Anyone else hate their own work? Or is it just procrastination?

I do it all the time...I regularly hate everything I write. In fact, I currently hate everything I've written. But I try not to let it stop me from writing.

I finally had to just walk away from my WIP because I was tired of forcing every word. I've been just writing short stories and doing some journaling to get some of the crap out of my head...hopefully I'll get back to my WIP sometime in the near future.

I wouldn't say I hate what I write, but do have quite a lot of difficulty looking at it objectively. Something I have been told quite often is that one should just go for it with no initial editing, then walk away for quite some time, certainly a week or two, and absolutely resist the temptation to start re-reading and fiddling.

This for me sounds as though it's the strategy I need to adhere to... I always quite like the style of my first attempts, but if I immediately get jammed in the read... fiddle.. read... fiddle rut, I begin to like what I'm reading less and less and it all simply becomes a mess of words in my mind. Possibly experienced writers here might be able to provide some tips.

Another suggestion I've been offered... if I'm starting to live a story in my mind 24/7 then it's crucial to get balance in my life. In other words I need to go out and have a round of golf and socialise with friends etc. This also helps restore objectivity. I can usually see my own work more clearly once that balance has been restored.

I'm a novice, so much of this is theory. But I do think it is relevant to the problems I always seem to encounter.

I love whatever I'm working on for the first 10-20k words. Then I start to dislike it, and by the time I'm about halfway done I hate it. I keep hating it for months.

I don't necessarily hate it, but I sometimes get bored with it and think the whole darn thing is nothing but dribble. So, I walk away for a bit. Right now my current WIP is borderline dribble. LOL. In this case however, I need to just push through it because I've been away from it for about a month.

Yes I do and yes it is.

I am intrigued by my own story line, and so are my friends. Yet my partials keep getting rejected, so I have come to believe that I basicly s*ck as a fiction writer.

Yeah, you're not alone, I have to force myself to carry on.

When i look back on the work i thought was the biggest load of shite in the whole world, i often find that there are some very good bits, some meh bits, and some dreadful bits. But nothing like as bad as I believed.

I go through regular bouts of "this sucks, I hate it, my editor will hate it and never talk to me again." I've learned to recognise it as just part of the wonderful process of getting the book done and out there...

I usually love it until the last fifty pages or so. Then I grit my teeth and think "Almost there... almost....there..."

The first rewrite's ok, the second - a little less... and I begin to hate it around the fifth draft. By the time it's done, I don't ever want to see it again...

And then it's time to start the ride all over again

I don't hate my work yet although I am only about a 1/3 done. At this point almost the entire rest of my story is milling around in my head and I want to get it out and over with.

I'm sure there will be plenty of time for hate later on...

I don't start to hate my work until I walk away and come back, but then I always know it's going to suck when I come back, so at least it's no shock

And I don't know if it's a gentle lulling back to complacency or what, but I always hate the beginning and love the end.

Wow.. ok.. not gotten to this point. Perhaps it's because as I write it is as if watching a movie in my head. Then again, I generally go and don't stop to go back through it right away. Once done I'll go back through then off to beta readers and my grammer buddy.

Galadri said:

I just HATE everything I'm working on. I can't pick just one story to concentrate on and nothing is progressing. I just keep re-reading what I have and hating it more and more each time I do...

Click to expand...

I love my books! I have them printed at lulu and nestle with them on the sofa. I read from them at random, exclaiming from time to time, "Oh what fine words!" True, I have thousands of other books on shelves all around me, but I don't care for them anymore. I only care for my books.

I don't hate my WIP, but I AM afraid of it. I have to TOTALLY change a lot around, you see...

I get tired of reading the same thing over and over... especially because I know what is going to happen!! LOL I am in the process of editing and it is torturous- I am also about 25K words short of the 80K "norm".
Wah.

I do this too, but if I let it go on too long, it turns into procrastination and then I know I'll just get frustrated and hate my work even more if I pick it up after a week or so...

so,

I just sit down and plug away. Or I skip ahead and pick a chapter or scene to write that's more interesting than the current (stupid/boring/frustrating) one. Usually the hate goes away, or at least subsides substantially, so that's something.

Good luck.

Galadri -

You sound like you're burning out. I'd take a short break from all of it, if I were you.

And no, you are not the only one who feels like that. I do that too from time to time. It helps me if I just quit looking at the thing for a few weeks and write something else.