Fear/inertia - help!

I'm totally gonna suggest that you check out Fear of Writing. This sounds exactly how I felt after 911 hit. I was in the middle of a romance novel and chucked the whole thing. I couldn't find any purpose in writing and felt unless I was focused on bringing about world peace, any writing endeavor was useless. The book above really helped me through and I regained my sense of purpose again.

Of course, you don't have to get the book, but I think if you had a genuine purpose in mind, you'd likely find the strength to overcome your fears--such as connecting with other survivors of what you experienced and offering them hope.

Just a thought and I wish you all the best.

Warmly,
Jenny

Hello neighbour!

I just wondered if anyone has any suggestions or has experienced the same. I really do want to write there's no doubt - it's just that deep down I really don't think I can do it and it's turning into a self fulfilling prophecy.

Click to expand...

OK, I'm not sure that what I've got to say will be much help but...

I suffer periodically with depression ( I'm bipolar) and it really hurts my writing output. I second guess everything, think it's all crap yadayada

The one thing that works for me is this: Get strict with myself. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Even if you only write ten words the first time. Getting started is the worst part - once I've written one sentence, the next is easier, and the next, until the fear is, if not forgotten, at least manageable. And even if it really IS crap - you can always fix it on the rewrite. To start don't worry about quality - worry about actually writing. No first draft is perfect so don't expect perfection of yourself at this stage.

I've no idea whether it'll work for you, but good luck, and I hope you find something that does. *hugs*

I totally understand your fear because I've felt it too on occasion. Try telling yourself two things:

1. Anything can be fixed later. A novel is such a complicated art form that nobody gets it right on the first try, so you'll need to edit anyway.

2. Nobody is ever going to see what you write unless you show it to them. You can write complete and utter dreck and no one will know.

I wish you the best.

Don't have the fear of failing because you might not actually get published; once you've written the novel, you've succeeded. Most people who say they're going to write a novel never do, whereas actually writing and finishing one is a success in your own right.

You can write, friend - your posts clearly show that.

I hope you find the impetus you seek and I wish you happy writing.

As for the fear of failure, it may help to try to change your focus. You have a story in you. All you want to do is get it out of your head and into your computer. Let go of any goals for what will become of that story for right now. Just get it out. Nothing can be done with it anyway until you get a rough draft, and then it is still a ways from ready for anyone else's eyes, so just let it flow out, no matter how corny or weird it sounds. And don't worry about editing it until you get to the end. If you need a mantra, do "let it" on the inhale and "out" on the exhale.

If you want something more concrete, try coming to the keyboard prepared to write. This isn't as anal as it sounds. Just think ahead of time what the immediate scene will be like--not in complete terms, but just who will be in the scene, what they will do, and what the overall goal of the scene will be. Don't write any of it down. Just play with it in your head, and don't sit down at the computer until you've mentally played around with it. Now, think up the first sentence. That's all, just that one sentence, but make sure it leads into what you've thought about the scene. Now sit down and write that one sentence. Once it's done, think of the scene framework and go for the next sentence, or the next paragraph. Keep on with the next sentence or next paragraph until you've exhausted your thought stream. Look back and see how far you've come. If it's just a few sentences, it's a few sentences more than you had before.

Here are the things I've personally found most daunting about writing a novel-length story, and they are things that are a worthy foe to self-discipline. First is looking at the finish line. It's so far off, it's hard to imagine it as anything but an unsurmountable chore. That's why it's necessary to keep focus on the next scene alone, and the next sentence of that scene in particular. When that scene is done, look only as far as the next scene. The second is to think that you will always be able to sit down at the computer and prose will flow from your fingertips, that being creative is opening a tap without any pre-planning (shouldn't I be able to do that if I am a creative person?). Coming to the computer prepared to write does not constrain or restrain creativity in any way. In fact, it is a jump-start to that creativity for those people who don't have the back-pressure to have words flow from the tap by just turning it to open.

Good luck with it. I'll finish with a kick in the pants. For most people who don't have clinical issues with it, fear of failure is just an excuse. Surrendering to it means it will just walk all over you time and again. Defeat it and you can do the walking.

Most schools are in the business of telling people they don't know anything and allowing hidden talent to lie fallow unless it pleases the instructor's ideals. That's how they make money and get prestige -- by handing out low marks, appearing exclusive, and turning out cookie cutter results at the end of the term that they can point to and say, "See? We taught them so much. Fs the first month, and Bs at the end."

There are exceptions, of course, but not enough.

