Hi Writer family, I am Mish and I am a writer. Despite entering (and winning) some writing competitions, I consider myself an amateur writer, but one who really likes to write none the less. I have a day job and a career which is very far removed from the field of writing. (something that has never stopped me from finding the time to pursue my favorite hobby) I am in the process of writing several novels. To be upfront, I have never finished writing a single one in the past. (a blessing that so far has sheltered me from the worst experiences of publishing a novel) Sometimes I lose all motivation to write and give up on writing for awhile, until some time later I start writing again. (it's like a positive addiction that I can't shake) I would like to get more serious about writing. Today I decided to look inward and examine the reasons that stop me from writing sometimes. To my surprise I found more than several reasons, so many in fact that I decided to separate my reasons into a series that I would like to discuss with you in this forum. Hopefully my concerns will resonate with you. I have a feeling there are others out there who harbor the same or similar concerns. Perhaps our discussion here will help them overcome these obstacles as well. So, without further adieu, my writer block reasons #1 - Fear of writing a bad novel. I will split this in two: 1. Fear of writing a novel that I don't like. How do you even finish the thing knowing that it can never be perfect? There are so many time pressures to get a novel finished and yet, there are so many ways a novel can be improved. So many ways in fact that it can take years or decades of pouring over every single chapter, every single paragraph, every single line, every single word, perfecting it, changing it, making it better. So after five hundred years you can create that perfect novel. But let's get serious, who has the time for all of that? Eventually the writing has to stop and just like the time keeping teacher at your final exam pressing on their stopwatch and announcing "Pens down!" the stopping must occur even when what you have ended up with is a bit of a mess that you no longer have time to fix. I realize that this is one of the obstacles that make me disinterested in writing sometimes. 2. Fear of writing a novel that I like, but others don't. How do you even know if your novel is bad if you yourself enjoy reading it? I have given my chapiters to so many lovely people for feedback and someone always finds something to pick on. Sometimes the nitpicking is in complete contrast to one another that it makes me think if I put these readers in a locked room they will fight each other to death defending their criticism. "The pacing is too fast", another reader for exact same chapter "the pacing is too slow", "the MC is too controlling," "the MC doesn't have enough agency," "Show don't tell, there's too much telling", "Tell don't show, there's too much showing". This Part 1 is growing too big so I will stop now. Let's discuss and finish this topic, then I will post my second concern in part 2.
As a fellow man with Perfectionitis, this is definitely something I've wrestled with over the years. Even now after having improved I can't shake the desire to perfect a reply. It's just something that's stemmed from my past, and what I believe sits in part of the core of such issues. For on one hand, there's the desire for your concept of perfection and what you think other's expect it to be. That in itself creates a stalemating block which drains energy from wanting to write. Plus, sometimes there's a bit of guilt for just wanting to please yourself instead. All of this really comes down to two things: getting stuck in your mind, and letting fear control where you put your energy. You just get tangled in a web of "What If's?" and expectations. But what is fear? What I've learned is that fear IS just an illusionary expectation. Almost everything we fear in our lives is derived from a vision about the future, in which something bad will happen if X/Y/Z takes place. You fear your art won't be perfect because you have great expectations, and it takes a looonnnggg time to finish to your satisfaction. Thus, even though you haven't put in all that work yet, you feel drained of the energy just thinking about it. Why go through that if you'll be an old man by the time you're satisfied? It's a maddening thought that's stopped me many times in the past. And the only real answers I've come up with is: 1, instinctually accepting good enough, 2, training my mind to avoid reaching for a thesaurus or my phone, and 3, just bulldozing through that fear/expectation when it pops up and doing it. And that's not easy when you write fantasy and like world-building. I mean, hell, Tolkien was still revising Middle Earth years after he finished. The second question is a bit simpler to answer. If you enjoy it, there's at least some level of quality in it that makes it good enough. That in itself will attract people to it. Your First Reader is yourself, and if you don't like it then others won't either. But what's more important is are the people you're getting feedback from your core audience? (As in people who want the kinds of stories you want). And ideally, that question should only come up when you have an audience to sell to. The only people you should listen to about your stories are the ones most invested in them. And ultimately, only time will tell if your novel is good or bad. You should only worry if you're enjoying your stories, putting in the necessary quality you can, and not putting the huge weight of every expectation from keeping you creating the art that you wanna create. Don't let yourself spiral into rabbit holes that only go to Shoulda-Coulda World. That's where Shelob dwells.
