. I know I am not perfect but at least I am trying hard to improve my writing skills.

6 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

cmoneyspinner

Yes. I am my own worst critic. People pay me compliments but I lack confidence in my abilities. I see my freelance writing friends being brave and boldly going places where I won't dare go because I'm too afraid of being rejected. What can help is getting approved as a contributor for a site that has “picky editors”. The first site that accepted me as a writer would always give my articles a thorough review and send it back to me with corrections to make and very constructive criticisms that really helped. Some people don't like sites with editors and/or moderators that won't approve their work. But I'm happy for the free advice.

6 years ago

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Kakashi2020

Kakashi2020

There is a time in the past when I was overly critical in my content but that was when I was starting out as a freelance writer. Nowadays I'm more relaxed and I just go with the flow using easy to understand words. Then I do some casual editing afterwards. Being over to critical sometimes takes out the soul in your content.

6 years ago

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Kakashi2020

Kakashi2020

I'm not over critical when it comes to my writing because I only write on topics that I'm comfortable and familiar with. Doing otherwise would drastically compromise the written output and it could make me over critical, and when that happens it would affect the essence of the article, it would become rigid and soul less.

6 years ago

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