• Read this: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?288931-Guidelines-for-Participation-in-Outwitting-Writer-s-Block

    before you post.

Techniques for the fear of complete, total failure?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Hillsy7

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
88
Reaction score
10
Cheery title, innit?

So something I've been ruminating on for a while - and is applicable to most creative, long form art processes - while I try and assess how best to satisfy my creative needs, is how to deal with the very real probability of "Never making it".

First, let's put aside the complicated question of what "It" is and just assume its something reasonable (like selling 1 of 20 novels you've written in your life to a small press). That's just a whole can of worms I can't be bothered to wrestle with - I know people mean well when they say things like "Just write for your self, the journey is its own reward!", but sorry, I want other people to read and enjoy my stuff. It's like spending a day baking and decorating a delicious, beautiful cake and then no one seeing or eating it.

So I've found that while I can power through your line-by-line writing anxiety, the second I try and make any qualitative assessment on anything larger than a few pages or a scene, I start to panic. What if this is the wrong scene? Or it jars with another scene? Or it's from the wrong PoV? Now yes, I can stave these off and delay them a bit for the edit - but then it's just a case of scaling up the problems. What if the scene is actually fine, but the whole plot thread doesn't work? What if the problem isn't plot, but a whole character isn't working? What if your central theme lacks conflict?

....keep scaling....

What if the premise lacks punch? What if your attempted subversion of a trope simply doesn't work? What if, by being brave, you try and highlight something sensitive and end up offending huge swathes of people? To put it bluntly, what if your book just sucks, and you have to bin it?

.....keep scaling.....

What if your next book also sucks? What if you do get a bit better - but you still haven't left the city limits of sucksville? What if the plotted trajectory of your improvement means by the time you leave Sucksville, you'll be over a hundred? What if you never improve - only move from one paradigm of sucking to another?

....and ultimately.

What if you dedicate your life to failing in the pursuit of success that never comes?

The problem here is that typical "advice" doesn't cut it. Statistically speaking, there's a very real chance that this will happen; I'd take a fair wager that the number of aspiring writers with 10 or more books to their name who've been published is less that 1 in 5. So that's an 80% chance of writing as a hobby, and doing it wrong - ergo, the typical mantra of "if you try and keep at it, you'll succeed!" is statistically garbage. I can train and train and train, but I won't ever run a sub 10 second 100m.

So yeah, I can inure myself a bit about the anxiety of not writing well on a first draft, and push everything back to the edit. The problem I've got, is that I've no tools to push that worry back beyond the 15th edit, beyond when I throw that book in the bin, and beyond the fear of repeating that 25 or 30 times before death takes us.

How does everyone else deal with this fear of long term failure (other than excessive alcohol consumption)?
 

mccardey

Self-Ban
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 10, 2010
Messages
19,211
Reaction score
15,811
Location
Australia.
I have some doubts about some stuff, but I just tend to think "I'll worry about that later" and get on with the stuff in front of me. So - this draft is this draft, and the next one is the one I'll do next, when I've finished this one.

(I'm phrasing it like this because I know some people are crippled by anxiety and I'm clearly not - though I do get anxious. I don't want to down-play the crippling of real anxiety, though - just to answer your question about how I deal with it. In case it helps.)

ETA:
What if you dedicate your life to ... the pursuit of success ...?
etc . Oh and I don't do that. I would caution against doing that. Your life is your life to live, so just live it. Share what you can, live the rest.
 
Last edited:

Hillsy7

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
88
Reaction score
10
I have some doubts about some stuff, but I just tend to think "I'll worry about that later" and get on with the stuff in front of me. So - this draft is this draft, and the next one is the one I'll do next, when I've finished this one.

I think most people with writing anxiety issues after a time develop some version of this technique over time (to varying levels of success), and know they can get words down that are reasonably decent. However, i was focusing on the next stage, when the next thing to do is to actively worry about later - also known as "improvement" and "Correction".

By definition, these things need you to assess what you have now, and what you want to have in the future, and plot some way of getting there. Even if it's only the next step, by definition that step is useless, or evenly actively damaging, if it's in the wrong direction.....

