What's the most frustrating part about writing a novel?

mccardey said:

I just like it.

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Oh that too. I love writing. But I feel bad if I don't do something on my novels after a few days.

Another thing I dislike: marketing. Trying to get the book sold. Erch...

I find it frustrating that the end of a novel is always so far away, until it's not, and then I'm sorry I'm reaching the end

Getting past writer's block and finishing it.

mccardey said:

I just like it.

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Same.

The most frustrating thing for me is that the end is so far away, even when it isn't.

mccardey said:

I just like it.

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Have you published anything? I'd love to read your works.

The first-draft hell. Nothing comes out good, and you really have to force yourself to keep pushing forward. Everything that was so wonderful in your head during the outline stage is flat garbage on the page.

The editing process is both my favorite and the most frustrating. I love editing but so much of it is thinking that I'm almost done and then realizing that I'm so far from that.

The first draft. Painful. That I've got to the end of three books still feels impossible when it seems like I write the first draft sooo sloooowly.

Consistency in quality and form.

Also, keeping at it EVERY DAY until it's done.

Having a brain that feels like mush whenever it is writing time.

I have a toddler, so my days are spent having Frozen stickers stuck on my face and stopping said child from dropping her ice lolly into a flowerpot and then continuing to eat it. This is obviously great fun, except by the time I get round to writing (aka about 8PM), my brain feels like it's been scrambled and I can't even remember what my story's about. It is RIDICULOUSLY frustrating because I spend all day looking forward to that time when I can write and when that time arrives, my brain lets me down.

Pre-parenthood, the most frustrating thing had to be that first draft, simply because of its sheer AWFULNESS. Some of that content I wouldn't even shred for the cat's litter box, it's such poor quality. Editing, however, I love. Loved it then, still love it now.

For me i think it's the re-reading rewriting, editing, revising, dying inside as you stare at the manuscript you've edited forever because it's clearly never going to be done.

Can you tell which stage I'm in right now?

And since that is my least favourite part I always have another WIP to turn to do the actual writing stuff when I get sick of editing or overwhelmed with editing etc.

For me I'd have to say finding an organic way to describe a new POVs appearance. Any old new character is easy enough, as long as the POV is looking at them.

But when it's the POV...it always ends up being...he looks in a mirror or some such nonsense.

Trying to get people to read it!

Getting to the keyboard. Once I'm there, I'm on fire.

But I will pull every trick in the book to not sit down. I have no idea why I'm am so resistant, yet I am.

DimelioraL said:

Having a brain that feels like mush whenever it is writing time.

I have a toddler, so my days are spent having Frozen stickers stuck on my face and stopping said child from dropping her ice lolly into a flowerpot and then continuing to eat it. This is obviously great fun, except by the time I get round to writing (aka about 8PM), my brain feels like it's been scrambled and I can't even remember what my story's about. It is RIDICULOUSLY frustrating because I spend all day looking forward to that time when I can write and when that time arrives, my brain lets me down.

Pre-parenthood, the most frustrating thing had to be that first draft, simply because of its sheer AWFULNESS. Some of that content I wouldn't even shred for the cat's litter box, it's such poor quality. Editing, however, I love. Loved it then, still love it now.

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Ah, I feel your pain. Have a 4 and 2 year old and by the time they're in bed (ie now) I've taken to noodling about on here, reading writing articles, reading other people's book reviews and synopses and basically anything other than doing the damn writing. I write so much better during the day, when I can.

For me the hardest thing at the moment is accepting that probably half of the words I've written so far are going to hit the Recycle Bin at some point. The stuff I'm writing now is so much better than the stuff I was writing at the beginning, but it means re-drafting big sections and weaving backstory through the plot in a smarter way. So yeah, trying to drop in backstory with infodumping. That's my biggest issue.

ktdude said:

For me the hardest thing at the moment is accepting that probably half of the words I've written so far are going to hit the Recycle Bin at some point.

