writer's gloom

[jazzfish]

Writer's gloom: The absolute unshakeable conviction that your work is horrid, that the piece you've been slaving over is fit only for birdcage liner / a waste of perfectly good electrons, that you've been deluding yourself about any ability you might have to string three words together in an entertaining or insightful or even coherent fashion, and that you'd be much better off chucking the MS / computer off the nearest cliff and getting a job scrubbing toilets, because then at least the crap you'd be exposed to every day wouldn't be your own.

Which is to say, last night was rough, and I'm grateful that I have people who are willing to say "no, really, it's pretty decent. especially this thing you did here, i liked that a lot."

Have very nearly hit a brick wall on Junkyard Dog. I know how this scene ends and I know in general terms how the story wraps up (unless it doesn't), but everything after this scene is a big blank. Oh well. I'll finish the scene tonight (and post a wordcount), and then I'll type a few lines of dialog, and then a bit more, and then I'll know what the next scene is. The only way out is through.

Comments

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

I recommend reading some truly awful and yet prolifically published writers, like say, de Lint. You will feel like a frakkin genius.

de lint is that bad?

[jazzfish]

Yeah, reading other people's stuff in the fiction writing classes I took in college always made me feel better about my own, too. :)

Unfortunately there's two problems with this approach right now.

First, what I've got right now is crap, for the simple reason that it's not even first-draft quality yet. Taken as that, it's probably alright; compared to anything that's been finished, let alone polished, it looks pretty steaming.

Second, that someone's willing to pay $Author.Bad is mostly just depressing, in an "oh god how bad must my stuff be if i can't even get published but this non-gender-specific guy can" sort of way.

Re: de lint is that bad?

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

"oh god how bad must my stuff be if i can't even get published but this non-gender-specific guy can"

Maybe it's different for someone who's never tried to publish anything. Bad writers make me feel overwhelmingly inspired to write, partly to redeem whatever genre they're pooping on, and partly because I feel sure that I could outdo them and outsell them if I wanted to.

The problem with de Lint is that he writes for ten year-olds, but nobody's told him.

Re: de lint is that bad?

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

My thought process is like, 'Wow, people are really eating this shit up. Imagine what would happen if I put out some grilled cheese sandwiches!'

Re: de lint is that bad?

[jazzfish]

Ah. At times when I think I'm capable of making a grilled cheese sandwich, that would cheer me up. :)

Re: de lint is that bad?

[ancientsong.livejournal.com]

I think the reason people (or at least I) read de Lint still is because he's created a cool town and cool characters. Whether or not his writing is terrific doesn't seem to matter so much at least not to me.

[ancientsong.livejournal.com]

Ack! I hate writer's gloom. It doesn't happen to me often but then I haven't had much time to write. And with FGD, I've taken a write-no-matter-what attitude so I can finish the first draft. I could easily agonize over every word (I'm pretty good at that) but then I'd never finish a thing.

Glad you got some support last night.

[jazzfish]

Yeah, that's mostly what I'm doing. When I look back over to remind myself of plot points/hooks I can usually do so without passing judgement on it. Someplace I saw called this "giving yourself permission to write badly" so that you'll finish at all.

Last night was the first time I'd read over it with the thought 'someone else might see this,' and. . . yeah. That was a mistake.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

*cough* also posted this morning

This is why I found NaNo a good experience; you prove to yourself that you can just KEEP TYPING, because you have to, and somehow the story goes on.

[jazzfish]

Heh. Scaled down for a short story, that looks about right. Sentences such as "'Damn you, barbarian' Shrieked the soldier as he observed his comrade in death" would have looked like sheer brilliance next to my stuff last night.

Mostly I'm doing alright with the JUST KEEP WRITING IT plan ("permission to write badly.") I just made the mistake last night of looking at it as something I might have to show to people in its current form.

[sir-alf.livejournal.com]

Excerpted from a NaNoWriMo Pep talk written from Neil Gaiman:

The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm---or even arguing with me---she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh, you're at that part of the book, are you?"

I was shocked. "You mean I've done this before?"

"You don't remember?"

"Not really."

"Oh yes," she said. "You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients."

I didn't even get to feel unique in my despair.

So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.

One word after another.

[jazzfish]

Before it got really bad, I was even thinking, "Oh, this is what eBear and Mr Neil talk about when they say there's a point where they just plain hate the book." S'hard to keep perspective when things get bad, though.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, but Neil Gaiman gets to look in the mirror and say "I'm Neil Gaiman (http://www.ghastlycomic.com/d/20050501.html)" :-/

[nixve.livejournal.com]

Having scrubbed toilets for a summer I can say that it's really not worth the hype. ew.

[jazzfish]

Yeah, I know. But still.

Also and unrelatedly, I really like that userpic.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

I usually get to that point only after I've put it out there for someone to read it - if it won't come out right while it's writing I blame the muse, but then after I ask people to read it I get second thoughts about it being horrible/crappy/melodramatic/too porny, whichever it happens to be.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

Also, never ever managed to finish a whole novel. I was planning to get close to it once with a fanfic but that was, well, a fanfic with a Mary Sueish lead so I abandoned it and now the only remnant is my username.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

In fact, almost never even managed to "finish a story".

[jazzfish]

You and me both. The only stories I've finished have been for classes.

That's most of why I'm doing the LJ wordcounts, so I can feel like I'm getting somewhere and like I have something to say "hey, i did this." Additional motivation.

[jazzfish]

That's kind of what happened here. I had to read a sentence aloud so we could demonstrate line-editing (how any given sentence can be improved), and I was reading over the whole thing so far trying to find one that wasn't going to embarrass me, and. . . yeah.

[rbandrews]

I do this pretty much every time I try to write a game. Often before I even start making code for the game. In fact, I've worked really hard to make a bunch of rapid prototyping tools so that I can get something written before this stage of the project hits me.

The only kinds of games I've ever finished are clones of ones other people made.

[jazzfish]

I blame myself for this one. It wouldn't have happened but then there was suddenly the possibility of someone else seeing it, and that brought all the flaws into sharp relief.

[lilac-breeze.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes, I know all about Writer's gloom. We're very good friends, in fact. *sigh*

I'm sure your writing is wonderful, if not flat out amazing. Just judging from what I know of you and how you write your entries here, I feel I'm justified in this assessment. Good luck and don't give up, okay?

[jazzfish]

Aw, thank you. :) Not giving up, not at this point.

*poke* You ought to write more yourself, you know.

[lilac-breeze.livejournal.com]

Good. :)

I... I guess I should. Maybe. One day.

[jazzfish]

S'what being a writer's about, after all.