“Oh, I'm just starting out with writing.”
 
“I just wrote 200 words today.”
 
“I'm just halfway through my story.”
 
“I’m just small-press/self-published….”
 
“I just write light fun beach reads; it’s not highbrow literature.”
 
Do any of these self-effacing comments about your writing sound familiar? Friends, that last one is pretty much a direct quote from me, more than once, about the novels I’ve written under my pen name, Phoebe Fox. Probably more than 50 times, if I'm honest.
 
I hear authors speak about themselves and their work this way often, and as I confessed, I'm guilty of it too. In some ways I think it comes from good instincts: to stay in beginner's mind and realize we are always learning—and there is always much to learn about our craft. That attitude is certainly probably more productive than its flipside: overconfidence that can shut us off to being open to improving our writing and growing as artists.
 
But I think there's danger in talking about our writing in a diminishing way. Most obviously it sends us the message that our creative work isn't that important or worthwhile. It's just a lark, a silly little whim we pursue, but we're not kidding ourselves that we can stand beside the actual greats of literature....
 

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