I just want to die and give up. This story I've been working on is finally gaining some traction and while I like it I don't feel anyone else will. I just want to stop writing but I can't. I've regurgitated like 5000 words today and while I love everything I've written so far I feel it's not adult enough. I'm not imaginative enough. I'm just stupid. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be a writer. This self-doubt is too hard. How do people f-ing manage this? I want to keep writing my book, even now, but I just keep wondering what's the point if no one else is gonna like it? I just want to curl up in a ball and die because I'm the only one who's going to like this stupid thing. I've put too much stupid work into it to give up and that's what sucks because I'm probably going to have to finish it just because of how much I've invested in and then I'm gonna find out it's a piece of crap by everyone and publishers and that no one will like it. I'm so lost right now.
Not again. You're so depressing. Okay, look up the word "doubt" and you'll find many people here suffer from this problem to some degree. The best thing I can think of myself, as someone who doesn't have any real anxiety over their writing, is that you have no reason to assume your writing is terrible. If you like it others will too. It's just a matter of how many. Try it out. Tell/show someone you trust and get their feedback. Find people you like who are similar to you, they'll be a good comparison, though don't rely on them because they may have major biases. Just don't give up. Someone has to believe in you, at least let it be you.
Sorry but this just isn't true. Many people do have terrible writing. Liking your own writing does not guarantee anyone else will.
There's always someone like you. And those people will see what you see. Yes, it can be bad, but that just means you refine it until it achieves it's potential. You can change things and keep the same core. Every whole has it's parts.
Who cares if no one else likes it? Fuck'em. You like it. You're not writing for people who aren't going to like it; you can't please them. But frankly, if you like it, someone else out there is going to. Seven billion people on the planet, 1.2 billion of them speak English - someone's going to be into it. Honestly, I feel you. I've been writing since before I could spell and I still frequently feel like my ideas are dumb, I'm a terrible writer, and I should just give it up and take up crochet instead. No amount of validation or praise makes that go away, so I can't try to talk you into feeling better about it. But statistics make me feel better. And in a way, knowing that external validation doesn't help makes it better, because it tells me I'm not writing for external validation - I'm writing for me. I hold myself to absurdly high standards, and I'm sure you're doing the same thing, and no reader is going to have such high expectations, I promise you. Take a break if you need to. You can't be on all the time. Write something that's not serious, that you don't care about, that you're not invested in so you can laugh and have fun. Earlier this year I got into a rut about writing and just wrote smut for about three months because I know I'll never be an actual erotica writer, so it was just for giggles and to share with friends because we're all nine and snickering about dicks for a while was fun. Try to remember why you started writing in the first place - you had a cool idea or a good time and you wanted to put it into words - and get back to that mindset. That's the point. Not that people might like it, but that you like writing it. And if it's not fun anymore? Just don't do it. Quit. No one will think less of you. You haven't lost anything. It's okay for things to be temporary and transitional. Self-doubt is a piece of shit, but if you really want to write, you're just going to have to weather it sometimes. The longer you stick to it the easier it gets. At least you know you're not dealing with the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Still not true. A piece full of repetitive, trivial, and or cliche sentences is basically a dead end piece. You're not editing it, because all those sentences need to be scrapped. You'd essentially be starting from zero.
Sure, if the concept is something unique. If not, then, what do you got? Even if former is the case, I think a lot of younger people seem to underestimate the importance of the actual writing, and overestimate the importance of the concept.
@ILaughAtTrailers The best way to determine how your writing is, is to put up in the workshop or give it to people to read.
Yeah, that bombed. Can someone read what I've wrote today and tell me whether I should give up lol? I just need validation bad. I've gone through my whole life as a failure so I need this.
It didn't bomb; you got plenty of critique. Do you actually want to improve your writing or just gain some cheerleaders? The workshop isn't the place for the latter.
I had a moment of panic, you guys. I've been browsing around on the internet and am realizing there are A LOT more worse and dumber stories than mine out there that are getting made. The only thing I'm lacking, I feel, is dialogue, on the account that there is none in the three whole chapters of mine I wrote today. No, I definitely think my writing sucks, so I want to improve.
Things might have changed since I last checked, but aren't there rules about posting things to the Writing Workshop? Rules like you have to critique at least two things for every one thing you post there. And that you have to have at least a hundred posts under your belt before posting anything. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it doesn't seem like you're exactly following those rules.
