Gosh darn it, I still haven't gotten anything done.
Connor's Writing Log
- Thread starter Connor B
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I'm just about done with All Quiet on the Western Front. I haven't told you all this (I think), but I've got something of a game plan going on for my writing for the next year. Hopefully, the first draft of Alphaboy will be done by the end of the summer, while the next draft of Eva will be tackled during the winter months. Also, I may sound like I'm going off on a tangent, but in the future, I hope to write a script for my favorite Brat Pack actress ever. I was doing some freewriting in my notebook, and this is what came to mind in regards to that idea:
Aging
Cars
Car accidents/wrecks
Car chases
Silence
Stoicism
Racing
Nostalgia
Aging
Cars
Car accidents/wrecks
Car chases
Silence
Stoicism
Racing
Nostalgia
The important thing is to continue writing, else you won't be look like a coward, you will not be able to publish or be great. It's like a GYMNASTIC.
The "perfectionist" complaint is a very common one.
Most of us don't really believe we're good enough, but can't get far away enough from our own work to appraise it objectively. There is a reason a great many prolific writers were and are booze and drug abusers.
What I do is just write anyway, even when I know it isn't any good.
Keep working and keep filling up folders with your stuff and I'll bet you that something even you can't turn your nose up at will one day burst forth, red and squalling and needing you to get out of the way so it can grow up.
And don't worry about your characters disobeying you. They're supposed to do that.
The first idea is almost never the right one.
Most of us don't really believe we're good enough, but can't get far away enough from our own work to appraise it objectively. There is a reason a great many prolific writers were and are booze and drug abusers.
What I do is just write anyway, even when I know it isn't any good.
Keep working and keep filling up folders with your stuff and I'll bet you that something even you can't turn your nose up at will one day burst forth, red and squalling and needing you to get out of the way so it can grow up.
And don't worry about your characters disobeying you. They're supposed to do that.
The first idea is almost never the right one.
I don't know if this will help, but I'll throw it out there anyway.
I'm an ersatz author. Bunches of short stories, a couple novellas, a short novel. Might someday see the light of day (other than my blog), might not. But those aren't the point. That's just said to establish that I like to write, however imperfectly.
The point is that about 15 or so years ago, I'd started on the Great American Novel. It had a theme and a story that I thought needed me to tell it. And I had this one scene in mind. It was going to be suspenseful and dramatic, and it was going to make the reader turn to the next page.
And I got stuck. I couldn't bridge my story to that scene. I bogged down. I walked away from the story, thought about it, might've come back to write a paragraph or two here or there, but I was stuck.
Now switch over to Stephen King's On Writing. In it, he quotes William Faulkner, and I'm paraphrasing, but it's basically, "In writing, you must kill your darlings."
I picked up the draft again a month ago. I'm looking at it, and crap! I was writing really well! Better than I am now! I read it, was rather gripped with the story, and when I got to the end of the draft, I thought, "No wonder I couldn't bridge to that dramatic scene. It's not consistent with that character and doesn't flow with the story!"
So I killed that darling, started writing on the story a few weeks later, and I've added 12,000 words since then, and I'm on my way to finishing it (it's about 81,000 words now, with about 30,000 to go. I think).
Don't be afraid to kill your darlings. Your story has a soul. Make sure you keep true to it. If you're in tune with the soul, the writing will flow.
I'm an ersatz author. Bunches of short stories, a couple novellas, a short novel. Might someday see the light of day (other than my blog), might not. But those aren't the point. That's just said to establish that I like to write, however imperfectly.
The point is that about 15 or so years ago, I'd started on the Great American Novel. It had a theme and a story that I thought needed me to tell it. And I had this one scene in mind. It was going to be suspenseful and dramatic, and it was going to make the reader turn to the next page.
And I got stuck. I couldn't bridge my story to that scene. I bogged down. I walked away from the story, thought about it, might've come back to write a paragraph or two here or there, but I was stuck.
Now switch over to Stephen King's On Writing. In it, he quotes William Faulkner, and I'm paraphrasing, but it's basically, "In writing, you must kill your darlings."
