Am I a total failure?

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JDGood

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Ok, so not to sound pessimistic...but what do you do when you're in that rut of "Why the hell did I write this?"..."Did a kindergartner come up with this plot?"...or "Why am I even trying?" I don't mean to be such a Debbie Downer, but I get such high hopes and envision awesome, epic adventures, and then when it doesn't translate in the prose, I can't help but feel utterly discouraged and flip on youtube instead. I'd rather be writing, but sometimes I don't feel like I'm good enough. Like I'll never be good enough to get published. Am I the only one who feels this way? And if not, how do you get past it and get back to the grind?
 

Brightdreamer

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No, you are not the only one to feel this way.

I think most people have that voice in their head, the one that tells them they suck, they'll never be good enough, they should just give up. It's your inner critic, and sometimes it helps you (like that time you were going to sell the house and go into business as a traveling balloon animal wrangler, or when you were about to send your My Little Pony/Transformers slashfic from junior high off to Tor), but quite often - especially when you're just starting out, and obviously still getting the hang of something - it hurts. The hard part - and it is hard - is to learn to put that inner critic in its place. So you may not be up to publishing standards right now. Writing is a skill, and it can be learned with enough time and effort and the development of enough thick skin to withstand feedback and rejection... learning that will only occur if you can tone down your inner critic and save it for when you could use it ('cause, really, that slashfic is a total non-starter no matter how many times you revise it.)
 

Kjbartolotta

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*Tears up MLP/Transformers slashfic*

No, it's normal, and not just with writing. It gets all of us down, and I'll be damned if I know the way to get past it. I just try to be cognizant of the fact that tearing myself down is a better waste of time than writing crap I hate which might or might not be good/fixable.
 

Quinn_Inuit

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I'm not sure how I could not be a writer. I mean that literally. I don't think I could stop coming up with stories. I even dreamt a sci-fi action romance movie once. I woke up right as the FL was being lowered into a sun by an insane-with-grief rebel commander, so you can imagine I went right the **** back to sleep to see how it ended.

That's the key, I think. There's a marvelous exchange in "God," by Woody Allen (who is both incredibly witty and a monster):
ACTOR (Into the phone): She won't speak to you. She says your play is pretentious.
WOODY: Oh, Jesus. Okay, call me back and let me know how the play ends.
ACTOR: Right. (He hangs up, then does a double take, realizing what the author said)

Even as the author, I still want to see how the story ends. I've got the whole thing plotted out down to the scene level, but I still won't really know how it ends until I write it. And I can't wait! I even like some types of harsh feedback, because sometimes a critic is so perceptive they can tell you how to make the story even more like the one you meant to write. You just keep whittling down that marble and eventually you find a statue in there.

Are my stories any good? That's up to others. I do my best to get the story out on paper, and if the story isn't saleable, well, at least I got to see how it ended.
 

Introversion

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Writing is a skill, and it can be learned with enough time and effort and the development of enough thick skin to withstand feedback and rejection... learning that will only occur if you can tone down your inner critic and save it for when you could use it

A thousands times, this. Especially the part I bolded & underlined. Practice may not make perfect, but as I've proven to myself, lack of it certainly hurts.
 

Vida Paradox

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Hi! Vida here!

You have a story and you write it down. What do you get?

A freaking First Draft. You know what a first draft is?

First Draft of Anything is Shit - Ernest Hemingway

You get what I'm saying? Well of course it's bad! It's the first few drafts. It's a sketch, it's detailed outline, it's just you pouring out all your tools and ingredients on your working table. It's not supposed to be a masterpiece.

Now, what you gotta do is start arranging those things. Adding more bold lines and details, removing all the unnecessary parts. Keep doing this, envision your story as you dreamt it to be.

Just don't give up. Seriously, it's only over once you give up.
 

Vida Paradox

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By the way, I think I've read and crits some stuff you share around this forum. I don't think they're bad, they just need some more edits and revisions.

Seriously, you've wrote better stuff than the stuff I cooked up in my earlier days of writing.
 

Morning Rainbow

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Often I ask myself "What the hell was I thinking when I came up with this story?" I think every writer thinks this while writing their manuscript. I actually rewrote about 75% of my first novel because I realized that it might be a little too ridiculous. That might be best for your novel if what you want it to be and what it is are so vastly different from each other. Writing takes a lot of time, a lot of practice, and a lot of studying (i.e. reading books and deciding what writing styles you do and do not like). It also requires being a stubborn ass. If you keep at it, you will get better. But you have to motivate yourself to keep at it.

persistence + learning from your mistakes = success

Think of it this way, Stephen King was once unsuccessful as a novelist and threw away his manuscript for Carrie. His wife found the manuscript in the trash and made him finish working on it. Now, he is one of (if not the) most successful novelists in the world.
 