The rules for posting in the workshop is over 20 posts, 2 weeks of membership, and 2 critiques. Not sure if you have to have two critiques for every post you want to put out there, though I believe it was phrased that way somewhere. No sure how all of it is monitored, though. I have yet to even finish my first two weeks. As for you, Ilaughattrailers guy, honestly, as someone who has read your work and critiqued it, I know your work isn't that bad. Most of these things you are saying are, if anything, delusions in your head. You have set expectations that are just too high. Don't expect everyone to love what you do, and don't validate yourself based on how good of a writer you think you are (or others think you are). That is a self-toxic way of thinking, and by what you are writing here and the "I can't do it" post, it is clear that this way of thinking is affecting you in a really negative way. You might find that writing is not for you, for whatever reason, and that's okay. You might find that one day your writing drastically improves, and that'd be awesome, but it might not happen. These are things you have to accept. I have decided that I want to be a writer, but I also know that I might fail. But with that in mind, I have taken to heart the fact that thinking toxically about myself, and validating myself on something so trivial, is not going to help me. The way you are thinking, the way you are treating the act of being a writer, is terrible. It is going to tear you down until you can't get back up if you don't stop. Don't look for validation. Don't look for the "secret trick" to succeeding as a writer. There is none. There is just hard work. And right now, you are wasting your time with something that will make you become worse as a writer, rather than better.
Everyone hates everything they have written. I know my story is better than I think it is, mostly because I think I could have written something better when I was five. Fortunately, I have some writing from when I was thirteen to compare it to so I can see the progress, and cringe at something worse.
Everyone battles hatred over what they produce. Well, maybe there's a small few out there that think they're written gold or a the few that have gotten to a point where they're comfortable in their drafts. Me. I still battle. Especially in the final polishing draft. I don't know when to quit. If you're looking for self doubt to leave it won't -- it will just lessen. And yeah it helps to look around out there and say, whew - mine wasn't as bad as that. But if you want to improve -- critique more. Nothing helps you to spot a flaw in your own story more than seeing it in someone elses.
Every single great writer of today, and in the past, used to suck when they were starting off. Everyone. And realizing that you're not [yet] that great is part of the journey, because it's what motivates you to grow, instead of cluelessly stagnating at the same skill level. If you feel like you're not great as a writer, don't beat yourself up, but learn instead. One blog that totally saved me as a writer is "Story Fix" by Larry Brooks. He's able to lay out people's writing problems in a way that's solution-based, practical and easy to understand, and give really spot-on advice for how to become great. Also, read tons of books, especially in your "genre" but also of all other kinds. Study the voice, the dialogue, the way the characters are built, the story structure, and what scenes are the most moving/powerful to you and what makes them that way. If you truly aren't into your novel, it's OK to put it aside for a while (but don't do anything permanent like delete it!) and start working on something else that you have more faith in. Remember the whole thing is a journey. Everyone's work was embarrassingly bad at one point in time!
So true! I never understood head-hopping until I read a book where it was obvious and confusing. After that, I can spot it pretty easily. Hopefully I don't have any of it in my current draft (well, the parts I've written since understanding head-hopping), but if I do have it, I want it OUT!
Dude. You think you write crap? Go read this thread, where Jack Asher absolutely rips apart this asshat who thinks he's god's gift to writing. If you can walk away thinking it's still better than yours, just quit. Right now.
5000 words is longer than the longest single piece I've ever written, and I struggle with a problem largely opposite to yours. I think I'm pretty good at writing individual scenes, characters, and backstories (I may be complete shit, but allow me my delusions for a while), but I just don't know what to do with them. You say you've got a story, which means you have a beginning, a middle, and an end, all you need to do is put the words on the paper to show it. That ain't easy, I know, but yesterday you put up a section in the Workshop, nobody shit on it, and a bunch of people, myself included, took time out of their days to give you some tips as to how you could improve it. Not every bit of advice needs to be taken; some of it might not be right for your style and your vision, and some people might just give bad advice. What's not going to work is coming on here every day to whine about how bad you are. Ask advice, write, post samples and ask for opinions, but if all you do is post about what a terrible writer you are, you're going to see first your response to thread count dropping, then your view count doing the same, and then the tumbleweeds are going to start blowing through.
Hey there. That's a terrible thought. The very first rule of being a good writer is to love what you write. You have that covered as you do love your work right? And why won't people like it? Did you know J.K. Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before she published her first HP book? People love to read about characters who are the centerpiece. Like for instance i just remembered reading a research paper recently about Sherlock Holmes. I'm unable to share the link here but it's an interesting read. It's about how Arthur Conan Doyle made the stories interesting even for the current generation. Write what people love to read. Sherlock Holmes a legendary book because people love reading about crimes. Well, you cannot force a certain topic into your story, but think of other things that would relate to your story and people would find interesting.
I think hating what you write and still feeling the urge to write is the greatest sign of skill a writer can have. The dunning-kruger effect. If you love what you write, you've already lost the battle in getting better. Loving what you write is the worst thing you can do. Everyone can always get better. To get better you have to realize the mistakes in your work and realize that it sucks and hate it, and then and only then will you get better. And getting better makes you great.
