Writerly despair and other navel-gazing nonsense: with some swears, so be warned

Man! I go thru this too. I'm self-styled as very er...non-angsty in real life, but boy. I get quasi-suicidal over my writing sucking. I don't know what to tell you, but...yeah, relate.

scarletpeaches said:

Oh good. Join my mental-case gang.

We sit in the corner listening to Linkin Park and writing emo-poetry.

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Oh you lost me on the Linkin Park thing.

Kidding! Yes, it's very...what's the word? I don't know. I think the ideal thing would be to possess humility when your work is praised, and confidence when your work is criticized. But somehow I'm kind of the opposite. It's maddening.

scarletpeaches said:

I'll probably regret posting this 'cause it's gonna come off as me wallowing; I know it.

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Wallowing? No. I think a lot of writers have their low moments, and knowing that others do makes it...I don't know, not easier...maybe misery just loves company. Knowing other people feel the same way helps me, don't know about you.

Ask me again tomorrow, I could love it. Inconsistency thy name is scarletpeaches.

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Welcome to the club. I had three days in a row where my 5K minimum was like pulling teeth...then I did 6500 words without even trying...then yesterday? NOTHING. Today? The day is still young, remains to be seen. I can do 10-12K days, then have other days where I'd sell my soul to do 500.

Earlier I was on a high, and now I'm...well, sinking. I think.

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What's uber-weird is how you and I seem to do this at the same time.

I sent tt42 what I'd written and she loved it - or said she did - and I read the same paragraphs thinking, "How could she, the lying cow? This is crap. Utter, utter crap." I was angry at her for not agreeing with me that I'm a fraud and a hack with no right to even be near MS Word.

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No, I wasn't lying.

However, you may recall just a week ago when I sent you a few chapters which I thought were such complete and utter tripe that I was seriously considering dumping the entire book into the Wangstbasket, never to see the light of day again. Been there. I feel your pain.

I know there are other people on AW who come a hair's breadth from deleting everything and I wonder what stops them? Is it a feeling of guilt that you'd be killing off people who don't exist? Or a teeny weeny sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, what you write doesn't suck cheesy donkey balls and with a bit of persistence you could persuade someone to take a chance on you?

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When I'm having a low day, the only thing that keeps me from deleting it is, I think, some seriously stubborn denial. As if, on some level, I know my writing sucks, but I keep doing it and don't delete what I've written because somehow letting it continue to exist will make it NOT suck. I sometimes feel like I'm a musician on the deck of the Titanic...I know it's going down, but I just keep playing anyway.

Low days suck ass.

Either that or some monumental acting and a prayer that your fraudulent nature won't be found out at some point.

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Yeah, that too.

Oh, and yes, I am prone to rampant episodes of manic depression. Whether this is one I don't know. Maybe it's common to all writers and I'm nothing special after all.

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I've been accused of being manic depressive, though never "officially". Maybe it's just a writer thing, as you said. God knows I get some serious lows and some wickedly cool highs.

And it has my mother's voice and tells me I'm ugly and talentless and should go die in a ditch.

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Your mother can [censored] my [censored] with a [censored][censored] on a [censored] with a blue [censored].

I know what you're thinking: stop. Take a break. Trouble is, writing's been all I've had for so long I haven't got a clue what I'd do with my time otherwise. To think, I'm always telling other people to STFU, get on with it, stop being so down on yourself...but honestly. I'm special. I know I'm really bad.

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No, you're not bad. I can say this with absolute authority and have over 445 documented reasons to back me up.

However, that doesn't mean you don't have your low days...and I can't offer any advice except the same thing you've told me on many, many occasions:

The only way out is through.

To a point, I can relate.

Today, after not even having 2,000 words to show for a couple days work, I forced a quota of 3,000 words on myself.

All was well for the first 2,000 words or so, then things went into the porcelain bowl in a hurry. Things got so bad that I would struggle mightily through a hundred or so more words, then check the word count, hoping that I'd met my quota and I could at least take solace in that. When I am not in my happy place, tapping away merrily at the keys, ideas flowing freely, it is painfully obvious. Such stalling sometimes, such as today, results in my characters doing the same, just pacing around, passing time doing not much at all, but making it seem important and worthwhile.

