You know, I used to get really freaking emotional about my writing. I’d post these notes up all over my room, some of them philosophical, others just giving myself general encouragement, and I’d read, revise, analyze, reanalyze, tear apart, and thrash my own writing. And then I’d get so emotionally wrapped up in it that when I got to about 120 pages I’d decide that the whole thing was crap, take down all the notes, put away the story, and just leave it all behind me. Totally cut it out of my life. And then I’d be depressed for a long time–until I could finally work up the courage to take out the wretched manuscript and look at it again.
Well, those were the old days. That’s what I USED to do. I’m much too grown up and enlightened to revert back to that. After all, it was just teenage angst. I’m past it. I’m capable of looking at my writing rationally and keeping its quality detached from my own view of myself. I can be brave, self-confident, and not get hung up on the little things. I can look at the problems with my writing and fix them without getting upset or depressed. I can take criticism and it won’t be all that painful.
Well, these were the things that I USED to believe. But now, I’m starting to realize that it’s probably all crap.
I’m approaching 120 pages again. My story is at 25,000+ words and I’m definitely committed to it now. More committed, perhaps, than I’ve been to a story since returning from my mission (at least, more committed to a novel-length story since I’ve already finished two short stories). And now that I’m committed, and right in the middle of the story itself, I’m starting to feel the unpredictable emotions coming on.
It’s like I’m on a roller coaster as it slowly gets pulled to the top of that very first drop–the machine is going <click> <clack> and I’m about 200 or 300 feet up in the air. The first drop off is maybe 30 feet away and I’m already starting to feel sick.
I think this realization came today during the writing meeting. It was a very good writing meeting, and I got some good and much needed feedback on my story. But I really started to feel kind of anxious as I heard people analyzing my story. I’ve felt that a little bit before, but I’ve always been able to put it aside. This time, it felt a lot stronger, and came when I wasn’t expecting it–even when people were giving my praise.
Last Winter, when Aneeka was still around, I remember the expression she would have on her face as I would give her feedback and criticism on her writing. She’d get really tense and almost a little bit scared, like an animal backed up into a corner or like a prisoner watching the torturer approach carrying some kind of unpleasant looking tool in his hand. It seemed very strange to me at the time, but I think I started to feel like that today.
And also, I think that it’s getting easier and easier to doubt my story. I’m past the honeymoon stage, where the story has just begun, I’ve got all these great ideas in my head and everything is in front of me. Now, I’ve covered some sizeable distance, and I can look back and say “oh, I need this character to be more like this,” or “I really did a poor job of this and it’s going to affect what I want to write in this upcoming scene.”
At the same time, I’m approaching the point where all these crucial questions and concepts about the world I’m writing need to have concrete answers. When I started, I could just generalize and say “well, the universe of my story is kind of like this,” or “this culture has a certain religion, and it’s kind of like this, but I’m sure I’ll work out the details when I get to that point.” Well, I’m at that point now, and I haven’t finished working out the concept. And because I don’t have the answers that I need in the concrete and specific form that I need them, it’s very easy to doubt the story and say “is this idea really any good anyways?”
So, things are starting to get a little bit tough emotionally. I can only expect it to get worse as I go along. If it happens even to the pros, so how can I expect to get away unscathed?
But there is some hope. Plenty of it, in fact. Right after the writing meeting today, I decided to go through and quickly make all the revisions that I felt the story needed (and there were plenty of them, including the embarrassing fact that Jorgen praised me for how villainous I made out this one character to be, when in fact that character was supposed to be one of the good guys!). As I thought about the revisions that I needed to make, I got really worried about them. My story, I felt, was pretty bad, and needed some major work. Well, as soon as I put in my flash drive and pulled up the story, those thoughts of “my story isn’t very good, it needs a lot of work” went away, and I just focused on what was in front of me. I saw a problem, fixed it, worked in some new stuff that made that area a little bit better, then moved on to the next thing. In a couple of hours, I had made all the revisions that had been suggested and really felt satisfied with the changes. I was excited to move on and keep writing. It was great!
So, I guess that once you REALLY commit to a story, you start to experience some pretty intense emotions. But not all of them are going to be bad. My experience so far has been that the more distanced I am from my story, the worse I think that it is, whereas the more I sit down and work on it, the more satisfaction I get. That may change in the future, but for now, it’s enough to keep me going.
Would it be too ironic to point you to your post you posted just an hour before this?
As you pointed out in that post, one shouldn’t worry about their story so much since one can’t control how readers will react to it.
But, as you are now realizing it, that lovely logic that makes perfect sense seems to do diddly squat against the mountain of doubt that rises before you. That sense of ‘the story is bad’, not to demotivate you, but will most likely hound you for the rest of your writing, and at times, it can get downright paralyzing. But, as you’ve found, just getting the story out and facing the issues can help a lot to quell those doubts and allow you to keep going. It’s that crucial ‘just face the story’ that can be the hardest part, especially if you ARE facing the story and you STILL can’t seem to fix it enough that it will make it better enough for you to move on, and so you’re still stuck at square one and still have that pile of changes that need to happen, but you just don’t know how to input them that will make them work and you’re just getting so tired of it not working out…
But, if you want to be a writer, you’ve got to suck up and keep going. You can write out a post of all your thoughts (like I tend to do), but a writer writes, and so you force yourself to your story, day in and day out, and grind out ideas, hoping one of them will be the solution that will make everything better at last.
It’s definitely a roller coaster; but I love the highs so much that I’m willing to survive through the lows (assuming I CAN survive the lows), and so I keep going.
So, buckle your seat belt, boy. You’re in for a wild ride ^_^
Well, I guess you are permitted to use my own words against me. This time. 🙂
It’s a little bit different. It’s not so much that I’m worried that the writing is perfect, as much as “are the readers getting a story as good as the story that’s in my head?” Because when I just go off and think about my story to myself, I have no worries at all–it’s when I see and hear their reactions that I start to have these doubts. Or when I take an idea and try to predict what the readers’ reaction will be.
But yeah, I can see that it’s going to start getting pretty crazy. I have no idea if I’ll ever submit this story anywhere–scratch that, I have no idea if it will ever get published anywhere (since what the heck, I might as well submit it SOMEWHERE). In short, I really don’t know how this is going to turn out. But yeah, I’m going to stick with it. When I finish this novel in April, it will be the first rough draft of a novel length story that I’ve ever finished! For no other reason, I should stay on through the ups and downs for for that.