You mention hitting a Wall, and since you have four WIPs, it seems like your response to hitting said Wall is to start something new. I understand the temptation, but remember there is value in finishing something. Even if it sucks, it's finished. (I think Matt Fraction said that.) You're never going to get past the Wall if you constantly stop and go start something else. Apologies if this isn't habitual behavior for you and this advice is redundant, but I see a lot of writers (and other creators) who do this.
No you're absolutely right, the problem is that I can't see myself sticking with one project long enough to finish it, so I start a new one. Obviously I reach the same point and do the same thing, for some reason can't just focus on one thing. Having said that, it's going okay so far this week! After deciding absolutely, definitely, conclusively to work on Hide, obviously I ended up going back to The Archangel. Wrote a chapter yesterday, one this morning and I've been working on a plan for the rest of the book so it's looking productive! I just have to stop myself giving up further down the line. It's a big project, but I'm optimistic!! Thanks everyone for your advice, Piper
Good luck with the project! I don't know if running metaphors do anything for you, but every runner hits a Wall at some point in a long race. The trick is to embrace the suck and get through it. Because there is another side, and you will get there!
#1 and #2 sound the most interesting to me. Personally, I'd go with the story that's on your heart. Going by the descriptions you wrote, it seems your heart's on #2, so I'd write that. You need to love the story you're writing - you just do - and that's the only one you wrote your own thoughts/emotions on. It's the only one you said you really liked. The others were just straight up description pretty much. The biggest reward from writing is self-satisfaction, the enjoyment, that sense of achievement of creating something you love - so, write the one you love.
I have just decided to return to forum-posting and thought it might be appropriate to bump this thread as my first post back. So it's now 2019. Since my original post, I have managed to carve out a stable living by writing in some capacity - albeit a mish-mash of copywriting, newsletter editing and ad-hoc freelance work wherever I can find it. I've worked on reasonably prestigious trade magazines, various content farms and a few half-decent media firms. As it stands, I'm doing pretty well - I'm writing this from the French Riviera, with plans to hop over to Naples in just a few days - working all the way. Not too shabby. I'm not posting this as any kind of success story, I just thought it was a worthy input on my part, given my reservations in the original post. As it turns out, SPAG isn't as big of a deal as newbie writers often think it is, especially once you have an editor to correct it all! I would, however, echo the comments above: writing is multi-faceted; more so than I ever imagined. Whilst I can bash out a 200-word news story or product description to a professional level without thinking about it, the last two years of writing such copy have done absolutely nothing for my creative writing. In fact, journalistic writing has led to me using short, snappy sentences that convey little but essential information - which may have worked for Ernest Hemmingway, but it isn't doing me any favours. I also fully appreciate the comments from deadrats. I've had it pretty easy with regards to copywriting and journalism, but not one shred of success at anything creative. It's a whole different ball game. However, I do now find it that little bit easier to silence the voice inside that says it's not possible. Anyway, just my two cents.
I suppose the most important point is that you've kept the wheels lubricated and kept writing, albeit at a very different level. That has to help, surely? On the other hand, my grammar was shown to be very rusty indeed when my current work was edited. Those elementary comma usage errors jumped off the page when she pointed them out, especially in dialogue sequences.
Good for you! I found journalism really ingrained all the grammar rules into me. It's great to have an editor(s) you like. Learn from them, and it sounds like you are. When I made the switch to creative writing it wasn't so easy. I can understand why you're writing short chopped sentences. I used to do the same. And it sounds like you're nailing this journalism and other types of writing and that's probably why you feel a bit of a struggle or aren't quite happy with your creative writing. But you are a success story and don't forget that. You've got one style of writing down. If you can do that, I'm sure you have the ability to do it in other writing pursuits. What helped me more than anything when I branched out and made the switch was reading and reading a lot. My main focus is on short stories and the literary journals and magazines. If you want to get a feel for beautifully written and well told stories, I suggest a subscription to Ploughshares. They put out truly beautiful work. I still don't feel like I can write like that, but I aspire to it and try all the time. Another good publication to learn from is The Gettysburg Review. It was reading The Gettysburg Review that first made me feel like this is what I want to do. They are more edgy and eclectic and a little less lofty. Finally, I would suggest checking out The Sun Magazine. They have both fiction and nonfiction. You can read two stories for free on their website. They usually have only one or two fiction stories an issue, but they also have really great creative nonfiction so that might help you in more ways than one. Those are the top three places that helped me. It's worth a subscription to all three if you can swing it. But I found them to be a great investment years ago and still do to this day. Travel writing is a nice bridge between the two, especially if you can tie it into some sort of newsy event or say something that