With my particular 180 coming so abruptly, I felt terribly deflated. Going from feeling I could bang out 6,000 . . . maybe even 9,000 words going the way I was going to being worried that getting to 3,000 words would be enough of a, "Thanks for coming," prize to make that deflated feeling hurt a little less for now, but when I got back to work I'd be kicking myself over it, ironically giving myself more work because I know I won't be able to continue without editing that last bit or striking it from the record altogether.

Maybe if I hadn't set myself up so wondrously for this, doing things like posting an update on Facebook telling all my friends that I give them permission to flog me if I fail in my quest for the illustrious 3,000 words.

thethinker42 said:

The only way out is through.

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Exactly.

I know about the rollercoaster. I know it feels like thinking solves things. Mostly, at least for me, it doesn't. All I can say is that when I'm where you are, I tell myself what I used to tell the students I tutored who had trouble seeing projects through to their ends: Don't think, just do.

A ton of us are rooting for you. Go forth bravely.

Sorry you are doubting yourself, Scarlet, but the person who wrote the 2,000 words in an hour is the same person who wrote 800 in the last hour. I can't be in your head, so I can only speculate on a few things. But I'll shout this out--I hate daily word counts, and I hate word counting. The difference between 2,000 and 800 is quantity, not quality. But when one really cranks out the words with great ease and then in another writing session finds them difficult (giving rise to a significant count difference), there is a tendency to emotionally blur the quantity thing over into quality. And the resulting impatience can poison the words that are written in the latter hour so the writer hates them. I know it's hard to do, and I know some people find great motivation from word counting, but it's like the bathroom scale. If one is losing weight, those numbers are tremendously motivating. But if the decrease in weight slows down, or even vacillates between slight loss and slight gain (which can happen if one is weighing themselves daily) frustration sinks in and the scale becomes an enemy instead of a simple messenger, to where stepping on that messenger causes enough frustration to bail on the diet.

In each writing session, a writer should move the story along. Sometimes, things will click and that movement will be huge. Other times, it will be frustratingly slow, tedious, and seemingly awkward rather than smooth. But if that slow session moves the story along, the writer has done his/her job. A writing session may only produce one good sentence, but if that sentence moves the story along, it's a positive contribution. Every day will not be the same writing-wise. Every scene won't be the same writing-wise. Move the story along. Shit-can the daily word counts. Move the story along.

The final thing I'll say about word counts is a gym-rat lesson. When one goes into the gym, there will always be someone with larger, more defined muscles, or with a slimmer, well-toned physique. The worst thing one can do is compare himself/herself to others. Take this to word count. You are close friends with someone who is tremendously productive. Are you comparing your productivity to hers, maybe subconsciously, or even with a scaling factor built in? It's another good reason to shit-can the daily (or hourly) word counts. Don't measure yourself against others. Don't even measure yourself against yourself. Measure yourself against the story. The progress thing again.

You have said to other posters, numerous times, that writing is hard work. Now, you are complaining when you have a hard writing session?

Give the 800 words the benefit of a sleep-over. Come back to them with fresh eyes and see if they are that horrible (without bringing quantity into the equation). Did you more the story along?

I don't know if it's common to all writers, but for both our sakes, lets just assume it's common to writers of a particular genius. A dazzling, but inconstant brilliance, hm?

I'm afraid until I get my own steadily flattening ass moving again, I'm not one to offer advice. I wouldn't delete your work, for sure, because if you ever want it back, you'll be certain in your mind that even if you rewrite it, the original sparkle will be gone. I accidentally overwrote something while making a back-up once, though I didn't realize it until after several hours of searching my computer from one file to the last. It wasn't great, and it sure as hell wasn't perfect, but it had good bones, and those words, in that order, with that flavor, are never going to line up in my brain again.

scarletpeaches said:

Um...thoughts? Cookies? Kicks up the backside? I feel embarrassed for feeling bad when there's not a concrete problem, just a shadow in my head.

And it has my mother's voice and tells me I'm ugly and talentless and should go die in a ditch.

I know what you're thinking: stop. Take a break. Trouble is, writing's been all I've had for so long I haven't got a clue what I'd do with my time otherwise. To think, I'm always telling other people to STFU, get on with it, stop being so down on yourself...but honestly. I'm special. I know I'm really bad.

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Welcome to my world. What say we go down to the pub and have us a Guiness, or, better, a couple drams of 16-year-old Laphroaig.