So I guess as someone who clearly doesn't find this an issue, the next question I ask of you is: How do you move on to the next thing without knowing if you are going in the right direction? How do you know your direction of travel is towards your goal?
 

mccardey

Self-Ban
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 10, 2010
Messages
19,211
Reaction score
15,811
Location
Australia.
So I guess as someone who clearly doesn't find this an issue, the next question I ask of you is: How do you move on to the next thing without knowing if you are going in the right direction? How do you know your direction of travel is towards your goal?
Interesting question.

*thinks*

I don't know. I don't. I write because writing is the thing that I do. It often doesn't turn into a book, but I keep writing and sometimes it does.

It's just writing, yanno? I don't let it be more important than that. Though it is important - very important.

ETA: You know what else? The best book I've written so far is the one I just finished, and when I thought it was finished, I realised it'd gone off track a bit. It was only 72,000 words, but I pulled a 32,000 word thread out of it, wrote that part anew in a different temporal space and with different characters, and now it's a lovely thing. Much better than I had ever hoped. If I'd been forcing myself to write towards an endpoint I'd already decided, I couldn't have done that. So that might be something to try - focus on the process, not the product. Maybe?
 
Last edited:

Hillsy7

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
88
Reaction score
10
I don't know. I don't. I write because writing is the thing that I do. It often doesn't turn into a book, but I keep writing and sometimes it does.

It's just writing, yanno? I don't let it be more important than that. Though it is important - very important.

I suppose then - in the interest of segmentation and looking at motivations and such - the final questions to that are:

1) Do people read you writing (and there's some sort of feedback mechanism so you know)
2) If all your work deleted itself once you'd "finished" it (i.e. declared it as good as you could make it), how would you feel?

......I also realise that question 1 sounded a bit snarky - it's really not intended as such, it's just I know a subset of writers just write for their own pleasure and literally never show anyone their finished works.......
 

Atlantic12

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 1, 2017
Messages
573
Reaction score
77
Location
Both sides of the Atlantic
I have heard the stuff you're saying from so many people. And I've thought it myself sometimes. And I have a good agent, but no book sold yet, so who knows? It could still all be a waste of time. It definitely is if you calculate effort and heartache v. financial reward.

Except that I love to write too much and can't stop. I moan and groan about it and I have horrible perfectionist tendencies and put a lot of pressure on myself to "succeed." But I know in my heart, I wouldn't do things any different than I'm already doing them. It's just the way I am.

In the big scheme of things, though, it's just a book. Or a story. Or whatever it is you write. It's important, but it's not your life. I think the writers who forget this end up drinking too much or maybe ending their lives. Life is way too important to reduce the success of it down to whether anybody ever reads your book. Sometimes it feels like that's the be all end all, but it isn't. If there's something wrong with your life, publishing a book will not save you. It won't make you richer (probably), thinner or more attractive to the opposite sex. The validation will only last so long until the doubts creep back in. As great a thing as it is to be published, it's not even in the ballpark of navigating a good marriage, raising kids and some of the many other big things in life.

Yeah, so keep it all in perspective. There's a book that might help called Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and other dilemmas in the writer's life by Bonnie Friedman. These are issues that don't get talked about quite as much as they should be, but these are demons we all struggle with.
 

mccardey

Self-Ban
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 10, 2010
Messages
19,211
Reaction score
15,811
Location
Australia.
I suppose then - in the interest of segmentation and looking at motivations and such - the final questions to that are:

1) Do people read you writing (and there's some sort of feedback mechanism so you know)
I'm trade published, (and also I've done tv and film and made a living out of writing corporate and advertising stuff) so yes that does help. But novels are fairly recent, and trickier: before then I still wrote, I just divided it into paid writing and, yanno, writing.

2) If all your work deleted itself once you'd "finished" it (i.e. declared it as good as you could make it), how would you feel?
That's happened so many times, because I pre-date computers, so I come from a time where people just wrote stuff on paper or in exercise books and then chucked it out when they needed more storage space. I would feel fine about myself, and as long as it wasn't something I needed to keep, I've always felt fine about tossing or deleting stuff. I don't write stuff in order to get it published so much as to get it written, and then decide if it's worth trying to get it published. (Most of it isn't. I'm fine with that. That's not why I wrote it.)

