Say it to my face

I've been spending a lot more time lately thinking about my writing, rather than trying to think of what to write, if that makes any sense. Trying to think about what my patterns are when I write, which are good, which are bad. How to go about improving my writing. I know I'm not the easiest person to give criticism to, nor am I the best at recieving it, but I try not to take things personally. It's not easy, to be sure, and that's not to say that I never do. But I try not to. 

Recently I've gotten a couple of comments from some friends of mine that I've been trying to take to heart. The first being that the things that I write are very same-y. Which, to an extent, I'm aware of. And it can be hard not to come across that way, because I'm just one guy, and I'm writing with my one style, and I have the same goal everyday. And none of that is necessarily a bad thing. After all, you'd be hard pressed to find an author with a library of widely diverse writings that don't all have some kind of characteristics that all tie them together under one roof. And you wouldn't necessarily want that to be the case either. But at the same time, as a writer, you don't want your reader to look at two things you've written and not pick one of them because it feels like reading the other all over again. And I'm afraid that that's the kind of thing that's happening with my blog. 

The other thing stuck out to me was that it's really obvious when I write about something I've never experienced before. Which is both completely fair and true. I've never been drunk, or ever had a drink, and I don't plan to. But that makes any drunk character I write very exaggerate and stereotypical. Which is frustraing, because there are certain kinds of drunk characters that I would like to write, but I can't really do them justice, because I just don't have that kind of experience. Nor do I know anyone who gets really drunk, and if I did, I probably wouldn't spend that much time around them. That's just not the kind of thing that I really want in my life. Which is probably a wise decision, but it makes a few characters more challenging. 

When my friends told me these things, they were really nervous about doing so. I imagine the look of concern on my face doen't exactly help. But I don't want that to be something that people feel uncomfortable talking to me about. It may take repeating the same advice to my face multiple times before it really sinks in that it's something I need to do. And it may hurt in the moment, but growth is what I'm striving for here, and looking for the flaws in myself is not the easiest thing in the world. I need help, regardless of how big or small that help is. And it's a lot easier to know where to start if someone else shoves it in my face.