Kjbartolotta

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“Human beings do not realise the extent to which their own sense of defeat prevents them from doing things they could do
perfectly well.”
― Colin Wilson
 

Wil10thewisp

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"Don't call yourself a failure. that's your parents job."
-Anonymous

But seriously grow the hell up! If you fail, you fail. But that's not your job as a writer to simply call your own work a piece of crap. The moment you do that, you lose momentum and next thing you know you've become the very thing you were worried about becoming. Who knows, it might not be the Grapes of Wrath or Lolita. But it could be on par with Hemlock grove or the Penance series. And if it's of any consideration, the fact that Fifty shades of gray not only went from Twilight fan fiction, to a novel, to a trilogy, to a high grossing film trilogy, to a cultural wart upon the backside of civilization.

my point is: If you fail. You fail! if you doubt yourself to the point of not starting, you've failed before you even begun.

Sincerely
Alison Waeck
 

rtaylor2121

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Lots of writers start stories they don't finish because they are creative. If you're in a rut, take a step back and come back to it later. Maybe start a different story. I have at least 20 unfinished stories and also have about 20 completed as well. Write for yourself and nobody else. Don't write with getting a deal in mind, just write for the fun and the passion of it. You will get better the more you write. Don't give up!
 

Cascada

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Ok, so not to sound pessimistic...but what do you do when you're in that rut of "Why the hell did I write this?"..."Did a kindergartner come up with this plot?"...or "Why am I even trying?" I don't mean to be such a Debbie Downer, but I get such high hopes and envision awesome, epic adventures, and then when it doesn't translate in the prose, I can't help but feel utterly discouraged and flip on youtube instead. I'd rather be writing, but sometimes I don't feel like I'm good enough. Like I'll never be good enough to get published. Am I the only one who feels this way? And if not, how do you get past it and get back to the grind?

You're only a failure if you stop trying.

My heart wants to write and share my stories, but it's just a case of my brain catching up on how to make it happen!

I feel the way you do on most days, but if I stopped trying a part of me would die, so I'll keep on writing and improving one step at a time.

By the way your writing is on the right path, so don't let any critiques get you down, see them as medicine for your writing. We all need feedback in order to grow.
 

mccardey

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You're only a failure if you stop trying..
And not even then. If you stop trying, you're just someone who stopped trying. But the best way to progress is to not stop trying :)

Chin up!
 

AJakeR

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Just to jump on this.

I finished my third novel a couple months ago.

I fucking hated it. It was terrible. I can't believe I wrote it. My second was and still is pretty good; I can't believe this piece of crap followed it. I knew even when I was writing it that it was terrible, but I finished it anyway so I could get a better overview of where it had gone wrong (the main character).

Now I've just finished plotting my fourth novel and I'm going to start that.

So we all fire and miss now and then. That's normal. That's part of it. Sometimes it's a very big part of it (a whole novel).

But the truth is - the more you do it the better you get at it. Used to be I couldn't write for months at a time but now I can open a window and crank out whatever I want when I need to. I think what you're feeling now is normal - actually, it's fantastic - you just have to push past it.

I direct you to this quote, as to why it's fantastic (which I've mercilessly C+P, which is why it's bold and weird)
[h=1]“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish
someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have
good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff,
it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.
But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your
taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this
phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went
through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we
want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you
are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing
you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week
you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you
will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took
longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take
awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

[/h]
 

CameronJohnston

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Nope you are not alone. Loads of us feel that way now and again. *points to sig line* even published authors...

Sometimes it's just bad head-space at a given time, others because I'm trying to force a character/plot into a certain shape that on some level I know is not right and it's all awkward and ugh. Sometimes it's burn-out and I need a break from wording.
 

Myrealana

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Ok, so not to sound pessimistic...but what do you do when you're in that rut of "Why the hell did I write this?"..."Did a kindergartner come up with this plot?"...or "Why am I even trying?" I don't mean to be such a Debbie Downer, but I get such high hopes and envision awesome, epic adventures, and then when it doesn't translate in the prose, I can't help but feel utterly discouraged and flip on youtube instead. I'd rather be writing, but sometimes I don't feel like I'm good enough. Like I'll never be good enough to get published. Am I the only one who feels this way? And if not, how do you get past it and get back to the grind?
You're likely experiencing "The Taste Gap."

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/ira-glass-success-daniel-sax/

Basically, your ability to understand and appreciate good writing advances faster than your skill at writing.

The good news is that it's part of the creative journey. The bad news is that it takes a while to get past it.

I say rejoice! You've reached a milestone. The way to celebrate is to write more.
 

indianroads

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Of course you're not alone, and as long as the feelings are not debilitating they can serve us by driving us to work on improving our craft.

Oh - a sort of martial arts story here... but it's also a 'doing art' tale as well. Here goes:

Even as a very young kid I was a book worm. We lived way up in the mountains, and the nearest house was about a mile a way... and the nearest one with kids was maybe three miles. So as an only child I spent a lot of time alone - so I taught myself how to read. (I was at the 3rd grade level when I entered kindergarten). My father didn't like it that I spent so much time with my nose in a book; he thought I needed to toughen up - so he found a local guy that knew Savate (a French martial art that specializes in knife fighting and kicking); I was five years old when he signed me up.

My instructor was a wonderful older man who actually was a somewhat famous and successful painter (not of houses, but of portraits and landscapes), and he would often use art based analogies when he explained something to me. At one point I recall being upset because it seemed that my Savate abilities were going backward, I had been content with my technique before, but suddenly it all seemed like garbage.