......I also realise that question 1 sounded a bit snarky - it's really not intended as such, it's just I know a subset of writers just write for their own pleasure and literally never show anyone their finished works.......
No, no - I took it in the sense that you meant it. I am prolly one of those writers who write for their own pleasure - or at least, for their own clarity. Actually, I always have been one of those writers - I was just lucky enough to also be able to carve a living out of the other kind of writing as well.

I like what Atlantic12 said above:
Yeah, so keep it all in perspective.
 
Last edited:

Hillsy7

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
88
Reaction score
10
That's happened so many times, because I pre-date computers, so I come from a time where people just wrote stuff on paper or in exercise books and then chucked it out when they needed more storage space. I would feel fine about myself, and as long as it wasn't something I needed to keep, I've always felt fine about tossing or deleting stuff. I don't write stuff in order to get it published so much as to get it written, and then decide if it's worth trying to get it published. (Most of it isn't. I'm fine with that. That's not why I wrote it.)

I actually meant if Everything you wrote vanished - so you didn't get to choose to do anything with it. It just.....went.

I am prolly one of those writers who write for their own pleasure - or at least, for their own clarity. Actually, I always have been one of those writers - I was just lucky enough to also be able to carve a living out of the other kind of writing as well.

To be fair this probably answers the question. That's cool, and I'm somewhat envious of that mindset.....I know obviously that doing something for it's own sake is the best reward - alas part of me wants to share stories and entertain, which is a difficult solitary pursuit....hehehe
 

Hillsy7

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
88
Reaction score
10
Except that I love to write too much and can't stop. I moan and groan about it and I have horrible perfectionist tendencies and put a lot of pressure on myself to "succeed." But I know in my heart, I wouldn't do things any different than I'm already doing them. It's just the way I am.

I appreciate the response - I think it confirms something I've long suspected (about writers generally and myself specifically): Some writers are compelled to write stories, and some are compelled to tell stories - it's just that writing is their best/favourite medium to do so.

Naturally, this probably exists on some sort of parallel continuum rather than a flat dichotomy - but i suspect this is why a lot of people have differing responses to the concept of "Validation".....almost by design, one process has that built in.

Here's a pithy zen thought: Can you tell a story if no one is listening?
 

AnnieColleen

Invisible Writer
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
4,355
Reaction score
1,391
Location
Texas
By definition, these things need you to assess what you have now, and what you want to have in the future, and plot some way of getting there. Even if it's only the next step, by definition that step is useless, or evenly actively damaging, if it's in the wrong direction.....

Here’s a point where you could try a different perspective. No, a step in the wrong direction isn’t useless or actively damaging. It’s a step on the way to figuring out what the right direction is. It also means gaining experience and perspective that will help in figuring out future decisions.

For me, with editing as well as writing, staying in the moment is what works best for me. So, I’ll reread a section; does it work for me now? What works or doesn’t work; what do I think would work better right now. Knowing full well that I may feel differently the next time I reread it. Which, yes, can be frustrating, but awareness of the process makes it less so. Awareness means I can plan to incorporate multiple rereads with percolating time between. If I don’t see anything I want to change after multiple rereads — or I do, but I can’t think how to make it work — then it’s time for other eyes on it, to catch what I might be missing. All of that cumulatively means I’m moving forward, whether or not any single decision is the right one.
 

The Otter

Friendly Neighborhood Mustelid
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
441
Location
In the room next to the noisy ice machine, for all
1) Do people read you writing (and there's some sort of feedback mechanism so you know)
2) If all your work deleted itself once you'd "finished" it (i.e. declared it as good as you could make it), how would you feel?

There are plenty of things I've written that no one has ever read and that I wrote just to try it out and see what it felt like to write it. But if no one could ever read what I wrote and if it all vanished as soon as I completed it, I would feel unfulfilled and frustrated. Writing is an act of making thoughts permanent. If the in-the-moment experience was all that mattered we would just tell stories in our heads and not bother to write them down at all.

Writing is also fundamentally an act of communication, and has been ever since the medium was invented. It doesn't have to be for profit in order to be meaningful, but I think most writers want to believe that their work means something to someone else, or at least gives pleasure and enjoyment to someone else.