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Yep, this is the same for me. In my case, it took me a long time to learn what deserves a place in the story and what's detracting from the overall theme/plot/character arcs. The first draft of the novel I'm polishing up right now started at 240k, and now I've crunched it down to 120k. Oddly enough... I didn't have to change the plot or reduce character development, but somehow I cut a second novel's worth of extraneous words from my story. Oh well, my newest WIP is on track to not be a repeat mistake.

When you know a scene is shit, and is not working, and needs to be rewritten, yet you can't find the energy to do it and so you just close the laptop and drink wine instead.

I dont know how many words I wasted on MS2, but it was a lot. The final count was 96k but I spent a lot of time rewriting act 2 and act 4. Back to back to back. 2 months rewriting Act 2 over and over (out of 7 months total timeframe).

Hah, I lie to myself every time.

"It's just this section"
"It's just this chapter"
"It's just this act"
"It's just this once"

And then I'm amazed every time when it takes ages, is the whole book, needs multiple rewrites. Self delusion can be very useful!

Harlequin said:

Hah, I lie to myself every time. [...] Self delusion can be very useful!

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Heh, I do this too. "If you get this chapter done, you can go take a break and read that really good book."

I know I won't finish it in the two hours I have before bed, and that I won't have time to read before sleep... but it keeps me going.

Harlequin, did you find all those rewrites made a definite positive impact on your story?

Rewrites are how I write I dont really plot or plan, just throw words at paper until I find things I like, and then I try and string them together. At some point, about 2/3 through I start doing developmental synopses to pull everything together. Even then I usually end up with continuity errors and need buckets of revision to fix it

Ha, it's so comforting to know that we're all in this together, fighting the same battles. It's all gotta be fixed in the end I guess, I'm just putting it off for now while I'm in full flow!

Harlequin said:

Rewrites are how I write I dont really plot or plan, just throw words at paper until I find things I like, and then I try and string them together. At some point, about 2/3 through I start doing developmental synopses to pull everything together. Even then I usually end up with continuity errors and need buckets of revision to fix it

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That's how I'm writing to a tee. Throwing words at paper (screen), getting excited, realising I've ironed out a plot hole but in doing so, have completely nullified a huge portion of already-written words. Sigh.

I don't think I've hit the most frustrating part yet. Just hope the first novel is the hardest.

Harlequin said:

Rewrites are how I write I dont really plot or plan, just throw words at paper until I find things I like, and then I try and string them together. At some point, about 2/3 through I start doing developmental synopses to pull everything together. Even then I usually end up with continuity errors and need buckets of revision to fix it

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That's very interesting! Quite different to how I approach a first draft. I've slowly come to realize that for me personally, having some vague skeleton of a plot saves me so many headaches (and I throw out less stories this way...). If I don't have at least some idea of the end I'm writing toward, I run into soo many problems. I wish I could go full-plotter mode, and waste fewer words, but alas I lose my inspiration if the story is too fleshed out before I get writing. I also need to be able to throw words at the paper and see things unfolding organically as well.

ktdude said:

Ha, it's so comforting to know that we're all in this together, fighting the same battles. It's all gotta be fixed in the end I guess, I'm just putting it off for now while I'm in full flow!
That's how I'm writing to a tee. Throwing words at paper (screen), getting excited, realising I've ironed out a plot hole but in doing so, have completely nullified a huge portion of already-written words. Sigh.

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It is very motivating! And oh man, I can totally relate to nullifying other parts of a story with a revision to fix an unrelated problem. It also sucks when you have to go back to a dozen other scenes and weed out small references. @_@

Manuel Royal said:

I don't think I've hit the most frustrating part yet. Just hope the first novel is the hardest.

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Oh no! As in, everything has been frustrating so far? Don't give up! I think you learn something new with every novel, but the first one is often the hardest, because not only are you learning to write, but you are learning to put words on a page that develop characters, plot, theme, etc., but then you have to eventually revise, then edit, get critiques and revise again, etc. It gets easier each time you do it and the more you learn.