: Re: How can I respond to praise without appearing egotistical? Background Alright, so my friends and English teacher recently found out that I've written novels, and asked to read them. So, I gave

@Yeniel532

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I'm wondering if the real problem isn't that you're worried about being egotistical, but instead what you're feeling is maybe a bit of impostor syndrome mixed with your friends and teachers being overly enthusiastic with their praise.

It's a terrible feeling to receive higher praise that you feel you've warranted, causing you to feel that friends, teachers, parents, or whoever have the expectation for you to achieve greatness. They see the great writer that you'll be in the future, when you see yourself as just a kid who likes to write but maybe actually wants to be a programmer or a pilot or something else. You feel locked into their vision of your future rather than being able to choose for yourself.

So, what do you do about it?

First - learn from your mistakes. Sometimes your friends aren't actually the best people to share your work with. You don't have to hide it from them or anything, but it sounds like it might be good in this case to just say thanks and then let the matter drop and don't bring it up with them again.

Second - pick who you're going to share it with carefully. Share it with another writer or a good editor who will give you actual critical praise and advice rather than blanket, "You're the BESTEST!" praise.

Third - don't sell yourself short. If you've finished a novel, send it out and see what happens. You're not going to learn anything by finishing the thing and then sitting on it. You'll likely get lots of rejections, because that's the way it works, but mixed in with those rejections, you'll probably get some good advice on how to make your writing better.

And finally - watch other people that are in the same boat. I've been around a number of famousish people and watched them interact with people who are fans, and the really big famous people have this little invisible wall between them and a fan that doesn't exist when they meet someone who treats them like a real person. Douglas Adams for one just looked completely exhausted by the whole fan thing. You can have a friend, or you can have a fan... but I don't think that person can really be both.

Actually, maybe that's something you can tell your friends:

"Thanks for the praise, but lets change the subject. I'd rather have you as a friend than a fan."

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