As for, "can you tell a story if no one else is there to listen?" Sure. Because you're still listening to it. I told myself plenty of stories as a kid for my own amusement. But to use your earlier metaphor, it's kind of like cooking. You can cook for yourself and still enjoy the results, but if cooking/baking is a hobby you're deeply invested in, at some point you're going to want to do something with that skill that goes outside your own gratification, whether it's opening a restaurant or just cooking for your family and friends.
 
Last edited:

Helix

socially distancing
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
11,695
Reaction score
12,077
Location
Atherton Tablelands
Website
snailseyeview.medium.com
Here's a pithy zen thought: Can you tell a story if no one is listening?

I reckon so. It's still a story. But the other side of this is that when someone hears your story or reads it, it becomes a different story, reinterpreted through the audience's perceptions and experience.
 

Layla Nahar

Seashell Seller
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 6, 2007
Messages
7,655
Reaction score
913
Location
Seashore
I've dealt with the crippling variety of anxiety. "The Artist's Way" helped a lot for confidence in my choices - that is, I found that the exercises and the Artist Date, along with the readings helped me (in a strange kind of stealthy way) come to get a better sense of what I had to offer, you know - like, finding the core that expression comes from...

Also, "New Thoughts For Actors" by Jack Plotnik, which I read a good 10 years after doing the 'Artist's Way' helped a lot for actually sticking with things, once I believed that I was making the right choices.
 

Hillsy7

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
88
Reaction score
10
Here’s a point where you could try a different perspective. No, a step in the wrong direction isn’t useless or actively damaging. It’s a step on the way to figuring out what the right direction is. It also means gaining experience and perspective that will help in figuring out future decisions.

Hey, thanks for your comments. I think this has helped solidify some of the underlying problems for me....

Skip the quoted text if you don't want to read about using rough mathematical modelling to predict the time required to write a good book
Being a maths nerd, I ran a quick random progression for movement on a grid. The target was to move 6 spaces North and 4 spaces East, or from "First draft" to "Final product", with each "Move" representing a meaningful change to the work, and you could randomly move in 1 of the 8 major directions. This would represent Making a change to the work and then assessing it again. Assuming you made no mistakes, we're predicting 6 "Moves", which will equate to something like half a draft (So Sometimes a pass, sometimes a draft). Just for kicks, I'll set the limit at 100 "Moves" before you give up and bin the book.

I ran the numbers: only 1 in 10 times will you reach a "Final product" during those 100 "Moves" - and on average, it would take you 55 "Moves" to reach your goal. That's around 27 drafts. Therefore, on average, you'll have to write 5 novels and make around 455 Drafts or Passes, to achieve something you believe is "Finished" (Still not guaranteed to sell). If a pass takes a week, and a draft a month, that's on average 910 weeks, or 17 years and 5 months. So basically treating "Mistakes" as just another step of the process and trying something different produces no meaningful results.

So clearly what's needed is a way to evaluate the last step taken to determine if it was “Correct”. Given the same rules as above, and perfect assessment (You know when you’ve moved in the wrong direction), you would only ever make 2-4 errors, giving you 8-10 “Moves”….4-5 drafts isn’t unreasonable.
However, No assessment is perfect. So instead, I built a rule that after each “Move”, you assess if the last move was a mistake in 1 axis (e.g. I Moved North: Is that closer to the target on the North-South axis?). If the Answer to that is “No” then the next move is limit to only 3 positions moving you back in the other direction, otherwise it remains random.
The result of this is that you reach the target 90% of the time. Huzzah! Alas the average is still 50 “Moves” – If you limit to moves to 20, it drops to a 7%, and back to being somewhat rubbish.

All of the above general process solidifies 2 things:
1) Don’t have a narrow description of “Final” (Most perfectionists have worked out that books are never finished, only abandoned)
2) Identifying with laser focus when a change makes something worse, and HOW it made it worse, is probably the single biggest factor in condensing the timeframe into something realistic.

I think what's biting here is the extreme confidence required to do both of these things - and the further you move away from the nuts and bolts of "Good Writing", and into the more esoteric world of "Good Story", the more self-confidence and belief you need (And possibly self-delusion) that you are doing the "right" things.

