I still haven’t picked up my WIP. If you’ve read my previous entries, you know it’s been about a month now, maybe longer, since I have written actual words in my manuscript. When I think about how much I could’ve accomplished this past month, even if I’d written only half an hour a day, I want to beat myself silly for not having done anything. But I keep telling myself that I’m not ready.
Between when I started my manuscript in January and when I last worked on it at the end of April, I wrote about 21k words. Not a whole lot for four months time, but certainly better than nothing at all. During those four months I found lots of info on the internet about writing techniques, what a story consists of, etc. And I began to tell myself “I have no idea what I’m doing. My story has no plot, I don’t know what the conflict is…” and on and on. I decided I had to plot my novel and figure out what it was all about before writing any further.
So I’ve been taking online workshops. Buying e-books. Checking a ton of books out of the library (which I basically scan to see if they have what I’m looking for, and if not I return them right away). I read blogs every day searching for words of wisdom. I skim through twitter every day for links to articles about writing. But I DON’T WRITE.
(If you want to get technical, I did write a two-page synopsis of my story for a synopsis workshop, and a few 3-line pitches for a pitching workshop I took. And if you’re asking “why would she take synopsis and pitching workshops if she’s only a quarter of the way done with her WIP?” I don’t blame you. (Although I have read in a few places that it can be helpful to have a synopsis before beginning your manuscript.) I think I am becoming workshop obsessed, but that’s a whole other post!)
Am I avoiding writing because I’m scared? Or because I think I don’t know what the hell I’m doing? Maybe because I want my story to be perfect, and it won’t be perfect until I learn everything there is to know about novel writing!!!! Whatever the reason is, I know it’s not a valid one. I can write complete sh*t every day and save what I learn from workshops and books and articles for when I get to the revision stage. (One good thing is that I’m dumb enough to think that I won’t have to go through one, two, five revisions before my story is ready to be submitted.)
My goal is to have a basic outline for my story done by (this) Friday, so I can start actually moving the story along this weekend. If I can write even just one stinkin chapter this weekend I will be happy. Even accomplishing a small bit of writing will inspire me, and make me feel like I’m not stuck anymore. Or at least that I’m getting myself un-stuck slowly but surely. Because in my rational, left-brained mind I know that no matter how many workshops I take, or how many articles and books I read, nothing is going to get me a publishable manuscript except writing the damn thing!!!!!
10 comments:
Carrie @ comfortedbyGod.blogspot.com
I know what you mean -- I keep telling myself the same thing--just write the book! Im working on two books, one of which has a deadline for september. The hardest problem for me is spreading my time between writing the blog posts (which take quite a bit of time for me to write a quality piece)and then having energy and creativity left over to write the book. Ugh! I'm seriously wondering if I should pare down the blog involvement.
I think you are thinking too hard about getting your pen to paper...start writing something every day. It doesn't matter what it is...journal, write scenes...do something. Lit Agent Mark McVeigh said that writing every day is key to success.
I'm so identifying with your struggle to research the mechanics of getting pubished and actually writing the material. I've had 2 books sitting there with no new work for several months. I have collected mountains of articles, blogs, websites, and writing organizations to learn more and come up with an impeccable query letter and proposal. I have to understand it is profitable to know the ins and outs of the trade, but without the completed manuuscript all the knowledge in the world doesn't help get the manuscript done and doesn't get the work published. I feel I am ready enough to get tot he writing and get myself out there. It sounds like we are very serious so I am confident that we will get there.
I certainly think you should get writing credit for doing writing-related tasks. Research and preparation should count. At some point you gotta just jump in and do it.
HOWEVER, if don't beat yourself up if you're just not ready yet. What's the point? Beating yourself up will just make you miserable, it won't make you sit down to write. You'll do it when you're ready.
Thanks for your support guys! There really is no sense in rushing, the story will come when we're ready for it, and no sooner. I just hope I don't have to wait much longer! ;-)
I know exactly how you feel! I do the same thing with big projects :S Best thing I find that helps is to write something else - not for long just to show you can complete something! A poem or a short story or even a blog entry :D of course you are on that one! I spend hours on twitter, facebook and ebay also but this I would not reccommend! lol. Good luck :)
I was feeling like this a while back, then I read Dead Wesley Smith's motivation series of blog posts and have been writing a whole lot more.
His one piece of advice that really stuck with me was that only writing is writing. Researching isn't writing. Neither is submitting, outlining or thinking. Since then in my weekly goals for myself I break my tasks down into writing and writing-related.
I'm a lot more motivated now. Good luck!
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?s=motivation
One way I gauged whether more workshops were stall tactics was if I went into them with specific question--in other words, had I been doing enough writing to generate a question, and brainstorming or more writing wasn't helping me answer it. If I was just signing up for more and more plotting workshops, or more than one workshop a month, that meant I wasn't doing my own writing.
Another issue I've had to acclimatize myself to is that I'm going to write a lot more than what appears in the final story to get there: drafts, notes, exercises, wrong turns, scenes that get cut, and so on. But think of it like running a race. You don't prepare by researching about running--you have to actually run around the track a lot of times before you get to game day.
My friend Aaron (unstressedsyllables.com, @writingadvice) is a fiction and technical writer and I have seen his motivation for writing skyrocket in the past 2 years since he started writing on Google Docs and Wave where he can share the document with a few close, trusted friends (like me and my wife). He gets a lot of good feedback while he is in the writing process which keeps him motivated.
It's about 3/4 complimentary and 1/4 constructive criticism, which is important because the rough draft is not the time to be critical or perfectionistic.
Check out his blog (after you do some writing of course ;) . His piece today is about using Google Wave to do exactly what I was just talking about.
Good luck! I am in a similar situation having difficulty getting some work done on writing an ebook. It sucks really bad. Here's to completion!
Thanks for the advice and blog links, I will definitely check those out. Research *isn't* writing, but it is often needed (especially for the first time novelist like myself) before the writing can start. I thought I could write my story without a plot outline, and I was wrong. That's how I got stuck and partly why I haven't written in over a month. But I also can't use workshops as an excuse not to work on my story. My goal for June is to get my a** back on track! :)
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