posted
Ok, so I am working on a novel and half the time, I am excited and think that it is actually sounding good and the other half of the time I wonder if people would actually want to read it. It is like a roller-coaster.... Does this happen to anyone else? One minute you think that you can write and the next minute you don't? Sigh, I'm just stuck in this weird mood...and wondering if it's normal and if anybody knows how to get out of it.
Posts: 47 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Solution (for me, at least): resign yourself to sucking and write right through it. You can go back and fix it later, but the important thing is not to let your mood dictate your writing habits.
posted
Oh yeah. Half the time I think my writing is just wonderful and the other half of the time I think its complete garbage.
Posts: 20 | Registered: Oct 2005
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You are not alone Jessica, not at all, everybody goes through spells like you describe. Keep your fingers on the keyboard and keep writing Best Wishes John Mc...
Posts: 140 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I know, that's been my excuse for not writing way too often and I have to learn to write anyway. Hemingway said, "The first draft of anything is sh!t" and you have to resign yourself that although parts of it will be good, not all of it will be perfect on the first try.
Posts: 283 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Put up with the pain of having to check it yourself. I haven't reached that far but I will soon. The best thing is to stick through it. Moods in writing go up and down, just like life. There are days where I don't want to write, if I do I write VERY little. Others, I write probably in excess of 8k words It depends on your mood.
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It seems normal not only in writing but in reading. I'll like an author so much I want to read everything by him, and sometimes I'll be thinking "he's the most brilliant author in the world," and sometimes, "hey, buddy, learn to write," and it can be in the same work.
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posted
You are feeling like a writer. Your job is to think your work is the best thing ever written and the worst thing ever written simultaneously.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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Hemmingway may have said "the first draft is always sh!t." but a writer has to be like the little girl who says "With all that sh!t, there has to be a pony in there somewhere!"
[This message has been edited by Ted Galacci (edited February 20, 2006).]
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Cognitive dissonance, for lack of a better term. Do many aspiring writers have this problem? You read a published work and think, "I can do better." The more popular the work, the more annoying any flaws you notice. (And why are some less-well-written works among the more popular and most-read?) Then you work on something you're writing and wonder if it's any good at all, although you KNOW you can write better than some of these published clowns!
Posts: 283 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I may be alone here, but so far when I have the sensation that what I'm putting down on the page is dull and sucky, it's usually because it's dull and sucky. While the advice to not self-edit during the creation process is good, I think that it is applicable mainly at line-level. If the feeling persists over a couple of paragraphs then it's probably a structural issue that's nagging, and structure issues need to be addressed as they happen or the story will be built on an unstable foundation.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:the only writers who don't ride this roller coaster are the one thousand chimpasees locked the New Yorker's back room. Did I just write that out loud?
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Mary has a point, but at least in my case, I can tell when a story is just going in the wrong direction. It doesn't feel right. The energy isn't there. When I'm going in the wrong direction, there is a lot of resistance between head and hands and I will write 250 words in the time it normally takes to write 1500.
That isn't the same as writing something dull and sucky. I don't think I ever write anything dull and sucky. Dull, sure. Sucky, maybe. Dull and sucky? That's a pretty tall order because I'll probably abort before it gets that far.
Often everything is fixed by going back to the point where I started feeling the resistance and starting over from there. sometimes the subconscious needs to chew on it for a few days, but it's never been the wrong choice.
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I'd like to tell when a story is going in the wrong direction, as opposed to "going in the right direction but painful scene to write" (because I don't have the knowledge, because this is a scene that's necessary but not pleasant to write...) In both cases, I have difficulty writing as much as usual.
Mind you, in both cases, the answer is to stop writing and think about what I'm doing.
In a previous short story, I was supposed to write a scene in which the hero goes to visit a flock of cranes. I couldn't. I knew it was necessary to the plot, but in 30 minutes I'd produced maybe one paragraph.
I stopped. I researched cranes, the places where they lived, their behaviour. The resulting story is much stronger (not to mention accurate ).
So, yes, the resistance to me is a sign I'm doing something wrong. The only question is what.
Besides, all I write is dull and sucky I have a bad case of low self-esteem. One day, I might even cure it.
quote:Ok, so I am working on a novel and half the time, I am excited and think that it is actually sounding good and the other half of the time I wonder if people would actually want to read it. It is like a roller-coaster.... Does this happen to anyone else? One minute you think that you can write and the next minute you don't?
Yes. Self doubt is a normal part of being human.
quote:Sigh, I'm just stuck in this weird mood...and wondering if it's normal and if anybody knows how to get out of it.
Moods change with time, and chocolate. Eat more chocolate and wait.
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One of my professors told me that as a writer, you have to be aware that your work is not anywhere near as good as you believe, and it's also nowhere as bad as you believe.
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It depends on your mood.