I picked up the draft again a month ago. I'm looking at it, and crap! I was writing really well! Better than I am now! I read it, was rather gripped with the story, and when I got to the end of the draft, I thought, "No wonder I couldn't bridge to that dramatic scene. It's not consistent with that character and doesn't flow with the story!"
So I killed that darling, started writing on the story a few weeks later, and I've added 12,000 words since then, and I'm on my way to finishing it (it's about 81,000 words now, with about 30,000 to go. I think).
Don't be afraid to kill your darlings. Your story has a soul. Make sure you keep true to it. If you're in tune with the soul, the writing will flow.
Well . . . a better writer than I dare hope to be explained writer's block as a failure of nerve, and that sounds like what you're talking about, Connor.
In your heart of hearts, you don't think you're good enough, and that affliction is more common than you might guess.
It's not something outside of you, trying to stop you. It's your own fear that you won't say it right, or get it right or won't be smart or clever enough . . . and maybe you won't. But keep going anyway. Once you've acknowledged that it's only fear, you can decide that you're not going to let it beat you and you can keep pushing on.
It's really not much different than a physical challenge; like climbing a high mountain or swimming a wide lake, or whatever else you might do for fun. Except that if it's never any fun, then maybe it's something inside trying to tell you something that you're probably not going to want to hear.
Writing is a fine aspiration, Connor, but not everyone who wants to be a writer necessarily has one in them.
Just things to consider.
Good luck!
In your heart of hearts, you don't think you're good enough, and that affliction is more common than you might guess.
It's not something outside of you, trying to stop you. It's your own fear that you won't say it right, or get it right or won't be smart or clever enough . . . and maybe you won't. But keep going anyway. Once you've acknowledged that it's only fear, you can decide that you're not going to let it beat you and you can keep pushing on.
It's really not much different than a physical challenge; like climbing a high mountain or swimming a wide lake, or whatever else you might do for fun. Except that if it's never any fun, then maybe it's something inside trying to tell you something that you're probably not going to want to hear.
Writing is a fine aspiration, Connor, but not everyone who wants to be a writer necessarily has one in them.
Just things to consider.
Good luck!
Have you thought about joining a writers' group, or participating in something like National Novel Writing Month? Keep in mind, by the time SK published Carrie, he'd already written four other novels and tons of short stories. Perfection is great, but there are two purposes to writing as I see it: 1: to get something out of you that HAS TO COME OUT, and 2: to have others read it and get something out of it. At this point you've done one of those. Is it time to do the other?
Well, I'm making progress on the first chapter of Alphaboy. This may sound crazy, but one day in the near future, I totally want to write a low-budget/indie script for my all-time favorite actress. Hint: some consider her the weakest link in the Stand miniseries!
So, I passed my history class with an A. I've been trying to make a lot of progress on my first draft of Alphaboy, but life always gets in the way. Oh well.
You know, I was on the phone with my old high school drama teacher one time. This was after I showed her my first draft of Redesigning Eva. She actually thought that my character, Dr. Klaus Krieger, was genuinely scary. I guess I really do have the power to freak people out!
Have you tried a dictation app.. ? Sounds ridiculously silly to ask, because I am sure you have.
I did, but for some reason, I uninstalled it. I feel more comfortable actually touching the keyboard, anyways.
I've been having difficulties churning out a first, full-blown draft of Alphaboy lately, but I have a crazy idea. Remember when I told you all I finished a draft of Redesigning Eva? Well, it was no ordinary draft. It was only 120 pages, and most of the chapters consisted of paragraph summaries describing what went down. I've actually been thinking about doing this for Alphaboy. Rather than labor over the small details in each chapter (dialogue, setting, logistics, etc.), I simply write anywhere from one to five paragraphs about what happens at that point in the story. I call versions like these "chaos drafts". They're extremely rough, and aren't really meant to be shown to anybody except close friends and family. The whole point of a chaos draft is to get the story on the page.
You know who else did that?
The guy who invented Middle Earth.
Keep going.
The guy who invented Middle Earth.
Keep going.