The best teachers are life examples. Read books in your area of interest. Read excellent ones and analyse what makes them excellent. Read bad ones and analyse what makes them bad. See where your opinions may differ from popular ones, and why. Talk to people whose writing you admire and, if appropriate, ask them for tips and suggestions.

I put writing aside for many years and came back to it. There is no obligation to write -- but if you *want* to do it, and it's not a question of feeling guilty because you aren't doing it -- then:

--I suggest starting with an outline. Not those awful things from school with the I, II, A, 1, a, i, ii, iii, business. Just get some paper and a pen, and write out informal sentence fragments. Figure out what you're writing, what happens, why one would care, and a vague idea of ending and major events that happen along the way. It could look something like this:

Frank thinks that aliens work at his company, and no one believes him except his girlfriend Linda. Can he expose them before it's too late?

Purpose: story about perceptions, groupthink dangers? corporate greed, dangers of keeping silent, [continue here later]

--Frank starts his new job
--He's excited, he and Linda celebrate
--Boss gives him odd assignment, tells him to drive into the desert
--Does Frank go? Yes?
--Frank comes back to work -- something's been removed from his office (what?)
--He ignores it
--
--
--
-- (etc.)
-- Frank kills his boss, saves Earth just in time

Once you have your informal outline, then you have a roadmap. I know a lot of people recoil in horror at doing outlines, but at least with a loose one, you always know where you're going. You can always edit it or throw it out and start over.

-- A page a day is a book a year. It adds up. Set a weekly amount to strive for. Notice I said weekly, not daily. Many people write daily. I don't. If I had to generate writing every day, I couldn't. But the important thing is to write _regularly_. Set a realistic goal, even a silly easy goal at first. It builds your confidence to meet goals, exceed them, and challenge yourself over time.

Why not start with one page a week?

Turn off the editor. Your first draft will be crap. Accept it. Know it. Embrace it. Allow it. That's what revision is for. Allow yourself to go as crazy as you want on the first draft. Buried underneath the silliness and the dead wood may be just the gem you need to make the entire book amazing.

The goal right now is to have a somewhat coherent draft of the major scenes in your story. I always flesh out later. It's too overwhelming to think about writing everything on draft 1. That's how I work. Maybe you do, too. My first draft of my first novel was 30,000 words. The final was 60,000 words.

No one needs to see your first draft but you.

-- Last, and most important, surround yourself with upbeat, positive people. If your friends tell you that you suck and can't write a book, find new friends. If your writing group tells you unhelpful stuff, or drains your energy, stop going. Find a fun, understanding writing partner or circle of people you can "report" to -- online, or in your area.

("Hey -- I wrote 5 pages this week! How did you do?")

There are threads on Absolute Write that can help you with these.

Hope this helps.

Starby said:

I think perfectionism stems from anxiety, or at least it does in my case. I never used to be as perfectionistic as I am now, but I've been through some difficult times and I haven't got as much confidence as I used to. I'm craving that creative, carefree person I used to be. I think I need to remind myself of the reasons I used to write, which were that I loved it and wanted to express myself. it was only when I laid myself bare to others and got criticised that I lost all the enjoyment.

Click to expand...

Julia Cameron writes about Creative Recovery in "The Artist's Way."

"The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all." (pg. 152).

All of the chapters are set up as "recovering" from all sorts of things, especially fear and negativity.

You are in good company, Starby.

Ganymede said:

Most schools are in the business of telling people they don't know anything and allowing hidden talent to lie fallow unless it pleases the instructor's ideals. That's how they make money and get prestige -- by handing out low marks, appearing exclusive, and turning out cookie cutter results at the end of the term that they can point to and say, "See? We taught them so much. Fs the first month, and Bs at the end."

Click to expand...

This is so far from how universities work it's laughable. And it's totally insulting to professors, the vast majority of whom take their instructional duties very seriously, and work hard for the students not against them. Professors don't sit around trying to think up ways to trip up students, to make them feel like failures. I don't know about your personal situation, but comments like yours are the litany of students who get bad grades because they can't be bothered to put the proper effort into the work, or they fly off the handle in response to criticism instead of looking at how that criticism may make them better at their chosen coursework (sounds like some people in SYW, doesn't it?). I am sick to death of seeing students who think that if they can fill up five pages with words to satisfy a five-page assignment, they should get a good grade no matter how shitty those words are on those five pages. The primary goal of some students today is to avoid any responsiblity for their own actions and push all blame onto that fuc*ing professor, who had the balls to give them Fs when they stayed up all night the night before the due date writing those papers.

