let's face it we have all had/got our moments and still do no one is perfect is neither is writing so fireaway let's hear it you can vent it out all here and thank you for sharing
When you have a great idea, fall in love with it, write about half of it, and then, for some inexplicable reason, you lose interest and it's lost to the ether. Nothing pisses me off than stopping halfway through what could've been an amazing story because I can't seem to focus on it anymore.
This--a delightful idea suddenly falling over dead--is something that interests me. I was quoting a quote in another thread, by Walter Mosley, where he argues that you have to re-enter the story every single day, or that will happen--the facts may be there, but they'll have no life. He says that even if for some reason you can't manage to write, you need to read it or think about it or something, inside the story, every single day. Elizabeth Gilbert said almost the same thing, except she apparently doesn't lose the story that fast. She uses a metaphor of the story being a living thing, waiting for your attention, and at some point it will shrug and go find another writer. My "one polished scene every three days, whether I can use it or not" is the same general idea. Even if I really really don't need yet another scene of Male Protagonist watching Female Protagonist eat all the food while he lectures her or they quibble about philosophy, it keeps the story alive.
This is probably age-related aphasia (I just turned 69 last week), but I hate it when I KNOW there's a word that is exactly the right word 'here' ...and I can't call it to mind. So I fart around with lesser words. Sure enough, the right word eventually comes, but it makes my writing flow stutter a bit. However, if I'm fully IN writing flow this happens less, so I guess that's the answer. But it's annoying. It's like not remembering somebody's name until the moment you needed to use it has past.
So far I have only written short story, so I can't really say anything about what happens when you tackle a novel. But I find beeing so alone writing, having to decide so many things without input from others, is both the good and the bad thing about writing. So I need help on a topic, I could post here or try to discuss with some friends. Any of those will take hours, days and I need this now. I'd love to have a friendly, bright, humorous AI to talk with in those situations. But in the end I know that I need to be that AI myself. So practice, practice, practice.
That happens to me quite often because I'm writing in my second language. Then, when I don't know what word to use to express the thought, I start rummaging around in my native vocabulary but most of the time I'm too immersed in English at that point to come up with anything useful. It's off to the thesaurus then until I find what I wanted... Really not helping the writing flow.
I have those discussions with Columbo. In the garden. I know that Columbo is a fictional character and Peter Falk is dead. I don't care. Columbo is a great imaginary friend to have these discussions with. Once in a while, nowadays, I also discuss them with Tywin Lannister. The TV version. I really don't like him; I'm not sure why he wants to be my literary advisor.
Actually, that was exactly the situation I was in when I wrote my first novel. I didn't even own any books on writing. I didn't know anybody else who was writing. I had tried joining a local writing group, but they were all either poets or folks writing their memoirs. Worthy, but nothing like what I needed. In a way, writing alone is very good because you've only got yourself to please. You haven't got critics hovering over you, or a list of do's and don't's. It's after you've finished the novel that the work and learning starts, with the editing. Then you will need help and/or feedback. But don't worry about that at this stage. Plunge in, and don't worry about mistakes. Just write the way you want to write, about what you want to write. "Write without fear; edit without mercy." It's a risk-free occupation.
I think probably the most irritating thing I've experienced thus far with writing is when you know something needs fixed but you don't know how to fix it. And you really only have two options, work through it in your head or ask for someone's opinion.
Focus... Focus is the most irritating thing I face, when it happens, it's wonderful but that moment is far in between and I end up slogging my way through or having to face myself to write.
I absolutely hate when I've finished a short and know, deep down in my gut, that it's not right. That something about the setting is wrong, because... well my gut isn't really giving me advice on that or I'd make it good. And worse, once I know how to fix it, I need to tear this finished short apart (it's even happened that I chucked it completely, apart from about five sentences). But you know what's better? Once I've set through the rewriting and then it fits. It doesn't take away the hair-tearing pain of worrying and thinking and self-doubt during the time when I was still casting around to find this perfect setting, but... it makes it worthwhile. And that's why I go on.
Deadlines. Editors. Pantsers who tell me I should use their approach, when I did try it and failed with it; then tell me what I need to do to make it work, when that too was a fail.
When I lack the words to fully express a scene that plays out so perfectly in my bias mind. It's frustrating.
When I sit down to read a good, thick 400 page novel, but my brain thinks "you should be writing right now" and resists the process for a good couple hours until I finally get into it.
Probably that, unlike anything else in my life, I require other peoples input in order to figure out my own mind. I'll write stuff down, think about the background and context, but I need someone else to read it and understand it before I can properly move on.
When I get a snack, write a forum post, change the channel, move from the couch to the table, and my SO thinks that that means it's OK to TALK to me! I'm gearing up to write, dangit! Stop interrupting! Only mostly joking.
When I've written out of order again and the gaps between paragraphs stare at me with their accusing little blank-space-eyes.