I'm about to do something I'm horrible at, and probably will regret, somewhere down the road. But here goes:

You are about the smartest and most succinctly expressive poster I know in this place. I can't imagine you're doing anything other than applying those qualities to your fiction. I think you're incapable of writing crap. Which means, you are at the tipping point where you need to send something out. Only then will you know.

Actually, that isn't quite right. Only after ten or fifteen years of doing that will you know.

caw

Take two ounces of chocolate and continue writing in the morning.

scarletpeaches said:

I know what you're thinking: stop. Take a break. Trouble is, writing's been all I've had for so long I haven't got a clue what I'd do with my time otherwise. To think, I'm always telling other people to STFU, get on with it, stop being so down on yourself...but honestly. I'm special. I know I'm really bad.

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Nope. Do not stop. Do not take a break. You know what might happen if you do? You'll stop writing completely. For maybe seven or eight years. And then, when you pick it up again, you will tell yourself at first you suck and your words are worthless. Then, a little later you'll smack yourself over the head for those lost years and all those lost words.

Not that I would know anything about that.

For me, it was the voice of my mother and my ex-husband, all combined into one loud shrieking banshee whose only intention was to beat my self-esteem down to its level.

Sometimes I write a page or a paragraph or even a sentence that I just can't believe I gave birth to. It's like a perfect angel child. Other times, my words are the Antichrist himself.

Keep on writing. I've seen plenty of your posts and I doubt you are

a fraud and a hack with no right to even be near MS Word.

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blacbird said:

You are about the smartest and most succinctly expressive poster I know in this place. I can't imagine you're doing anything other than applying those qualities to your fiction. I think you're incapable of writing crap.

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QFT.

It's well known on these boards that SP and I are good friends, so my posts to and about her probably come across as rampant arselickery (as she calls it). However, I have had the privilege of reading what she's written. It's safe to say that I've read more of her work than anyone besides SP herself - I probably have close to 250K of her words on my computer. There is a world of truth in everything blacbird said above.

SP: I know what it's like to have these low days, to feel like everything you write is crap, and to wonder why the hell you keep doing it. God only knows I'm having one of those days myself. It's not angsting about the fact that it really is hard work...it's the fear that you're putting in all that hard work for nothing. And you're not.

Also, if I know you as well as I think I do, you've probably got some finishing anxiety going on because you're getting close to the end of your current book. Need I remind you that you went through this with the last one, too? You got through it and finished it. That book was made of win, and so is this one.

You'll get through this, and you'll finish this book.

Or I will personally fly over there and kick your ass.

Have you considered drugs?

I know there are other people on AW who come a hair's breadth from deleting everything and I wonder what stops them? Is it a feeling of guilt that you'd be killing off people who don't exist? Or a teeny weeny sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, what you write doesn't suck cheesy donkey balls and with a bit of persistence you could persuade someone to take a chance on you?

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Actually I know for a fact that what I write does "suck cheesy donkey balls". So why don't I just delete it all and knock off this charade? I keep hoping that if I stick with it maybe someday I won't suck anymore.

And I know I'll never be great at anything else. I want to be good at something. That's why I push on when it hurts.

When I'm having a low day, the only thing that keeps me from deleting it is, I think, some seriously stubborn denial. As if, on some level, I know my writing sucks, but I keep doing it and don't delete what I've written because somehow letting it continue to exist will make it NOT suck. I sometimes feel like I'm a musician on the deck of the Titanic...I know it's going down, but I just keep playing anyway.

Low days suck ass.

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Get out of my head!

But it seems my brain's done a 180 on me from yesterday's high

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Well listen--just be glad you have highs.

When that happens to me, that's what I say to myself: My story isn't great ... NOW. I hate all the words I wrote ... TODAY. As writer, you have to be careful about your language. It's got to be temporally precise. Even though my novel isn't great now, it's going to be great one day. When I started writing it, I didn't even have a plot. If your story is better today than it was last month, there's every reason to assume that next month it's going to be even better, as long as you keep working on it and improving it. It will never get worse, only better. Progress is inevitable. It's just a question of time. Be patient.

The alternative, deleting your work, will just set you back. You'll start working on another story, then sooner or later reach the same conclusion that it sucks, and you'll be back to the point where you are now.

You have lots of people who love you on here, Lady, even me, and I'm not a very friend-orientated person to begin with.

