Difficult – Page 2 – [Sic] Of Writing

Something I have struggled with recently is the feeling that I am constantly second guessing myself. That no matter what idea I can come up with, there is a better one lurking around the corner. This has seriously hindered my writing progress.

Most recently, I was trying to work through a couple of logical gaps in my story. Ideas I had had that needed just a bit more work to mould them into useable threads. I spent a long time just sitting and thinking and came up with a few things to explain the ideas I wanted to use. This was great. I was really pleased with what I’d come up with. The problem was that if I had chosen to follow through with them, it meant I was 40,000 words into my second book, with not a single word of the first written anywhere. This was a rather daunting prospect.

So I did some more thinking, talked to my wife a bit about it and came up with some alternatives which I’m now happy with. The problem now is that having stalled with the writing a little, I’m now suffering the dreaded conviction that my entire story is a boring pile of crap. Which brings me all the way back to second guessing myself on the whole thing.

I keep telling myself ‘a finished draft is better than a perfect draft’ and to give me credit, I’m planning to do some writing this weekend, but I wonder how often other writers do this? Do they constantly criticise their plot before even giving it the courtesy of getting it down on paper?

I’m sure I’m not alone, so I’ll just keep repeating that mantra ‘finished is better than perfect’!

Don’t get me wrong, I never entered into this thinking writing a novel was easy. I’m not one of those people! I don’t imagine authors just sitting at their laptop smashing out thousands of words non-stop, drink in hand, smug grin on their face as they read it back, line by memorable line with barely an edit necessary. No, I know being an author is hard.

Quite aside from coming up with a coherent plot, a host of noteworthy characters, and an engaging way of writing, when I say writing is hard I mean the physical act! I have been genuinely surprised when I’ve been writing a scene, and even enjoying writing a scene, at how frustrating it can sometimes be to have to slow my thought process down enough to undertake the laboriously slow deed of actually transferring those thoughts to the page (I’m actually writing my first draft by hand and will tell you why in another post). It’s hard work!

There’s definitely a part of me that would just love the first draft to be a download direct from my brain, so that I had the bare bones upon which to actually form my story. Sort of like a jigsaw puzzle, except right now I feel like I’m actually building the pieces, only to then have to put them all together properly, rather than starting with the pieces in front of me, already having a vague idea where they neeed to go. I’m sure there’s an argument that this is a vital part of the process, and I’m sure it is at least to a degree, but boy is it time consuming!

Now, I’m willing to bet any authors reading this will be thinking ‘ho ho hooo, you just wait till you start editing! That’s the hard part!’ and yes, from what I’ve heard, it is indeed, but I think it’s different. When you’re editing, you’re improving! You’re moulding the clay, not digging it out of the ground, and I can’t help but think that no matter how difficult that might be, it must be a heck of a lot more satisfying! Unless of course you find some huge mistake and you have to go back and re-write half your book. I can imagine that would suck pretty bad… but I would hope that’s not so common! Plus it means you’re back to digging, not moulding so my point stands!

So yes, much as I am enjoying writing, and every word is progress, I somehow never thought it would be such hard work just getting it all out!

Tag: Difficult

Losing the Plot

Writing is hard!