Yeah, I agree with @izzybot , just write, even if it feels like what you're writing is trash. You have to remember you're not going to spill gold onto your first draft, or even your second, more then likely. With each piece of writing, you'll get better, though. And, as you write, if you don't have a clear outline already, it'll start coming to you.
You've done the research so now put it together sequence by sequence in your head. Then write it. Then begin the characters work after the vomit draft. And go on from there.
If it helps, make a story outline. You got the research down, so just pick the most important details and, as the users said here, just write. You can always edit the draft later.
So I'm writing this story. It's the first book of a seven-book series and each book is divided into 13 episodes and each episode is divided into 8 chapters. There's a reason for this and it's because I want to structure the books and episodes like a television series. I have the plot and each episode mapped out or outlined and I have about 125k words done but I'm just stalling for some reason because I'm having these feelings where I just keep telling myself, "No one's going to care," "You suck," or "It doesn't matter." What do I do? I wish I knew the answer, like give it time or something, but I don't know. This story has to be perfect or my life is over. If I could just talk to someone privately about it like on Skype or something, that would be really cool. I really need a writing partner, someone I can go to for motivation, feedback, or anything of the sort.
Why is your life over if the story's not perfect? Like, I'm a perfectionist whose sense of self-worth is uncomfortably dependent on my ability to Make Good Art, but I can assure you that dramatics and hyperbole are not your friend here. Realism is. The story will be fine. It probably won't be the next Harry Potter, or whatever, but it'll be fine. If you like it, then other people will like it, because no one's that special. And you'll be fine regardless because it's just a story -- it's not your entire life. Maybe it feels like that's the case, but it's not. Take a step back and take a breath. It's fine.
Being not a skilled writer, not even being able to write English properly, I'm familiar with the questions you make to yourself. It's a period of mood that will eventually pass, those feelings simply get stronger on certain moments on our lives than others, and certainly you can put them aside and go on into your project. Maybe works for you, instead of giving them time, to do the opposite and take time from them to invest it onto your work; I found myself that those feelings would never leave me alone, so, I took the choice - I stress this point - to command them instead they command me. Otherwise, I wouldn't even raise from bed. Really no one's going to care? Even statistically that's impossible, someone always will care about it. Of course, it would help to actually know about it, and such won't happen until it's done. That you suck? Highly improbable, and even so, if you write, you'll improve by certain, no matter the quality of your work. -125K words are never in vain on that regard. It doesn't matter? You have a message to put on prose, and that's all that matters on writing! As I read here, the worst story is the unwritten... take that advice at heart. What to do? Write. Just put part of your story on the workshop. There you'll see not if your writing matters or not - only about how to improve it. Read other people's work, and show that you care too by criticizing it. And about perfection, well, it's overrated. Discard anything resembling an Utopia, and go for the thing that moves you. Write looking at your heart, instead questionable models of perfection. Embrace silliness if you must. But you should never be a slave of a perfection if that makes you feel miserable.
Stick your ideas on a big corkboard or something that you can easily see and will look at every day. Which television series inspired your novels; if it was made into a series, what would you dream of it to be like? Print that off, and stick that up on the corkboard too. In addition, scatter with lots of prompts: "The sorry won't be perfect, but I'll try my best." "My ideas are unique and excited me to write about." "Nobody else is going to write my novel for me, so I'd better get to work!" Things like that. Make a habit of looking at the board every day; I think you'd find it a powerful source of both inspiration and motivation.
There's a saying about doing different things and cats, but here's the way I went. If you're scared of failure, fail. Do it terribly, publicly, and while flailing your arms if possible. Make sure people see, that they know, that they know you know they saw. The shock of such unassailable and inexcusable failure will either break your writing spirit or free you from the fear. That parts up to you as a person. My failure is still out there on Amazon. It's a terrible book, and every time I put something out, knowing how far I've improved from that day gives me a warm fuzzy.
