LITMIR.BIZ

      That is what I call ‘metacopywriting’.

      Beliefs

      When I started to teach writing, I noticed that all of my students had the same problem. They could write well, and they received my feedback and compliments from other students, but they didn’t like their own texts. They were still convinced they wrote badly and had no talent.

      Every time I did the same thing: I showed every single student the difference between their first task and the last, and I pointed out that their texts were good. I also conducted independent focus groups, which means strangers read the students’ texts having no idea who the author was – and these people liked the texts. I did it to convince my students that they were good writers. Their texts were really good, but it did not always help, so I decided to teach my new students to psychologically analyze their own beliefs in order to improve their self-confidence.

      Beliefs are what we believe in, but they can be illogical; they may not always be true, and they can be biased. Usually, beliefs sound like judgments in daily life, but nothing arises from nothing, so every belief has 3 components:

      1. Cause

      2. Meaning

      3. Conclusion

      For example: “Everything good has been written” or “The market is saturated with writers. So, there’s no reason for me to write. I won’t write.”

      1. Cause = Everything good has been written or the market is saturated with writers.

      2. Meaning = There’s no reason for me to write.

      3. Conclusion = I won’t write.

      You may think that these are three different beliefs, but it is just a system of beliefs, they are together. The conclusion people draw from this: “I have no need to write” and other shortened versions (“everyone writes,” “everything is already written”) repeats and interferes in each new endeavor regardless of their previous work (“I will not launch my project, because the market is already full”).

      – I cannot write!

      – But you are writing right now.

      – Yes.

      – And you wrote me a message saying you wanted to take part in my course.

      – Yes, I did.

      – And you wrote some articles in your school, but you still think you can’t write?

      – I can’t write something beautiful.

      – Well, how do you know that some texts are beautiful?

      At this point, we start to create criteria. Criteria could be internal or external. Internal criteria are my own as an author. I decide how and what to write. External criteria are common, these are rules of the language and editorial recommendations. Some people write quite well without these rules, but there are others who write terribly. The difference between these two categories is style.

      – I am not able to learn.

      – Why do you think so?

      – My mother told me.