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I love that advice at the end of your blog that your friend gave you. Fabulous! Thanks for sharing.

&quot;I’m the only one who knows what book I want to write, and what story I want to tell.&quot;<br />So true. I once read an article interviewing a fairly respected/published artist, and she said something like taking critique was a balance between being open to feedback and maintaining your own vision. The temptation to get loads of critique and then act on all of it is high, but in the end

The problem with this business is it requires so much self belief. Self belief to receive critique without losing track of your original vision. Self belief to allow yourself to re-imagine a scene that doesn&#39;t work. Self belief to keep going even though it feels like the odds are against you. Self belief just to write the next line! <br /><br />Lots of inspiring stuff yet again, Jo. Thank you.

I can&#39;t tell you how many times I&#39;ve taken chapter one out and put it back in again to a book, even though it usually contains the inciting event and should be indispensible. Finding your own way is tough, but I&#39;m getting better at it. It&#39;s all about saying no!<br /><br />Nick.

What an insightful post. I know exactly what you mean. As if receiving feedback wasn&#39;t hard enough (am I the only one out there who only hears the negative comments?), then you&#39;ve got to sort out what&#39;s useful from what isn&#39;t, while remembering at the same time that your readers have given time to trying to give an honest response. We all need to hear the truth, but a the same

This is so TRUE. And I love your friend&#39;s advice. A great way of cutting through all the fear of failure and asking what we WANT to write.

This is exactly the process I think most people go through. I sent mine out too quickly too.

So true Jo. Taking crit is a definate skill, and so is ignoring it when you know exactly what story you want to write. I tend to feel that if I get excited about the changes they work, but if I&#39;m not, sure and hack about anyway, I usually take them out again later...

Oooo, I <em>like</em> that last bit! Your friend is absolutely right; every &quot;new&quot; idea someone suggests is going to give you an almost (if not) completely different book. You have to stick to your guns and <em>trust</em> yourself. And the book, too.<br /><br />Great post! Glad I found you all; adding you to my bloglist!

Good stuff, Jo: finding your vision and going with it is so important.<br />(and that Amy gives pretty good advice, doesn&#39;t she?)

That&#39;s very true Astrid! You do get really excited if you feel something&#39;s going to work, and a niggling something if you&#39;re not sure. And yes - those edits often disappear quite quickly!<br /><br />Teri - that Amy definitely does give good advice!!

I love this post! Thanks for writing it Sally - it did really make me wonder how on earth you do it! Amazing.

This is just so inspiring. Thanks for guesting on our blog, Sally, hand-rearer of parrots. Your story is going to move many writers.

Fantastic post, honest and funny. Thanks!

Well done, Sally. You can do. Jean Fullerton, who writes East End sagas, is also dyslexic and has so far had 3 books published. So it can be done.

Julie, thanks for the encouragement. I&#39;ve always been told not to write, so it’s great to see that other dyslexic writers have actually made it!

I&#39;m impressed you managed to find something positive to say in what sounds a really daunting situation. We shall all be giving an extra big cheer when you get published.

Sally! I was laughing my head off in a few places -especially the spell-checkers decision to quit on you. lol! <br /><br />What a great post -and an inspiring one at that. You have a brilliant voice and no doubt, that will shine through in all your projects.<br /><br />I totally know where you are coming from as I have semi-dyslexic/language issues when writing (especially when my mind reads

Have you tried Texthelp? http://www.texthelp.com/<br />My son, who is in the bottom 1% of the population for spelling, used to use voice recognition software, but now prefers this. It can deal with homophones. I doubt if it could solve the brother/brothel problem though!

Hi Janet, <br />I haven’t tried texthelp, but I’ll have a look at it. I did like your son try voice recognition software, about 12years ago I tried ‘Dragon Speak’, but I couldn’t get it to understand my accent (I roll my r’s), so unfortunately for me, I couldn’t train my dragon!