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.