So in theory, this is all good stuff. However, it’s still a short term view. Why? Because it makes two very large assumptions: Firstly, that the authors assessment that they are moving closer to/further away from the goal is actively correct (e.g. they are making their thriller more thriller-y). And second, that the Goal is even in the right place in the first place. Even if you write the book you wanted to write, there’s no guarantee it’s good enough. Even a 1 in 2 hit rate doubles the amount of books you have to write. The concept of progress only exists at the scale of the book, and the novelist’s intention.

What all of this essentially means is that while your advice is great for finishing and achieving satisfaction with the book overall, it still doesn’t address the problem that the target you’re getting better at hitting, is still the wrong target. And by Target I mean as in the actual quality of the transference of your story to the reader’s mind and eliciting a positive response (not some nebulous fist-waving at the publishing industry that only publishes the “Right books”!). It’s a simple fact it’s highly probably that you simply write an excellent, polished, tight, book with a poor story (certainly to begin with).

All of which I guess brings me back to the main problem. Even doing all you can to realise your story in the way you want, there’s still a good chance you’ll simply never write a book that sells. And how do you deal with the possibility you spend all your life writing well-crafted stories no one wants to read?
 

mccardey

Self-Ban
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 10, 2010
Messages
19,211
Reaction score
15,811
Location
Australia.
All of which I guess brings me back to the main problem. Even doing all you can to realise your story in the way you want, there’s still a good chance you’ll simply never write a book that sells. And how do you deal with the possibility you spend all your life writing well-crafted stories no one wants to read?

File under O for Overthinking. You write or you don't write. If you don't write, for whatever reason - it doesn't matter. Seriously. It doesn't. Many more people will write. There will still be books to read.

ETA: I do hope you're not planning to post a Link to a Site that has a Technique that will solve this.
 
Last edited:

Helix

socially distancing
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
11,695
Reaction score
12,077
Location
Atherton Tablelands
Website
snailseyeview.medium.com
Here's the thing about that mathematical modelling -- it's taken time that could be used to write. I was going to call it a pointless exercise, but reconsidered that. I mean, if your goal is to write a potentially saleable manuscript, then slapping together some dodgy model won't help. But if your goal is to abandon writing, then it's an ideal way to rationalise the decision.

Some people sell their first manuscript after minimal redrafts; some people never sell their manuscripts. Either way, there is a manuscript to sell.
 

lizmonster

Possibly A Mermaid Queen
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 5, 2012
Messages
14,532
Reaction score
24,098
Location
Massachusetts
Website
elizabethbonesteel.com
And by Target I mean as in the actual quality of the transference of your story to the reader’s mind and eliciting a positive response (not some nebulous fist-waving at the publishing industry that only publishes the “Right books”!). It’s a simple fact it’s highly probably that you simply write an excellent, polished, tight, book with a poor story (certainly to begin with).

My general response to this is that you're trying to quantify both art and the reader's response to that art.

You can't do that. Art is subjective. Always.

There is, theoretically, a threshold of basic grammar and language usage that a book has to exceed in order to be publishable at all, but beyond that? Different people enjoy different story structures. Narrative structure is an extension of cultural norms of storytelling. And different writers draft at different speeds and different stages - one writer (or one book) might require 27 drafts, and another might require 1 or 2.

Writing isn't a math problem. It'd be so much simpler if it were, but it's not.

As to the original question, I'm with the others: if you're going to be a writer, you need a reason other than commercial success to keep writing. Because no matter how good you are, commercial success isn't guaranteed, ever.
 

Hillsy7

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
88
Reaction score
10
You write or you don't write. If you don't write, for whatever reason - it doesn't matter. Seriously. It doesn't.
Some people sell their first manuscript after minimal redrafts; some people never sell their manuscripts. Either way, there is a manuscript to sell.
You can't do that. Art is subjective. Always.

~~.......~~

As to the original question, I'm with the others: if you're going to be a writer, you need a reason other than commercial success to keep writing. Because no matter how good you are, commercial success isn't guaranteed, ever.