Thank you Bastion for your wonderful feedback! Thank you for breaking it down so succinctly. There is definitely some good food for thought in your advise!
You're welcome. Also, here's another thing I'd like to explain further about instinctually accepting good enough. I think in these modern times, young writers forget that writing is a creative activity. Meaning it doesn't come from the left-side of our brain where we seek to piece together the whole story logically. We're here to make stories that make us and our readers feel. And feeling, at least from my perspective, is our spiritual tool we use to bring forth and shape the things that come out of our imagination. So when we brainstorm ideas or are writing a story, we should ideally exist in a state connected to feeling. Not in a state where you're trying to constantly remember writing techniques, which trope to use, or if you're sentences are too long. That's not being creative. Being creative is being in the flow of feelings and trusting yourself to know what is right at the right moment. So, for example--and I'm sure others can relate--I sometimes would always get stuck trying to find the right name for something. I'd check name sites, the etymology dictionary, language dictionaries, etc. And yeah, I'd find some gold in dem hills from time to time. But it takes so much damn time. That's a luxury writers today can't afford. So what do you do? Just make shit up? YES! In this case, feel your way for a name or idea and follow wherever it leads. Then trust your instincts to know and do what is right. Stop trying to reach for a perfect name, idea, description, technique, and just let it flow. Does it sound kinda woo-woo? Yeah. But art was born out of woo-woo. It's called Creativity for a reason. First your Create something, THEN you shape it.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Just because something isn't perfect, it doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
Novel writing is hard and you always have concerns and fears over it. A good amount of planning can mitigate this though, and I encourage you to look into it. I found that it massively helps me to have a good plan in place. The better the plan, the more it makes sense, and the faster I move between chapter to chapter. The only thing you can really do is make it as good as your abilities will allow. Your novel will never be perfect like you said. But you will eventually come to a point where you are satisfied with it and the positives will outshine the negatives. In other words, its okay for your novel to be flawed. All novels are flawed in some way. Just be sure that it isn't flawed in a way that makes it unreadable and nonsensical. It should make sense and have some merit behind it. And remember, there are some really bad novels out there. Like, some truly bad ones. And they were published. Think about that. You don't have to be perfect, or even good, to shine in this world. You just need some luck, confidence, and determination. This brings me to this point. What's "bad" and "good" is subjective. Ask a thousand people whether something is "good" or "bad" and they will all give different answers. There are multiple ways to view a work of art and that will never change, so do not ever, and I mean ever, accept a bad viewpoint of your work as the only viewpoint. That said, if 200 of those people bring up the exact same flaw, then it is a point very much worth considering. This has happened to me. I wrote a short where the ending happened through a genre shift. People consistently hated the genre shift. And that made it clear that the genre shift needed to go. If it displeases most readers, it needs to go. After all, I'm writing something that I want to be read and enjoyed by others. Lastly, your target audience will matter a lot. Obviously, your target audience is much more likely to give positive feedback to your novel. Someone outside of that will be more likely to give negative feedback. That matters because it's your target audience that you will be selling your book to. Think logistically where possible. Don't your fears cloud your judgement. Write and never let someone's opinion stop you. An opinion is not the same as a fact.
Thanks @ps102, I hear you. I think I need to find a level of comfort and determine what is good enough. I just need to work out the right combination. Or is it the right equation? Good (subjectively speaking) novel = luck + confidence + determination + liking it for myself + feedback - too much negative feedback + feedback from the right target audience + / - where to find the right target audience?.. (I think I'm already getting off track)
Where to find the right target audience is a question of marketing, not of whether it's good enough. What's good enough for one audience may not be good enough for another - not everything can be Harry Potter, but many things can be, for example, H.P. Lovecraft. I've seen a couple of instances lately of stories where the author actively dislikes what they wrote because it has a massive appeal to an audience, just not the audience that they intended.
Good point. You also need to know what kind of writer you are. Are you writing for yourself as a hobby? Or are you writing to specific genre audiences? Your answer doesn't have to be either or too. You can mix and match both.
To be honest, engaging with my target audience is not yet something that I'm doing. I have a general idea of who they are and I know that there are probably many of them. But what are the tools for finding them, localizing them (I guess the words I'm looking for here is putting them in a place where I can reach them) and engaging them?
As with any marketing, it's about working out where they hang out, and making sure your work is visible there. Without knowing who they are, I couldn't make any specific recommendations though. But you can worry about that later.
