I have been very badly stuck for the last several weeks but I have been incredibly reluctant to call it writer's block. Really? I should have labeled it as that to begin with and then just found a way around it. I wasn't sure what to do and I was allowing myself to be really depressed about a number of things. I've come to the conclusion that for my own ability to write I MUST NOT send my work to anyone else for any reason other than that I am sending them my completed novel to read for their own enjoyment. I am far too influenced by every opinion and I so desperately want to please people that I will change everything with every opinion I get. I have realized I am not one of those people who can sift through the opinions for the gems and keep the writing my own. I need to focus on my own writing for my own reasons.
Now that does not mean I will cease asking for help. Of course if I'm stuck I intend to ask for loads of help, but it's not quite the same as having someone reading your work with the purpose of judging it. I can't stand judging from that perspective. I really just want everyone to love everything I do. That being said I know that's not possible too, but if I am serious about this I'm going to have to give that illusion up especially. So I am going to take some advice from a very wise man (I'm sorry it took me so long to get it Warren) and I am going to eventually put my work out there for people's enjoyment but I am probably not going to utilize critique groups any longer or ask for critiques from people. I need to learn to do it on my own at some point anyway, especially if it's going to be a career.
Now, as to having a clear view and a loose hold, I've found that some advice from another friend of mine has been very useful in getting me to write again. I ended up free writing an interesting scene for the story that popped into my head. It's only about 5 pages, I have NO idea where it actually is in the story but it allowed me to decide a great many things about where the story was going. I haven't done a concrete outline with this one in the same way I have previously and writing this future scene I have found the desire and recaptured my interest in the story. From that point on I started writing the chapter I'd left unfinished and I am feeling altogether good about everything once more.
Will I end up using that chapter? Who knows, I might use it and expand on it, I might use it as a jumping point or I might never actually utilize what I've written in this story in any of my chapters but I find I'm not so worried about that at the moment. What I need to concentrate on is what I CAN do and what I can do is write and get more of the story done. For once I've actually been up for incredible amounts of time and I'm still going strong. Every time I stop and hesitate this time I go back and continue writing on a different scene. I read in one of my books a suggestion to write scenes on cue cards with character names. You write all the interesting scenes you can think of for each character then arrange them. That's the quick look of it, but hey! It seems to be a good system for me. I'll keep it up and maybe I'll finish another chunk of my novel. I think this has finally been my tipping point and now I just have to keep myself from procrastinating!
(The blog post is an obligation and it helps me keep track of the things I find out, so I don't entirely consider it procrastination! lol!)
Yeah I found just writing something cool at random always helped me a lot too. It's certainly better than writing nothing!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you've managed to get going again. I look forward to reading it when it's done :)
-Ricky
Another note... I find being willing to jump ahead in the story helps. One of the first things I wrote is what is now my "mid-story climax." Once I figured out that I wanted that scene, I was able to figure out everything that leads up to it.
ReplyDeleteI'm just starting drafting book 2 as I'm getting into the editing phase for book 1, and I suspect book 2 will probably form in a similar way.
-Ricky
Actually you've told me that before, I didn't mention it because I sidetracked myself while I was writing the post, but you're the reason that I went with it when I felt the urge to write a different portion of the story. Then I bounced back and kept going with the current section. So thank you for that :)
ReplyDeleteAh! Glad my random ideas and comments helped then :D
ReplyDeleteI -totally- got where you were coming from when I read this. This is why I didn't want anyone to even look at Melodia until I was farther along. I knew if I let people read it, I'd get waaaay bogged down and never finish it. I still like critiques when I feel I've completely finished a piece. It's better though, I find, if you give it a couple weeks to simmer before letting others pick it apart. And, actually, it's probably best to completely avoid the people who will literally pick EVERYTHING apart. People forget that criticism is supposed to be useful! >.<
ReplyDeleteLee
I had such bad critique groups all throughout my university writing career (and now that I'm talking to a lot of other writers about it I find that there's LOTS of people who have seriously suffered from going to school to write, ironically probably the one thing you SHOULDN'T go to school for, go figure!) I think it's good to notice if something's inconsistent or unanswered and I am tempted to lean that way when i'm finished but I think for this one when I'm happy with it I'll send it to agents and publishers. I'm my own worst critic anyway. :)
ReplyDelete