Sooo…The modelling was largely for my own enjoyment (I like a maths puzzle), and to try and explain a little more scientifically why some people don’t find solace in the “mistakes lead to successes” advice. While they do, you need to know a lot more than simply that it ‘didn’t work’ in order to line the path – and going through that process helped me realise that a large part of my anxiety is not knowing, or having the confidence in, what I believe to be “good” and how to get there from where I am.

How I develop that confidence is yet another thing I have no idea how to do…..

Anyway, distilling down your advice (adjusting for the fact I keep using “Selling” rather than the true goal of “Being read and eliciting a positive response” which is muddying the water a bit), it seems that for you guys in general, the act of creation is worthwhile enough. To roll back to a previous question I asked, you’d seem to be happy if (once completed) every manuscript went into a drawer and was never read again. Which is cool, and something I’m somewhat envious of….I mean I’ve nearly completed my first million words (that are practice - Ray Bradbury? Heinlein? King?) comprising of a couple of large finished 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] drafts, several half-finished ones and a plenty of starts, and while I accept that most of them will reside forever in a bin the thought of repeating that for the next 4-5 million words brings me out in hives.

So assuming I’m not an insane outlier, I’m presuming plenty of other people have reached this bulwark before – the realisation that an art form designed to be shared will be permanently solitary, like playing chess against yourself forever. What is it that got those people through? – What advice is there to balance the threat of Sisyphean futility? – What parts of the creation balance the fact it may never be shared?
 

lizmonster

Possibly A Mermaid Queen
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 5, 2012
Messages
14,532
Reaction score
24,098
Location
Massachusetts
Website
elizabethbonesteel.com
To roll back to a previous question I asked, you’d seem to be happy if (once completed) every manuscript went into a drawer and was never read again.

I'm a mathy person myself. But you're trying to reduce concepts into crisp, binary questions, and that doesn't work with art.

The act of creation is satisfying in and of itself, but that doesn't mean I don't want more from it than that specific type of satisfaction. Some of the things I write I really, really want out in the world. Sometimes I write and it's just for me, with no other intended audience.

When it comes down to it, there's no formula you can apply to yourself. Either it's worth it to you to write without a predetermined outcome, or it isn't. There is no predetermined outcome with art. You can get critical acclaim and never sell anything. You can sell one thing and never sell another. You can write something you're certain is beautiful, and find it touches nobody who reads it.

I'm not going to declare that what's true for me is true for everybody. But for me, the act of creativity has an inherent virtue that has nothing to do with what comes out the other end. That doesn't mean I don't wish to get more out of it than personal enrichment, but it doesn't negate that enrichment.
 

AnnieColleen

Invisible Writer
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
4,355
Reaction score
1,391
Location
Texas
it seems that for you guys in general, the act of creation is worthwhile enough. To roll back to a previous question I asked, you’d seem to be happy if (once completed) every manuscript went into a drawer and was never read again.
I think you’re reading more into the replies than is there. No, I wouldn’t be happy if everything I wrote was trunked and never seen again. But I also know that I can’t solve a book-sized problem in one sitting, and for me, trying for perfection at every step will only cause paralysis and avoidance, not progress. Been there, tried that, and I don’t like myself in that state, so I try to stick with the approach that does show progress.

Which is cool, and something I’m somewhat envious of….I mean I’ve nearly completed my first million words (that are practice - Ray Bradbury? Heinlein? King?) comprising of a couple of large finished 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] drafts, several half-finished ones and a plenty of starts, and while I accept that most of them will reside forever in a bin the thought of repeating that for the next 4-5 million words brings me out in hives.
Ok, so here’s another point where you can try another perspective. (And another area that sounds very familiar to me, except my previous attempts tend to go on my ‘try again someday’ list instead of ‘trunked forever’.) What, specifically, do you think is causing those attempts to fail? Identify one area of concern, and study up on it. Characterization? Story structure? Theme? There’s a ton of how-to material out there, plus the examples of published books. There are ways to practice individual techniques — flash fiction, writing exercises, etc. It takes trial and error — yes, that again — to see what learning process works for you, but you’re not consigned to doing the same thing over and over and just hoping for a different result.

Two other thoughts for things you might try:

- Look into a crit group or writing partner to get feedback on parts of your work in progress. This works for some people and not for others, but with the specific concerns you’ve expressed (and I think you did well to narrow them down; that’s progress in itself) it might be a good option for you.