This is what he told me (and this is the point of this post).
There are two aspects of art. It doesn't matter what art we're speaking of, it can be painting, sculpture, writing, or martial arts - there remain two principle aspects, and these are the eye, and the hand. When you start out learning to paint (or write) you're dissatisfied with what you do because your eye is better than your hand. You imagine creating one thing, but your abilities are not up to par... yet. And then through practice your hand improves, and for a while you feel great about yourself and your art. But then something happens and your art starts looking terrible again, and when this point is reached many people drop out of the art and give up on themselves. But what has really happened is that your eye improved.

You see, your eye and hand are never static. When your eye is better than your hand you're unhappy, then when your hand catches up you feel great. BUT then your eye improves, and you're back to feeling dissatisfied again. The point of this is to not give up on yourself because these feelings you expressed are all part of the process. You may feel bad now, but if you keep working at your art, your hand will improve and you'll feel good again. Over and over this process repeats itself, just recognize it for what it is - the process of improvement.
 

AW Admin

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The "Am I a total failure" question is one that's pretty much ubiquitous for writers (and other creators); sometimes all the time for an individual, or once in a while, or every time they receive a rejection.

It's a close relative of imposter syndrome.

So since it's a near universal experience, I think the discussion deserves a wider exploration than BWQ, and I'm moving it.
 

Ari Meermans

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The "Am I a total failure" question is one that's pretty much ubiquitous for writers (and other creators); sometimes all the time for an individual, or once in a while, or every time they receive a rejection.

It's a close relative of imposter syndrome.

So since it's a near universal experience, I think the discussion deserves a wider exploration than BWQ, and I'm moving it.

This.

And because there is also a direct correlation between "the taste gap" (as Myrealana noted) and our increasing exposure to published works as readers, we tend to hold this view of personal failure far too closely. We over-personalize our skill deficiencies and let those define us when we should be analyzing them and taking steps to grow to the next level (I've said this before). When we despair over our writing skill deficiencies or compare ourselves to others who have mastered a particular skill that we haven't yet mastered, we destroy our own self-esteem under a mountain of frustration and self-flagellation. That's not helpful and it won't improve a skill one jot.

A story-fail or a recognition that our writing skill is not yet up-to-snuff does NOT define us, nor does it make any of us a personal failure. We simply need to identify those deficiencies and work to correct them.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

There may be really good published books out there that aren't edited, but I don't know of any.

You tell the "inner critic" (and yes, it's so well known, it's got it's own moniker) to kindly step aside so you can write. Once the writing's done, you invite it back, but only so long as it behaves itself and tells you how to better the work.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Snitchcat

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I feel like this all the time. It's exhausting fighting my own brain, but then again, I'm not always fighting this particular "I'm a failure" feeling. It's more, I work with it. Yes, I want to be published in fiction, but my workaround is to say, "Well, my ultimate goal is to be published in fiction, but my first audience is me: I'm writing for me, so I'll just enjoy the process and relax." In which case, the publishing goal takes a back seat. At some point, I write "The End" to my story, rest, and then the goal of publishing returns and that's when I edit for publication.
 

ironmikezero

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"Am I a total failure?"

No, not yet, you still have work to do.

To fail at one task is a simple thing--but it is a solitary thing. What's important is that you try again--and again, etc. Serial failure takes commitment and dedicated effort; that's why eventual success comes as such a surprise. No one who is trying is a total failure; rather, they are evolving from the experience, an incremental measure of personal success.
 

Erinell

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I'd like to beg the question, "how do you define success?" All the usual measures in this business are wonderful dreams and certainly worth striving for, but let's get realistic: it's an awfully, awfully tough goal to set for yourself and it's a long, long road to get there. Meaning what I, too, have felt after a tidal wave of rejections (nope, not published). On one particularly dark day, the mirror smiled at me and reminded me that I write because I love it -- building story, creating characters, wrangling words into herds of spiffy sentences. And then I thought, wow, instead of wondering if someone in New York or where ever will actually respond to my latest guess, why don't I write for me first? To do that, the project has to be broken down into a steady stream of daily progress. Now I could set an achievable goal (a slick block of narrative, witty scene of repartee, really nailing a tough paragraph to cause tears of joy to run down my cheeks).

Having reached the goal, I experience success. Accomplishment. Satisfaction. Confidence. Excitement. Growth. After toasting me, it's time to consider what should be done tomorrow. Of course, if there's a level of challenge, then the success is sweeter. But life outside of writing creates limitations demanding prudence and realism. Sometimes the words just don't come and ideas evaporate. Almost any small accomplishment helps me get back on track. Just jot down tomorrow's little goal, tackle it, and, yes! Success. Makes the next day easier and the day after that a fascinating visit to your horizons as an artist. Would I like to be in hardcover? You bet. But that's less important than being happy with what's between the covers and the journey that got me there. So the absolute worst outcome of my effort is that each and every day I have a marvelous time writing with confidence and delight. Sure beats gloomy self-doubt!
 
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