elusive-blue:
Is it normal to not want to show your work to your parents? All through my life, I tried to show them the things I wrote and they all just kind of brushed it off. Now it's just awkward when they ask me what I'm doing and I don't want to answer.

It’s totally normal! I faced this problem last Christmas when I gave everyone in my family little books full of my stories. Some had sex scenes, or were vaguely based on not-so-positive events that had happened in my family. But I figured if I aim to one day be published, and they’ll be able to buy my book in a store, might as well get them used to all that now!

Of course, that’s a different issue from what you’re describing. Why wouldn’t they want to read your stuff? Have you explained to them that writing is something that’s important to you? If you really want your parents to be involved in your writing, I would try to give them something that you’re proud of (and is short!) and say, “Mom, Dad, I love writing and I worked really hard on this, so I’d really appreciate your feedback.” The awesome thing about parents is that they’re somewhat obligated to love your work—especially moms, it seems. My mom could seriously read something I wrote drunk with my left hand and she’d be like, “Oh my gawd Liv this is the best thing anyone has ever written in all eternity!!!!!!!”

Although, your parents being disinterested could be a good thing. The other day this same mom of mine said to me on the phone, “Oh Liv, I posted one of your stories on my Facebook, a lot of people said they liked it!” and so I obviously was like “WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!!?!??!!?!?!?” It turns out my friend who runs Stripped to Sentiment (awesome blog, go follow, plug plug shameless promotion plug) had fed a story I submitted there to Facebook, and tagged me, and then my mom shared it. Phew! But she’s always handing out stories I let her read to every random stranger off the street and it makes me crazy!!!

But honestly, don’t worry about it as you grow as a writer. If you’re one day published (sorry if you already are, I guess I’m just assuming), things might change, but you don’t need your parents validation. You have yourself, and Tumblr, and your peers, and maybe now or in the future you’ll have writing professors and classmates, and you have US! 

  1. yeahwriters posted this