Anyone else here get tired with writing their novel. I'm at page 400 (roughly), and have gotten tired of the story. I like the characters, the plot, the writing (well, some), but I've just gotten bored. I'm going to take a break, write another sci-fi story that I've been mulling over, and then come back to it. Anyone else ever get this feeling?
Yes, I got bored...(well it wasn't bored? I guess I got bored of being stuck) and I moved on to another project...but then my excitement over my story came back in the middle of the other project but of course I can't work on both of them at the same time...so yeah. I think it's normal for your excitement to wind down a bit. It's just better to take a break or work on something else until it comes back.
I think all writers get sick of their novels, especially if its one they've been cranking on for months, if not years. Like Youniquee said, a good idea is to start on another project you are interested in, and when you start feeling the older project pick at your brain again, that's your cue to return to the old project.
I might when I get about 3/4 the way there and just want it done already but if I am bored I think I'll get his leg eaten by a lion and then it'll be exciting again when he has to find a hospital and has sex getting there with some random chick.
Maybe my situation is a little different from others here. I finished the first draft of my first novel about twenty years ago. That's when I got bored with it and started working on other writing projects. But I always thought that first novel had some beautiful things in it. The strange, weird, but wonderful thing about it is that I still think it has beautiful things in it, but they aren't the same things I thought were beautiful twenty years ago. So I still want to revise it, because now it'll be something stronger than I ever thought I could make it when I was a younger man. Everything else I've written, I haven't gotten bored with. Well, maybe one novella, but that's because it was the only thing I've written in which I took everyone else's advice and wrote straight through, never editing as I went. Now I have a first draft of it that is terrible. Everyone else says that's fine; first drafts are supposed to be terrible. But I don't want to return to this terrible pile of crap. I wish to death I'd edited as I wrote so that when it came time to revise, I'd be at least revising something that was already pretty good.
Oh god, I used to do that. The number of times I have destroyed every copy (physical and digital) of my work, and then cried about it as soon as the regret set in.. Rather than actually destroy everything, buy a pendrive and use that as a work-dump. Save everything onto it, delete the copies from the computer, and then leave the pendrive in a drawer somewhere. It's like deleting, but safer.
But that sounds like the most pointless thing in the world. Just... don't delete it? I almost always need a blank file to write - even when I'm doing rewrites, I need a blank slate or I just freeze. All you do in those situation is either: 1) open a new file and work there, then copy and paste, 2) copy and paste said scene into new doc, save, go back to your original and delete, or 3) create several lines of space and then work above it, deleting and pasting select lines as you go. So, sure, deleting is necessary - but not like the kind you do when you're frustrated lol. Always have a back-up, and who demanded that in your frustration you must delete anything at all? If you wanna destroy your work, print something out and rip it apart instead - much more satisfying and won't affect your work at all!
I get this all the time! I'll often start writing something, be excited, then stop. And I'll usually never come back to it. :c If you're at page 400, I would suggest you keep going! If you start another story you'll probably never end up coming back to this one. You can take a break, but don't start a new novel. Maybe write short stories and poems to keep your creative juices flowing?
I've never gotten sick or bored with a project, but I have had a couple of projects lose momentum simply because I couldn't work it into something I thought was good enough. This happened twice, and in both cases I can look back and see that I just didn't plan the project well - didn't have a really good idea of where I wanted to go and how I wanted to get there. I have at times found I needed to take a break from a project, either to get a fresh perspective or because a new idea had occurred to me and I wanted to flesh it out just enough to have something to go back to later on.
Actually yes, es I have. Working on something for so long is tiring. Sometimes you have to break away so that it becomes fresh and new again. The creative process thrives on newness of creation. after 400 pages you are pretty deep. I took a break, and when I came back to it, I came back with a vengeance... although I am now doing a full scale overhaul, recreating the story from the round up lol. But that makes it fun, new fresh, and open to be reworked. Take a break, create more and go back to your novel when you are ready
I do when the story has run its course or is meandering somewhere that isn't exciting. So I usually either jump ahead and start writing at some other part or scrap the way it is going and write it at different character's pov. I have one story that is a bunch of different chapters because I keep jumping throughout the story. This one is based on a true story though so I write the start some of the middle, the end and have a bunch of chapters still in the wind. I don't like writing this way so the project has been sitting on the sidelines.
Constantly and I question it also, but i believe this means you are observing it with an impartial view, meaning you are not looking at it through rose tinted glasses and fooling yourself that its a work of art. How can you improve if you yourself don't see the problems first. I agree take time away get refreshed, however much you love writing it is in one sense a repetitive task. Creative yes but the input and rereading of your novel can add to the boredom, who can watch a film over and over, pause it rewind 10mins re-watch then try and correct? It will take its toll. No one said it would be easy, as we are all finding out, me especially but i'm soldering on. Nothing else to do
I'm sick of it right now. If I had to characterize my entire book I'd describe it as a redemption story and the path back to righteousness. Sounds pretty good doesn't it? I even got all of the hardware right, LOL. The problem is that the early portion of the story mirrors my younger life. And that's a period of vacillating, far too much lust, and fighting for the wrong things amid lies. To bring depth to my lead character, I had to re-visit my own struggles. Even being in this forum reflects that. We debate here a lot on social and moral issues, stuff I've settled in my life decades ago. It's tough to see new generations begin to see a bigger picture, with some trying desperately to do better, and some trying to rationalize a course they're simply too lazy to change. Then you open your word processor and stare your life right in the face...
I get "sick" of my work sometimes. I usually view that as a sign that I must change something in it (so I reread it all and make changes until I find the story fun again).
Well, it depends on their quality. Some of the stories I deleted really had some potential, others were just so terrible I'm actually glad I'll never have to see them again.