I struggle with the same fear of failure. It is a weird psychological thing where somehow the idea of not actually going out and doing it will hurt less than 'failing' when the finished result is there. I know its a weird way to think. I struggle with it all the time, however with any endeavour there is inherit merit in the practice and achieving of something. Its very rare that anyone will make the next Pulitzer prize novel or blockbuster movie and its based on so much more than raw talent anyway. There is already so much merit in the fact that you have produced 125k words of a novel.
First, f*** perfection! There will always be some a****** who nitpick your work. Just have fun with your writing, it's your writing after all, your story! Second, start small. Getting get a journal and write down your ideas first that way you always have them and you can help inspire you to write. Third, writing is fun, if you take it too seriously you'll Crash and Burn. Just enjoy writing for yourself first and then go back at a later date and Write for others as I'm doing now.
Welp, guess your life's over. Even the best books have problems and imperfections in them. My advice is to try your best, then fail hard, realize it's not as world ending as you think it is, pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes, and move on. This process is like 90+ percent of the human experience and good writing is all about the human experience.
I hate to break this to you, but the story won't be perfect. We are all human, hence imperfect. Beyond this admittedly philosophical take on your dilemma, there's some very practical advice. 1. Almost all first drafts suck. All are imperfect in some way. No great novel ever went directly from typewriter/computer to best seller list without several stops in between, some lurching, and several changes in direction. 2. One grows through critique and revision. It's part of the process. It can be painful at first, but no writer has yet succeeded without it. 3. On top of the normal tensions and pressures a first-time novelist faces, you are imposing additional strictures on yourself via a television-series-like structure. Taking a cue from television, suppose your series is cancelled after the first season? My advice: instead of trying to craft your story to fit the structure, craft your structure to fit the story. 4. Take risks. Be willing to fail at first. No risk, no reward. Rinse. Repeat. 5. Good luck.
You can't base your entire worth on one book. When I went to group the lady who's submission we discussed, said her writing career would be over if she did not get this first book done. We had to tell her that it isn't over, and that she needs to work on something else. Having read the first 29pgs (first chapter), you could tell that she was not happy writing the story. And even she admitted to being unhappy while reworking the same chapter over and over again. As well as taking the advice from other authors to heart, about what she should do to make it 'publishable'. So when I hear someone pitting all their hopes and dreams on the first book, it makes me sad to think that it is game over when you have so much more to write than the first one. Not every first draft or book is going to be their masterpiece, and sure it may never get pubbed unless you do it yourself. But there is no reason to simply give up, even though being green, it feels damn near impossible when you are in competition with hundreds of thousands of other authors looking to gain an audience. If you like writing and want to share your stories, you have to understand that it is a long and tough road to make a name for yourself. We all have fears/doubts while writing and wondering if anyone will read their book(s) or not. It comes with the territory, you just have to stick to your guns, and keep trying. I used to think that I had something that would make it big in the beginning, but over time I let that go. I am never probably going to see my works on a best sellers list, or have many people read or talk about it. And that is ok, because I know I busted my ass and put my nose to the grindstone and pushed forward understanding that I needed to improve and make the next one better. Will it be perfect? No, but it will be a marked improvement over the first, and may gain a little more traction. You have to get passed all the high hopes, and realize that in reality you first have to complete it. Even if you never get a deal with some big pubber, you can still get your work out there. But ultimately you have to have faith in your own abilities to get things moving in the direction you want them to go. (And for every decent book out there, there are thousands of shit ones. Problem is it is hard to be a gem in a sea of shit, but you will never get there if you give up. This is not a 100m dash, but rather a 1000km endurance marathon.) Good luck, and hang tough. Never give up when you still have the fight inside ya.
I still can't take from my head @Cave Troll 's story "I Feel Pretty", and the same named song wouldn't be that memorable for me if haven't read it. The point is, even small works may have unexpected influence into other writers, so you shouldn't underestimate the power of your own writing.
Failure doesn't kill us. It gives us an opportunity to prove what we're made of. Even if there was such a thing as a perfect novel, it would likely receive a bunch of rejections because that's just how hard and competitive this business is. I would never let one story define me as a writer. And you don't need to do that either.