reflects our times. I didn't do a whole lot of travel writing, but I did like it. If I still had the travel bug, I would probably be down at the Mexico border writing feature stories/human interest stories/ travel stories. If it was back in the day I might have gone even further south and actually traveled with the caravan. I know there are other journalists doing such, but there are a lot of newspapers and magazines covering this and there are always more stories. With travel writing you get a chance to be more personal. But you don't even have to always travel. You could write a piece about your city or a nearby place. I found it to be a sort of stepping stone that helped me make the switch to creative work. Try pitching a few story ideas to editors that are more features or travel pieces. I became quite good at these sort of pitches and would be happy to help you. Send me a direct message if you're interested. You also might want to look at Slate and Salon. They are both great publications where you might feel like your work would be a fit or inspire you to write something you could see fitting in with either of these places. I would spend some time looking at those as potential places. I have to say, you're probably making a lot more money than me. I'm super poor, but I have had some amazing luck. I say luck because that seems to be a big part of it. But maybe I'm wrong because I also worked really hard. It took me a few years to sell fiction. I didn't see that coming and somehow became fueled by the hundreds of rejections I was getting. I can't say I thought I was good enough when I started submitting creative work, but I wanted to be good enough. And now a few times I have been. We'll see what happens with my novel in progress. The other thing I've found is that the more creative writing goes into something the more I've got to self edit and revise and rewrite. No matter how hard I try and how good I feel about creative work while I'm doing the actual writing I still and always have more work to do when it's done. And by that I mean I still have to mold, reshape and often rewrite quite a bit. That can be frustrating too, but it's worth the payoff, I think. It's something I didn't really have to do with journalism as much. I believe there are two different skill sets to both kinds of writing. You can learn them both. It really seems like you've got one of them down. That's going to make it easier to get the other one down. But in any kind of writing, we always get better with practice. and reading a lot is always going to be key. I have a feeling you'll get to where you want to be. It sounds like you've already accomplished a lot. That will continue as long as you continue.
I'm new to writing (though I did write 'books' when I was between six and ten. Oh yes! Books not stories - I was an ambitious child), so I understand that it's going to take me a while to get into the hang of it. Meanwhile, because I understand that, I'm relatively content so long as I feel like my story is progressing okay. But sometimes I get a bit weary of knowing that it's poop writing. You know, just bad! Bad in the way that if I read it and it was someone else's writing I'd pull a 'bad smell' face and put it right back down. As a part of a bigger personal project I'm working on, I recently started sketching and painting again after an extended hiatus. My efforts here in December were appalling. Like a child's drawings - as though my hands had entirely forgotten how to do that stuff. Now I'm starting to get back up to speed with where I was when I last picked up a pencil, which has been really encouraging - so much so I've actually started showing my pics to trusted parties. But the writing isn't catching up with that, not at all. Which again, is to be expected as I've never really applied myself to this before. Do other people get weary of churning out poop? Or do you just grit your teeth and get on with it, trusting that with time and effort you'll eventually get to a place where you're able read those occasional passages where you think 'Hmm, yeah, that's actually not too bad that bit', more frequently than at present?
Everyone thinks their own writing is poop. What you think of it doesn't matter. What do other people think of it? That's all that matters.
Maybe the reason you think it's bad is because you're not enjoying the process much? I'm assuming that when you first started writing, it was simply because you wanted to, and you found it fun. I'd suggest experimenting. Write in another persepective. Try different genres--just because you like reading a genre, that might not mean you'll like writing it. If you're not planning in advance, try that. If you're planning, just try writing with no plan and improvising it all. Take a story you wrote as a kid, and try rewriting it. Yes, there will probably be some misfires and dead ends, but you can always salvage the good bits and re-use them later. The point is, rediscover what made it fun the first time around. And like others have said, get an outside perspective from someone you trust.
No doubt. Hadn't really thought about that. Other people? I've had other people encourage me to write, quite a number of them over the years. Including those who write / teach writing or are published. I think that's probably one of the reasons I've finally decided to give it a stab, that or I'm reaching a point where I think there must be something more to life than getting stressed out at work and watching telly to decompress in the evening. I'm not the most driven person to be fair and I can't really relate to the gnawing hunger of the artist to create. But I like it. And I love escapist stories. My head just burbles with stuff when I'm into it. It makes me happy. That's a longer answer than you needed and rather went off point..
Don't worry about it. You will always be your own harshest critic. We all wish we were better. Somehow though, we find people who really like what we write. So long as you're enjoying yourself, you're fine.
