Constantly. I've had limited success, but I really lack in certain departments, and I'm starting to think I'm just an awful writer. I got told the other day I need an editor for a Facebook post (in a group, totally unrelated to writing) because English is not my native language. Uh, it is. And there were no errors in what I posted. Going through a down patch right now, lol
I doubt myself and I doubt others. I used to just doubt myself but now I've woken up and realised we are all less than perfect. I admire people with confidence though and the courage to be optimistic. The optimism to say "yes I can write a good book' takes guts. Then you need to have persistence. Persistence to ignore your daily doubts. Staying single-minded. This is where we can rise above the average non-achiever and succeed.
I went down that road once. Didn't like where it led so I found another. As far as life being hard and whatnot, I've found that it's way too short for self-doubt, regret, or dwelling on the things we cannot change. Maybe that's what makes me such a sunshiny guy.
I'm curious now what "error" the person saw? It's very often that Americans and Brits will accuse each other of "errors" when it's just English they're not used to. Was the person American? (as I see that you're from the UK) There're also arrogant a-holes who will insist English on the other side of the pond is just wrong. I've heard of English teachers berating their students and correcting them every single time they use English across the ocean instead of the one the teacher themselves speak. It takes a certain level of international exposure for an English native speaker to question his/her own English and consider perhaps the other person may be speaking a version of English not from their country but that which is equally correct. I still remember being laughed at in school for claiming a "mortician" is a word. Yes, it is. It's just American. (I'm from the UK so all the kids were English) And then a recent example where I was the guilty party - my American colleague, who has foreign heritage, kept using the term "scratch paper". Never heard that in my life - it's always been scrap paper. It wasn't until I saw the term used here on WF one time that it made me question, "Hey, is it just an American thing?" Turns out, yep, it's just an American term. (grocery store used to refer to a supermarket is another American thing) Even here on WF I got told one time I had "spelling mistakes" because I spelt "realised" with an S. The critic wasn't being nasty - he was just pointing out what he thought was a SPAG error in the Workshop. He pointed out several such "mistakes" and told me I should clean it up. Another American writer friend once flagged an "error" when I'd written "She'd got away." No, "gotten" is only really used in the US. We don't use "gotten" in England. Basically, native speakers are often pretty ignorant of other versions of English, and some of them will be a little proud and get their feathers all ruffled if you claim someone else's version is equally correct. Don't take it to heart.
aw man do I ever have doubts, but despite the doubts I still expect to hit a home run each and every time I step up to the plate. It seems futile, but as fragile as hope can be, it's actually pretty tough.
Oh yes, definitely! I've never finished an original novel-length story in my life yet, and even though I have gotten super far into my current story, I do constantly find myself wondering if I can actually get through it. Or I get bummed out if I happen not to write for weeks on end. But this mindset mostly happens to me with my drawing. I had gone through a few years of not drawing much and only recently got back into doing it more frequently. But in the process of taking a hiatus, I made a new deviant ART account and therefore lost the people who gave a damn about my art back in the day. So now whenever I post a drawing up on dA, I get no comments and maybe only a few likes, but not much else. And even though I know I draw for my own enjoyment (just like I write for my own enjoyment, not to be published), I can't help but wonder why I even bother, if no one cares. If no one cares what I do, then why should I keep trying? And then I look around at people, especially friends and acquaintances, who have gotten their stuff fawned over by important people, gotten stuff actually printed onto shirts that are now being sold to us in a fan group, etc, etc, and I get jealous and depressed and again ask myself: "Why do I try? I'll never be successful like that." It's really painful and I haven't completely gotten out of it. I'm better than I used to be, in terms of this mindset and jealousy, but then something pops up and I fall back into it again.
They were American! Their reasoning was that none of my post made sense, though.... it did. I just typed out a novel-length rant about the poor woman, so I deleted it and will stop ranting now. xD She was awful. After I called her out, explained I was a historian and writer, born in England, and that I didn't appreciate their comment they soon deleted their whole comment thread. I'll get over it!
oh boy, this could be a topic of it's own. I'm well traveled, but born and bred in the southeastern US. I have a pretty heavy accent. I speak proper English, but I'm pretty sure I might seem rather uneducated just because of how I talk. It's something I've just had to get over, though. James Dickey had an accent like mine, but it didn't get in his way to becoming US Poet Laureate.
On behalf of my fellow Americans, I am so sorry that you had to go through that. Most of us don't get our panties twisted over regional differences of spelling and word choices. I myself am an American who tends to use certain British versions of words, such as "towards" instead of "toward". And I love the word "whilst".
I never doubt that I can/will be better if I continue writing. There will allways be those much better than me, but they will not write my stories.
I dunno. Maybe "scrap" is the regional one? When I googled it, it seems scratch paper and scrap paper are supposed to be equally common. Because I recently found out they use the term "pants" in Liverpool, and I was like, "But I thought 'pants' is only an American thing!" So maybe "scrap paper" in Ohio is like my pants in Liverpool example?
I doubt myself but I try not to get hung up on it. As writing and polishing is making me better at it and all doubt does is stall me. It's a form of self sabotage. Though I think there are times when you need to reevaluate your weak spots and make sure you're making improvement.
Oh it isn't all Americans, just the ones with some odd superiority complex (and we have our fair share of those cretins here, too)!
