W.S. Merwin, the great poet, once asked John Berryman how he would know if his own work was any “good.”

Berryman answered that he wouldn’t. Writers never know. They guess.

Although it’s easy to think that your most popular work is your best, that is not necessarily true. Time is more telling than applause.

My own experience is that you can judge your work best years later. You can also find confidantes that you trust.

I tend to think my work is good if I remember it. But then sometimes I find a piece in my computer that I’d completely forgotten about and I’m happily surprised. I’ve even been astonished that I could have forgotten words so heart-felt.

Is your work any good? The only useful question is whether you can make it better. Little things a copy-editor can fix may make a big difference.

But obsessing over little things can keep you from seeing the big thing–what you have said.

We all want to believe that we are talented and lust for praise. I only feel the praise when I’m also excited about my work. Still, the praise helps–even when I don’t entirely believe it.

An editor that you trust can help keep you focused and engaged on the task you have set for yourself–and less distracted by worries about whether you are talented and will succeed.

Your best chances of happiness and satisfaction are in the process of writing and in reading yourself later, at the moment when you need to hear what you had to say.

Writing over a lifetime allows you to escape time. You can read your words from twenty years ago and think, “How did I know that?”  If you are a self-critical person, you will love yourself more.