I wrote a chapter last week, but upon reflection I realized it's a filler chapter. There's some character reveal, but not the way I want. I seem to feel the need to describe every detail of how a character gets from Point A to Point B. I think there are some good sections in it, but I'm going to write a new chapter where my character is already where I want her to be, with some backstory of how she did this and that before she got to where she is now.
Feeling Guilty About Writing
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What kind of support? Encouraging you to "be a writer" in the abstract is fantastic, but does he ever look over your work itself and tell you what he thinks of it?
My father and I are both writers (I've written more words than he has, but he's closer to being professionally published), and one of the greatest feelings in the world for me is when he tells me something that he didn't like about one of my stories so that I can work on it in the next draft (or decide that he's completely wrong
it happens).Do you ever get to see the effect that your fiction has on other people? Stephen King threw away his first manuscript and may never have written after that, but Tabby fished it out of the bin and read it before telling him that it was pretty good.
(Complete tangent: he probably wouldn't like hearing me say it was one of my favorites
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He hasn't read it, mainly because I'm shy and because I'm not done with it yet. I bet if I specifically asked for his input he'd read it for me.
That might help
Different people need different things in their lives, and just to put it in terms of Hogwarts Houses (because why not )Gryffindors live for bravery and risk-taking
Slytherins live for superiority and showing off
Hufflepuffs live for relationships and working
Ravenclaws live for intelligence and creating
Me, I'm a Slytherin-Ravenclaw. My quality of life depends on my being able to show off to a captive audience how clever and creative I am, and I write because I think the ideas that I come up with are amazing. (There's also a lot of Hufflepuff buried underneath – I want other people to love my ideas as much as I do – but the Slytherin-Ravenclaw tends to come first).
You sound like you're primarily a Hufflepuff who's been raised her whole life to see writing as isolating and lazy, and I'm thinking it might help for you to see writing as work that you do to make other people happy
Then it's your duty to put in the drudge-work of turning your intelligence and creativity into a written story that you can share with the people around youI think I'm a combination Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff.
Given my utter failure at getting any submissions accepted for publication, I feel guilty now of even having attempted to write stuff. I just feels like a complete waste of time I could have used more productively in, say, burglary, or getting addicted to hard drugs.
caw
caw
blacbird: I love this article when I'm feeling down: http://lithub.com/why-you-should-aim-for-100-rejections-a-year/
If you're getting rejections, you're trying. If you leave the story unwritten, you'll never improve! I had queries for my first completed novel rejected almost 100 times, and then I wrote another book, had it rejected 40 times, and had one person say: YES I LOVE IT, and now I'm on sub to publishing houses. Writing is something to do because you enjoy it. People throw away crossword puzzles once they're done with them and forget TV shows 30 minutes after watching them. At least at the end of the day you can say, I made that!
If you're getting rejections, you're trying. If you leave the story unwritten, you'll never improve! I had queries for my first completed novel rejected almost 100 times, and then I wrote another book, had it rejected 40 times, and had one person say: YES I LOVE IT, and now I'm on sub to publishing houses. Writing is something to do because you enjoy it. People throw away crossword puzzles once they're done with them and forget TV shows 30 minutes after watching them. At least at the end of the day you can say, I made that!
You're there. I read back over stuff I wrote and I'm like... oh man. This is crap. But then there's one sentence, or one phrase and it's like, huh. That's not terrible. The more you write, the more you find. But if you don't love writing and if it stresses you out in a bad way, go do something you enjoy! Your writing will wait if you want to come back to it.
It's kind of strange, but when I read my first draft I quite like it. But now I'm on the 3rd draft, I'm not so mad keen on it. Perhaps I'm getting fed up with it? I do re-read books, but not immediately afterwards.
Then there's the problems. Every time I read through it, I find more. I thought I caught them all last time. Someone sneaked up and changed something when I was asleep?
Then there's the problems. Every time I read through it, I find more. I thought I caught them all last time. Someone sneaked up and changed something when I was asleep?
Actually, when a tree falls, it does generate sound waves when it crashes. Just because no one is around to hear it doesn't mean there isn't a sound.
How do you know?
Yeah, I'm being facetious. But the point of the analogy, applied to writing, is: If you write something, and can't get it read by anybody else, does it really exist? Are you saying that doesn't matter? That all you need to do is write stuff, and that should satisfy?
That there's no point in seeking publication? Or being dissatisfied if the work can't get published?
caw
I feel your pain. I grew up in a situation in which I was taught that spending time writing was a sin and even though I don't believe that it's hard to get over something you are taught when you were young and so I still have nagging thoughts about things that other people think I should be doing instead of writing. I eventually came to the conclusion that I deserved to by happy and if writing makes me happy then it was not just something I was doing that was wasting time it is something productive because it makes me happy. It's great that you spoke to your husband about spending more time on your novel and that he was fine with it and that's probably because he sees it makes you happy and that makes for a happy life. You deserve to spend your time doing something you love, so go for it and good luck!
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I feel guilty when I spend time playing computer games, watching TV, or even reading, instead of writing. I think of writing as productive, in that it's creating something, even if I never get published.
Which just shows how different people's experiences and internal list of "shoulds" are.
A question I have for the OP: is it writing in particular that makes you feel guilty, or is it the idea of losing yourself in any activity that's solitary and not about earning money (or for your health, or doing something for someone else)?
Which just shows how different people's experiences and internal list of "shoulds" are.
A question I have for the OP: is it writing in particular that makes you feel guilty, or is it the idea of losing yourself in any activity that's solitary and not about earning money (or for your health, or doing something for someone else)?
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