by Suzanne Lieurance
One of the quietest visibility blocks writers face has nothing to do with submitting or publishing. It happens much earlier, in ordinary conversation, when someone asks what you’re working on and you immediately downplay it.
“Oh, just a little project.” “Nothing serious yet.” “I’ve been playing around with an idea.”
Sound familiar? Most writers do this automatically, without even noticing. And while it feels like modesty, what it actually does is train the people around you — and yourself — to take your writing less seriously than it deserves.
Talking about Your Writing Isn’t Bragging
Bragging is claiming credit you haven’t earned. Talking about your work is simply telling the truth about how you spend your time and what matters to you. Those are very different things.
The Shift Starts with Language
Instead of “I’ve been playing around with something,” try “I’m working on a memoir about my grandmother.” Instead of “I write a little,” try “I’m a writer — I’m finishing a collection of essays.”
Specific, direct, and honest. No inflation, no apology.
You don’t have to share every detail. You don’t have to perform enthusiasm you don’t feel or pretend the work is further along than it is. But you can speak about it plainly, the way you’d speak about any other meaningful thing in your life.
Here’s something worth noticing: the writers who are most visible in the world are almost always the ones who got comfortable talking about their work long before anyone was asking. They practiced the language of their writing life in small conversations until it became natural.
You can do the same thing. Start with one honest sentence about what you’re working on. Say it out loud today, to someone who asks — or even to someone who doesn’t. Let it be as unremarkable as talking about anything else you care about.
Your writing is worth a sentence. Give it one.
And you’ll find more helpful articles about becoming the writer you want to be here.
Join us at Monday Morning Manifestors, where writers show up every week, talk about what they’re working on, and build a writing life together. It’s one of the best places to practice the language of your writing life with people who get it.
Suzanne Lieurance is the author of over 40 published books and a transformational Law of Attraction coach for writers who are ready to stop waiting to feel like the real thing. At Write by the Sea, she guides writers through the identity shift that changes everything — not just the writing, but the whole life built around it. She is the publisher of Manifesting Monthly magazine and the host of Monday Morning Manifestors.