Ok I haven’t wrote properly for ages and I want to get back to writing again, I have lots of stories I want to rewrite since they where all my first attempts at writing, but whenever I go to write I find myself just looking at either a blank page or writing a few words then deleting it. Any advice on how I can get my writing back? Cheers in advance
It depends on whether you're a planner who writes from an outline, or if you're a discovery writer who just writes. I'm a discovery writer (ETA so for me, plot comes from the emotions of the characters, rather than casting characters for a predetermined plot), so my method would be to focus on what emotions I want to bring out of the characters and focus on editing one chapter at a time or one paragraph at a time. Staring at a blank page when I have pages to work from is a no-go.
open a new document and start writing about anything, whatever comes to your head. it will look like the desperate scratchings of a madman at first, but later you start catching real thoughts as they come.
You have to accept that you probably won't feel 100% happy with what you write at first. You just have to keep writing, though. And then you need to remember that you'll go back and make it something you're more happy with during revision.
Try imitating the writing of your favorite scenes in books by rewriting it word for word or maybe adding your own spin on a character, scene, plot point, etc.. As you do that maybe your brain will start to come up with ideas for you to write on your own.
My advice. No telling if it will work for you. 1) Start with something other than fiction. A blog, a journal, even a pen pal. Nonfiction is usually, IMO, translating rough language to smoother language. Fiction is translating pictures and sounds and smells and feelings to language. Much harder. IMO. So start with just writing. 2) Accept, embrace, that your writing as you get started won’t be good. 3) Especially the fiction. 4) Try to practice one thing at a time. Plot plus character plus senses plus dialogue plus theme plus an ending is a LOT. Pick just a few. I spent a while writing headless-dialogue conversations. They were good for breaking the barrier to writing fiction. 5) Another barrier, for me, was broken by forcing myself to finish NaNoWriMo. I don’t ever need to do it again, probably, but forcing myself to spew out words at high speed somehow got my fiction writing machinery running. 6) For me, fiction writing is iterative. I write junk and I revise and revise and revise. I do this at the scene level. Others do it at the whole-novel level. But the first draft is just raw ingredients. Stop deleting it—you don’t throw away the pound of butter and bag of flour just because they’re not cookies yet, right?
(This thread is not about text but about writing process. And this is not any kind of "cry for help" but discussion about topic.) "Write every day, anything as long as you write." "I had difficulties to start again after..." "I'm stuck..." And so on. Many authors & writers tell about difficulties and sollutions that focus on the question if inertia and momentum are forking for them or against them. And this thing can be crucial. If you slow down, go to sidetracks, have difficulties to concentrate on your work... the momentum works against you. If you can keep your pace in writing, go to flow -mode, can keep the direction and target the momentum works for you. Habits and routines help you - if they make it easier to keep things going. If you must break your habits and routines in order to write they can be o bloody wall between getting the job done and losing. Creativity? It is like being able to chance the direction of your thinking. That means that cognitive and thematic inertia can block the possibility to creative working. You just think like you have always done and nothing new comes out of your head. ("Yeah.. I have no creativity of my own so I must steal!" Very original.) Scales of inertia? Just now, today. This change in my life. This project. This writing career... So... Momentum and inertia work for you or against you in... - Managing you working process. - Actually working. - Thinking and creating. - Setting targets. - Dealing with every day life and what writing demands. - Trends and market demands. - Something else, what? Thoughts? Personal experiences? Tricks and don'ts?
Dude. You stopped writing for THIRTEEN YEARS because someone plagiarized a booklet you wrote. Do you really think you're in a position to be telling others about how to manage momentum and inertia? I mean, I guess you could contribute in "learn from my mistakes" kind of way... but I feel like you'd need to at least mention the mistakes in order for that to be effective.
Well, I don't know... I had my own 13 year hiatus in writing E&D because:t a. I had a consulting job, in add1tion to my day job, and was weekly producing 120 pages of reports for the Army. Not wrting, but finding, cutting, pasting, formating, editing and commenting. b. I though E&D was just a bloated mess (it wasn't... it just turned out be a long, somewhat epic, story) c. I had some bad comments from one person that turned out to be fallacious d. My kids wouldn't read the draft e. I was getting into ancient China, outside of my Roman comfort zone, and Wikipedia was yet to be invented. Of the five, I think a and e were the main drivers. Other than that I agree with all of @Alan Aspie 's recommendation. Of course the hard part is actually doing that. Way to much of my "writing" time is spent palying online Sudoku. The good news is that I can now solve Sudoku at the expert level usually under ten minutes, almost always under fifteen. That bad news is that it sucks up an hour or more of my "writing" time. I have an old "Shoe" cartoon by my desk, that has Shoe sitting at his desk, piled high with papers, shuffling them, making paper airplanes of them, cracking his knuckles.... then someone comes to ask him a question, and he say "Not now! Can't you see I am writing?" I am working two books now, something I never thought I would do, and I am actually finding it helpful to switch off between the two. One deals with relativity physics, obviously non-fiction and mathematical, and the other is the Long Road back to Rome, sequel to E&D but set in the historical matrix of the Roman invasion of Armenia and Mesopotamia, which requires a lot historical details, legions, their commanders, their movements, etc. I took a few weeks off to start on "Riding on a Light Beam," because I felt that LRBTR was bogging down, too long a beginning at 80K words, and I was just getting to the war, the same way I felt about E&D at that same point, when they hadn't even reached China yet. But a few weeks of the Lorentz transform and relativistic Doppler, and my renewed enthusiasm for my insights... and a decision to self-publish, rather than go through the hoops of proving that an engineer who doesn't work in the field can actually write anything worth reading about the subject ... Well, it recharged my batteries, and I got 3000 words out yesterday into LRBTR and I feeling that I know where I am going.