Sometimes a passage seems to flow nicely. It's engaging and the imagery is right and, I think, competently crafted (which is ultimately what I'm after). I think on average my writing is a C-, sometimes it touches the giddy heights of a C+. Ideally I'd like to be a B++. Though if I look back at the last big wodge of writing I did some months ago, I think it was probably a D or maybe a D-. So maybe I have improved more than I realise in the past few months. TLDR: Occasionally moderately so.
Good idea. I think I should dip into flash fiction, or short stories. It would sharpen my focus. I was chatting about folk horror on another thread, I should get on with that. The current thing I'm writing (fantasy bumf) will be around 80'000 words when done. But novel length projects are probably not the best place for a beginner to begin. Have also looked up a local writing group. Bit belatedly. It'd probably be useful to have a place to natter and share. Might also motivate me to revise more tightly and exercise untrained critical muscles. Especially if we're encouraged to bring stuff for others to comment on. Thanks all.
Have you been able to isolate what works well for you and what is problematic? That's a good place to start. But your notion of joining a group or getting competent betas to give you specific feedback is good as well. Of course the groups and betas can be wrong, or maybe they have their own agendas and prejudices, so be wary. If their advice makes sense to you and inspires you to tackle things, then take it. If it doesn't, and you just feel confused or discouraged by it, then it's probably best to ignore it for the time being. Keep trying to connect with somebody who understands what you're trying to accomplish, and is willing to help you with that. While it's perfectly possible for a beginner to do well with a novel (writing short stories is an entirely different art form ...like the difference between painting and sculpture) it is more difficult in some circles to get a good critique for a novel-in-progress. A novel takes a while to READ, so you'll just be bringing snippets to a writers' meeting. And people sometimes don't understand that what they're seeing is a snippet. It's great if you can hook up with other people who are also novelists. They'll 'get' the fact that all questions and issues won't be answered or even dealt with in a single chapter or scene. Of course you can also read a lot of advice about how to better your writing. Every topic is out there, from grammatical issues, dialogue, story structure, character development, common mistakes, etc. But I would also suggest that you get good feedback on what you've already done, so you'll have a better idea of where you stand now, and what probably needs work. However, there are many respected authors out there who are never satisfied with what they write. That's why it's good to get feedback. You might not be as bad as you think you are. Maybe your poop has glints of gold in it.
It's all rather fuzzy at the moment. I lack the vocabulary or sufficient technical understanding of the nuts and bolts, the mechanics, of writing to perceive what I'm doing at a basic level. I have noticed that I find dialogue comes easier for me than say description or action. So the scene I was writing when I wrote this post (a character undertaking a mission alone) was wooden and dull. Yeah, I'm going to do that. So that's where my wedding band went! I thought I was sucking a polo in my dream. Thank you for your thoughts.
I think I'm capable enough of diagnosing what's wrong with my writing projects. However, I never get the sense anything is good until someone else tells me so. Sometimes when you work on something for too long you kind of get into a state of tunnel vision and lose any ability to think differently. It also happens when I write myself into a corner and can't find any way to continue without going back and rewriting stuff. TL;DR : If it's crap, I can tell. If it good, I can't.
I am new to writing as well, so I feel where you're coming from. This has been a bit of a personal project for 2019. Trying to get better as well as learn new techniques and such. Currently, I guess it's the fear of churning out a turgid poop is what keeps me from showing my work to other people. I have been tunnel visioned on lines which I felt really conveyed what I wanted them too, however, when reviewed, it is those lines which receive the criticisms. Can't help getting fixated on them as we're just too close to our work to be objective. I feel that you're never writing for yourself but some imaginary critic who could have 100's of differing opinions at any given time. Though I do think this is what will help us improve overall.
Everyone began somewhere. So I would try not to worry too much about showing your work to other people, even if it is turgid poop. Though I'd select those you do show your work to carefully. I don't find friends and family very useful. They either say 'that's good' (not helpful) or they simply don't like it (not useful either). I'm looking forward to getting some helpful criticism from people who can see past their own personal preferences and into the cogs and gears. Fortunately, my ego isn't (as yet) overly invested in a need for approval - I think that's probably the upside of being a newbie, you've got nothing to lose here. I want help and guidance more than anything, to give me some ideas as to what's working and what's not working, and importantly why and how to proceed from there. We all get too wrapped up in our precious babies. Especially artistic types. Treat it like doing an adult ed. class in pottery or bellydancing and you might enjoy the process of sharing what you do. You might even get a laugh out of it.
Agreed, I definitely see this forum as an opportunity to find some objective and helpful criticisms to improve my style, nowhere to go but up! Looking forward to reading your work