Professors are responsible for maintaining academic standards for their courses, and those standards are evaluated at several levels within the university and at higher levels (accrediting agencies). This means that when a student doesn't put the effort into the assignments and exams, the student has to be appropriately graded. And it is incredibly apparent when students don't bother to put in a significant effort. Some students don't do well even though they put in a good effort, and that is when they should seek help instead of point fingers. You'd be surprised at the professors who take their "office hours" seriously and are there to help any student who seeks that help. And you'd also be surprised at how many of those office hours go by without a single student showing up.

And here is the biggie--universities gain their reputations from their successes, not from their failures.

For anyone here at AW who is having trouble writing and relate it back to a bad experience at a university. That's just making excuses. Maybe you did get a crappy professor (there are usually two sides to those stories, but there are people at universities who shouldn't be teaching--and they usually aren't for long). Let it go. That person had a hold on your emotional and scholarly performance for what, four months of your life? How many professors actually enriched your life during their four months? For some students, the automatic answer will be none. These will be the same people who will still be blaming their professors for every hard luck in their lives decades after they are through with school.

This thread is about helping Starby and others in Starby's shoes, who are facing overwhelming fears of writing. So I'm going to stick to that topic.

It's evident from what she wrote and what is in her profile, that she did not receive assistance that was helpful to her in her class. In effect, she:

1. was suffering from depression, and
2. stopped writing, and trying, as a direct result of the class.

There is insufficient data to conclude what assistance, if any, Starby sought. It is not apparentl if she sought it and did not receive it, or was unable or unwilling to seek it, due to various and sundry circumstances. But the net result is, for whatever reasons, the situation made her want to permanently throw in the towel.

If a class or instructor makes an individual want to stop striving, and to shut down and give up for good, that's a fail.

That has _nothing_ to do with the marks given. A professor is capable of handing out an F and saying, "Fred, you got an F this term, but you've got potential. I can see it. You follow class discussions and contribute brilliantly. I hope you won't give up. If you decide to try it again, I can suggest some resources that might help you."

And I don't know about your personal situation, either, and I'm not going to make any unscientific assumptions or extrapolations about yours.

I also said: there are exceptions, but not enough.

Starby, there are good professors and bad ones, just like in any walk of life. I hope you won't let one bad experience with a class put you off for good, and if people or classes make you feel like there is no hope ever, and that you should give up for good, instead of striving harder to succeed, then I hope you'll leave it and find a better environment that encourages you to keep going, even if you encounter some roadblocks, setbacks, and "Fs" along the way.

NeuroFizz said:

This is so far from how universities work it is laughable. And it's totally insulting to professors, the vast majority of whom take their instructional duties very seriously, and work hard for the students not against them. Professors don't sit around trying to think up ways to trip up students, to make them feel like failures. I don't know about your personal situation, but comments like yours are the litany of students who get bad grades because they can't be bothered to put the proper effort into the work, or they fly off the handle in response to criticism instead of looking at how that criticism may make them better at their chosen coursework. I am sick to death of seeing students who think that if they can fill up five pages with words to satisfy a five-page assignment, they should get a good grade no matter how shitty those words are on those five pages. The primary goal of some students today is to avoid any responsiblity for their own actions and push all blame onto that fuc*ing professor, who had the balls to give them Fs when they stayed up all night the night before the due date writing those papers.

Professors are responsible for maintaining academic standards for their courses, and those standards are evaluated at several levels within the university and at higher levels (accrediting agencies). This means that when a student doesn't put the effort into the assignments and exams, the student has to appropriately graded. And it is incredibly apparent when students don't bother to put in a significant effort. Some students don't do well even though they put in a good effort, and that is when they should seek help instead of point fingers. You'd be surprised at the professors who take their "office hours" seriously and are there to help any student who seeks that help. And you'd also be surprised at how many of those office hours go by without a single student showing up.

And here is the biggie--universities gain their reputations from their successes, not from their failures.

Click to expand...

Maybe what you need is a little praise. Maybe if you saw others reacting positively toward your writing, you'd feel more confident in yourself. Would you be willing to post one of your short stories to our Show Your Work forum and get some feedback? You can link to this thread so people understand where you're at right now. They can give you honest kudos for what you're doing well. It can really help motivate you and help overcome fear of sucking when other writers see things to love about what you've written.

Having a specific time to write daily AND giving yourself permission to write crap are both very important. Nobody ever wrote a story that was perfect on the first shot. Not as far as I know, anyway. Stories and books don't come forth fully formed. They take some reworking, and parts of them will be extensively crappy during the reworking process. We all go through it! So at least you're not alone.

Nobody ever wrote a story that was perfect on the first shot.

Click to expand...