- See what published authors have to say about their writing journeys. Say for example this from Neil Gaiman:
The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm—or even arguing with me—she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, “Oh, you’re at that part of the book, are you?”

I was shocked. “You mean I’ve done this before?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Not really.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients.”

I didn’t even get to feel unique in my despair.
https://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/neil-gaiman
 

Lakey

professional dilettante
Staff member
Super Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 20, 2017
Messages
2,714
Reaction score
3,965
Location
New England
Ok, so here’s another point where you can try another perspective. (And another area that sounds very familiar to me, except my previous attempts tend to go on my ‘try again someday’ list instead of ‘trunked forever’.) What, specifically, do you think is causing those attempts to fail? Identify one area of concern, and study up on it. Characterization? Story structure? Theme? There’s a ton of how-to material out there, plus the examples of published books. There are ways to practice individual techniques — flash fiction, writing exercises, etc. It takes trial and error — yes, that again — to see what learning process works for you, but you’re not consigned to doing the same thing over and over and just hoping for a different result.

This is such great advice. Learning from failure is a very real and very important part of getting good at anything, but particularly of getting good at writing. I sympathize with the OP. I have a near-crippling fear of failure (or even just of being wrong occasionally, and looking like a human being who doesn't know everything) which really does hold me back in a lot of the things I do. I can't speak Hindi despite years of study because I freeze up in practice situations. I sometimes spin my wheels longer than I ought to at work, because I'm terrified of asking an ill-formed question that reveals me to be less than a master of my domain (even though I am not expected to be a master in my role). And it makes writing my first novel very slow going, because I'm disgusted with how much garbage comes out of my pen. It makes me terrified of seeking feedback, too; I'm hesitant to show people my work and so do not benefit from thoughtful critique.

So in approaching the novel I have tried to remind myself of the following things: I will very likely write two or three times as many words as end up in my manuscript, even in the course of just completing a first draft of the novel. I will write scenes that do not remotely do what I hoped they would do when I thought of them. I will write things that are trite and transparent, or overwritten and foolish.

And, I will be compassionate with myself about all of that. I will study the things that went wrong and try them again, with consciousness of why they went wrong and a plan to make them better. And above all I will keep pressing forward, even on the days (and believe me, there are many) when I think this whole idea is a silly farce that will end up being a waste of several years of my life that I could have spent excelling at something I'm good at. I'm going to keep pressing forward because I have decided that this is a thing I want to see if I can learn how to do. And learning how to do something means not being very good at it when one starts out. I despise doing things I'm not very good at. But if I give in to that part of me that hates to make mistakes, then I will never grow beyond what I am now. I'll never learn to do anything new.
 
Last edited:

Bongo

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 23, 2017
Messages
68
Reaction score
5
....and ultimately.

What if you dedicate your life to failing in the pursuit of success that never comes?

I could write a book based on that question. And might :).

The Cliffs' version would be this: I needed to be open to the idea that my lifelong dream could, and would change. I had one particular dream that I put my entire existence into, for about 40 years. I held onto it like a parachute, but opened myself up to the idea that I might be able to loosen my grip just a tiny little bit. Doing that enabled other doors to open and I'm finding that the original dream is fading (almost completely gone), and without any grief, remorse, or feelings of failure. I didn't fail IMO because I stayed committed and gave 100% always. Attaining the dream just began to fade as new opportunities and ideas emerged that sort of crowded it out.

Bottom line is that in hindsight, I held onto something much longer than really needed to because of feelings much like you describe. I really thought "my dream" meant all that I was. If I failed, I'm a failure. And at certain points I couldn't be convinced otherwise.

We change. Our goals can change if we're open to it. Our lifelong dreams can change. We can be SUPER successful in many ways. We can be happy, too :). At least that's my experience.
 
Last edited:

blacbird

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Messages
36,987
Reaction score
6,158
Location
The right earlobe of North America
Learning from failure is a very real and very important part of getting good at anything, but particularly of getting good at writing.

In writing, have failed with such breathtaking consistency that I've become very good at it. It appears that I have to be satisfied with that.

You, on the other hand, don't have to be satisfied with that.

caw
 
Status
Not open for further replies.