LETTERS
STAR LETTER
Getting better all the time
Adam Hughes, I was so grateful to read your letter (Letters, WM, April) this morning. Your advice was very much needed, as I have been feeling particularly despondent of late.
Just this week, I participated in a new workshop with experienced and successful writers. Being a ‘newbie’, I was apprehensive about sharing my writing. Then, when the first comment I received began with something like, ‘I think you’ve missed the mark here if I’m honest’, I was hurt. Also, reading through the other workshop submissions, I was overwhelmed with how beautifully crafted and impactful the writing was. I felt disheartened, as though I could never be as good as them. That my writing will never be worthy of publication.
I definitely feel mediocre at the moment, but Adam’s letter has provided the reassurance I need by reminding me that writing is a skill that can be improved, as many bestselling authors would testify. At a recent literary event, the panel also emphasised that great authors, such as Margaret Atwood, worked with extreme diligence to get where they are today.
Thank you, Adam, and WM, for the encouragement to keep going.
CASSANDRA HARRISON Stainforth, Doncaster
The star letter each month earns a copy o f the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2021, c ourtesy o f Bloomsbury,
McCreet critiqued
I willingly sent in an extract of my writing for the purpose of going ‘under the microscope’, knowing this would be a bit like putting my head in the stocks. I can see the piece I submitted (Under the mircroscope, WM, March) was riddled with mistakes, and I agree with almost everything James McCreet said. But I disagree strongly with the comment that ‘a sentence without correct punctuation is not writing.’