First get it written - then get it right

Glad you're feeling a bit more positive

Fear of what? I mean, you gotta get realistic. These are old statistics I read once, but maybe they are still viable. Out of hundreds of thousands of novels written per year and sent to pubishers, about 5000 are published, and of those only a few make the pubisher enough money to make it to a second printing. -- It would be silly to fear an audience with so much statistical evidence that getting pubished is as rare as getting struck by lightening. Don't think about the bookstore if you are only starting out. It will stifle your creativity right off the bat.

As far as the old "in college I was marked poorly" -- well, some people were good writers for an 8 year old, but when they hit the higher grades, all of a sudden that brilliance is suddenly "mundane." Comeon. That happens in every field of expression. Mundane people need and want happiness too, but you can't become something other than second rate unless you work on novels constantly. What's that old saw about needing to practice to get to carnagie hall? For some reason writers think that they do not have to BIC and do their scales-- daily-- write 3-4 pages-- and don't expect miricles.

So, since you do not have to fear an audience, and you don't have to fear your teachers, who do you have to fear?

Starby, as I mentioned in my rep comment, that second post of mine was purely a reaction to the quoted part of another post, and not directed at you. My first post was the appropriate one for suggestions for to your original post.

And many university professors do take the emotional problems of their students into consideration when helping with the coursework, or for rescheduling exams or assignments. The problem arises when we don't know there are problems. So we can give extra time and extra help to those who need it, but we can't give differential grading. And we have to sort out the students who have legit problems from those whose grandmother just died for the seventh time in their college years (professors do compare notes).

Just as a point of interest for those who care; on one side we get students who complain about how tough and unfair we are in our grading while on the other side, we have administrators and even state legislators complaining about "grade inflation"--where the average grade point average of graduating seniors is drifting upwards and therefore professors are not adequtely enforcing the academic standards of the university (we are going too easy on students). And the data do show this latter trend to be accurate (I prefer to think of it as better students working their asses off and getting the appropriate pay-off of better grades). Professors are stuck in the middle, seemingly making no one happy, until we realize that the majority of students in our classes are an absolute joy to teach.

There are at least two kinds of joy in this business. The joy of the flow of creativity and the joy of accomplishment. Relish the first but never underestimate or downplay the second. The problem--the first isn't always around and the second requires that we roll up our sleeves and work at it. We hope you find all forms of joy in writing, Starby. I'm always pushing for the second one because it's the one most of us can control.

Starby said:

I just want to get the enjoyment back. I think fear has got in my way due to many different factors and I want to get that flow and passion back.

Click to expand...

Try this: Purposely forget about writing for one week. Every time you think about getting back to it, tell yourself, "No, not yet."

I did this when I was having my own trouble and was able to pinpoint the reason why I'd stopped writing. Not that this reason is yours, of course, but this is what happened to me:

I had started spending time with an individual whose habits were very different from mine. Where I like to stay busy pretty much all the time, this person was more of a slacker and even admitted to being that way. In trying to "adapt" to this new friend, I found myself adopting those habits. Not only did they affect my attitude toward my job, but my writing and my life in general, as well. I didn't care about anything.

It was not until I purposely put the writing aside, even just thinking about it, that I was able to see how much my willingness to adapt to the new situation had changed me, and not in a good way. So I made a decision. If this person didn't like me because I wasn't lazy, then I had to be okay with their disapproval. Case in point, I am writing again and feeling good about it. If it isn't good enough, then I'll throw it away and start over, or fix it, if possible. But regardless, I am enjoying the process once again.

Is it possible you're letting outside influences have more sway over you than you realize? Sometimes in trying to be accomodating, we can give too much, and nothing is left over for ourselves.

Starby said:

I should write it and stick it by my computer: "I give myself permission to write crap." Not doing that is definitely a big aspect of my fear! Thanks for the encouragement - it is a relief to know it's not just me who feels like this and that it doesn't mean i'm a bad writer (or no writer) if I do!

Click to expand...

The only thing that makes you a non-writer is if you don't write. So do it daily, if you can. Weekly at least!

No, it's most definitely not you. Although you may be surprised at what is and isn't crap in your own work. I cranked out a chapter after struggling with it for a few days. I decided I'd write something vaguely coherent just so I could get that bit of the book off my mind for the moment and move on to the next scene. I sent it off to my beta reader warning her that I knew it sucked and that it was definitely going to be completely redone in the next rewrite, and to please make suggestions on how to improve it. She loved it. So, sometimes we think it's an awful load of poo when really it's working quite well, but our own memories of struggling with it color how we see it.

Getting a good beta reader whose opinion you know you can trust really helps a lot.