If you have 125k written already, post it, and take the critique with a grain of salt. Hopefully you will get some positive feedback and go from there.
If you're looking for someone to talk about your story with and hear out your thoughts/give you feedback, PM me sometime.
One last, important quote: "Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It's the will to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill.
Notice that you can share your writing in the writing workshop. It's not called writing temple or writing pedestal. I've come to think of my entire writing endeavor as one giant workshop. Text gets teared apart and reopened all the time. There are constantly new paint jobs and throwing things in the junkyard and sometimes going back to the junkyard. It's a continual process of building, rebuilding, going back to the drawing board, putting some projects on indefinite hold while pursuing others. There is nothing in my particular "workshop" that can't be stripped down or broken up into a bunch of disconnected words. The actual ideas in their purest forms don't actually exist in the text.
This may sound harsh in text, but if you want to be a writer, no one's going to coddle you. We're writing during a time when commenting and reader reviews are a thing. People don't think of creative people, especially writers, as real people with real feelings, and many people are resentful of creative people, especially those who are fortunate enough to be able to make a living at it. So, they can and will be brutal when you write something they don't like. Even your fans can turn on you, if you go in a different direction than what they expect from you. Your best defense against this is to learn self-care of your soul and spirit and to learn how to motivate yourself when things aren't going well. This helps save you from being surrounded by "yes" people. Yes people are dangerous, because while they may appear kind, they're too "nice" to save you from yourself when you're about to do something stupid or self-destructive. So you have to learn to tune out that noise, positive and negative. You have to be OK with the fact that at some point you will write something that people don't care about. It happens to everyone, and when it happens, it may be a piece you thought of as your favorite baby. Or, in the case of a non-fiction writer like me, sometimes you've worked really hard to write about something you're passionate about only to find out that no one else gives a damn. It's just part of the deal. Your best defense against this is to write for yourself rather than for external validation. You can follow the rules of what's most likely to succeed, and you can write to please the reader to an extent, but after you've done all that you just have to put it out there and not care what happens. Your only job is to write and market the thing, and once you've done that, the rest ain't up to you. It's out of your control. But that's a good thing, because you don't have time to worry what other people think; you've got the next thing to write. There's no such thing as perfection. In the art and architecture of some cultures, there's even something added to the artwork to remind the artists and craftspeople of this. In art work, some cultures add a random dot or mark to the finished piece, so it's not perfect. In tile work, a mismatched tile is often added, or a printed tile is set upside down. The vintage tile work in my apartment has a purposefully mismatched tile in the corner because it was set by a guy who followed that tradition. We're here on the Forum to help each other out, and to help each other to find our motivation when we've misplaced it. I'm my Forum friends' biggest cheerleader, but I can't do it for them, just as they can't do it for me. Progress journals are a great place to vent. I vent and say all kinds of random shit in mine as part of my own self care. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by a Forum member's response with a kind word to help me get myself back on track. But ultimately, it's up to us to find it within ourselves. Good luck! I'll be cheering you on.
I've wanted to write since I was a young teenager. Now I'm in my late 30s. I've had many good ideas that I try to write down but it doesn't seem to translate well (to me). So, what if I don't have it in me? What if I can't write that amazing book I dream of? And why am I so critical of myself? Has anyone ever dealt with these issues, and how were you able to overcome them?
If you don't have it, you will get it eventually! Some people are too afraid to commit mistakes in every order of things, and by that, prefer to never do. I found the only thing I could do to get over the same feelings as you was to simply write, put it on public, and take the constructive criticism about it. Just keep in mind that is unlikely to become a best seller with the first book on actual times, but if you write because you like it, shouldn't be an issue to begin and improve every day. And the days you're simply exhausted, just do something else. Hope it helps.
Just write. On a daily basis, 1-2k words, non-stop, without days off. Take one of your ideas, write it, finish it, put it aside, proceed to another one. Return to your first thing in a couple of months. Analyze what you've done wrong, change things you now see can be done better. Do that during a year, and then you'll see that you have it.