Scarletpeaches If I had real friends I'd think "Oh fuck you, [male MC of current WIP] and get rid.

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You sound just like me....Last time at the shrink I made him promise that whatever tablets he gave me I'd still be able to write. Sod being able to work, or anything else. I needed to write! As I proved to him when I stopped taking one lot, almost entirely because they stopped me from writing. ( Well, and they stopped me from talking properly too, or walking without falling over, but I wasn't worried about that. )


I often hate what I write. We all wallow sometimes - and it's that that spurs us on to improve isn't it? And then I go back and look at something old, like I did last night, and think 'Hang on, I wrote that? Hey I can work with this! It doesn't completely suck!'

Ig you thought your every word was gold, you'd never learn anything new. So it's a good wallow.

Chillax girl. Get some sleep, go to the park and watch the fit blokesducks. Enjoy the sun. Then come back and attack that keyboard

And you stole my 'My work sucks like giant hairy donkey balls' line. Moobag. *pokes tongue out at SP*

I don't know any of you people, but I damned well got your back. Don't delete, throw the words at the screen and take a grim delight in watching paragraphs infect the white void.
If it's a fight, keep reloading, I'll carry the frikkin' flag for now. Scarlet, you say you used to tell people to buckle down, get through it, it's worth it.
Well, it's your turn. So as a complete stranger who has read many of your posts, I say it's okay to feel miserable or upset. It's not okay to leave the wheat you tended rotting in the fields. Reap, Scarlet, reap.

I used to dabble with words. I write now. I figure the least I can do is give a little heart-felt "rah-rah" to the people that set the example for me, i.e., you freaks.

You want me to send over some naked Irishmen to perk you up a bit? With toys?

If I had real friends I'd think "Oh fuck you, [male MC of current WIP] and get rid."

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but from where I stand, you have a lot of "real" friends on this board. Just because you don't live close to them, it doesn't make them any less important in your life -- and vice versa. So quit chatting shit.

Just wanted to say, scarletpeaches, I know where you are coming from and you're not alone.

I think it was Freud that said all writers are mad. I've come to the conclusion that he had a point. Writers seem far more susceptible to mood swings, mental disorders, emotional problems, and other such things, than 'normal' people.

Recent statistic I heard is that 1 in 4 people have a mental illness. The number of people in our writing group who have been diagnosed, at some point, with some kind of emotional or mental disorder is probably about 2 in 4 (although we've never taken a poll!). If you include all those with undiagnosed emotional or mental disorder, even mildly (and I think I have to include myself in the latter category), it's probably more like 3 in 4.

But I think IdiotsRUs has summed it up quite succinctly with her story of being unable to write on medication. If being 'cured' means not being able to write any more, this is an option that most of us just wouldn't contemplate.

Take a break if you need to. Go for a walk, soak in the bath, put on some music and dance around the living room, play some computer games. Whatever it is that makes you happy - as long as it's not writing. And I know that not writing can bring its own feelings of guilt - Lord yes, I can relate to that. But sometimes you need to give yourself permission not to write. When you come back to it later, maybe you'll be able to focus more constructively.

Good luck.

Shara

Pull yourself out of it, bird. Or I'll give you such a tongue-lashing you won't know what's hit you.

Shara said:

Just wanted to say, scarletpeaches, I know where you are coming from and you're not alone.

I think it was Freud that said all writers are mad. I've come to the conclusion that he had a point. Writers seem far more susceptible to mood swings, mental disorders, emotional problems, and other such things, than 'normal' people.

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Something my doc noted in fact, when I first went to see her. I'd had a really bad crash and as we talked I said something like 'But I should be happy, I just got my first review and it was great, and I can't even get excited about that!'

She asked what the review was for and when I said a book -- well the look on her face said it all. Writers are nutjobs - it comes with the territory.

seun said:

Pull yourself out of it, bird. Or I'll give you such a tongue-lashing you won't know what's hit you.

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This seems like the appropriate thread to cut and paste my current sigline, since it could change over time.

"...there's a hormone secreted into the bloodstream of most writers that makes them hate their own work while they are doing it, or immediately after. This, coupled with the chorus of critical reaction from those privileged to take a first look, is almost enough to discourage further work entirely." --Francis Ford Coppola, "Letter to the Reader," Zeotrope magazine

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