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trying to feel like me again
message 6101:
by
Erin
(new)
Jul 13, 2018 12:27PM
I'm supposed to be at 20,967 by the end of today
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Ughhh why did I allow myself to get so far behind???
The other day though I was doing some plotting for a future chapters and I realized that I absolutely love making bullet points and writing down notes
I didn't realize that I missed doing that kind of thing XD
Seriously though, I was always like that one kid who was super excited to take notes lol
Ahh I'm really excited about my novel right now though
I'll have to eventually delete what I've already posted on Goodreads because I've changed some things
I should feel happy and excited right now but...
Honestly this is why I shouldn't have any
I get too caught up in projects and thinking that I forget about everyone else
I feel bad that I do it but I can't apologize for it because I know that I'll just do it again
I feel like it shouldn't be this easy to avoid people
I feel like lately I've been trying harder to push people away
Dear NaNoWriMo Author,By now you’re probably ready to give up. You’re past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You’re not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You’re in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing, your family, friends and random email acquaintances have gone from being encouraging or at least accepting to now complaining that they never see you any more—and that even when they do you’re preoccupied and no fun. You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that even if you finish it it won’t have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began—a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read—it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.
Welcome to the club.
That’s how novels get written.
You write. That’s the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
A dry-stone wall is a lovely thing when you see it bordering a field in the middle of nowhere but becomes more impressive when you realise that it was built without mortar, that the builder needed to choose each interlocking stone and fit it in. Writing is like building a wall. It’s a continual search for the word that will fit in the text, in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style, all these become secondary to the words. The wall-builder erects her wall one rock at a time until she reaches the far end of the field. If she doesn’t build it it won’t be there. So she looks down at her pile of rocks, picks the one that looks like it will best suit her purpose, and puts it in.
The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.
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.
That’s the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it’s the only way to do it.
So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.
Pretty soon you’ll be on the downward slide, and it’s not impossible that soon you’ll be at the end. Good luck…
Neil Gaiman
"I didn’t even get to feel unique in my despair."^when I started laughing because same
I want to write this novel and these words
(and I want to do a lot of other stuff too)
but I honestly just need to take one step at a time.
AND THAT MEANS PUTTING IN THE EFFORT, ERIN!!!!
Dear Novelist,I’ve been trying to write this pep talk to you for the last two weeks. I’ve thrown out three drafts. I feel embarrassed, sad, frustrated, and… a little confused.
I love National Novel Writing Month. I’ve spoken passionately about it in the past, and I’ll continue to speak passionately whenever I’m asked about it in the future. So why has this pep talk—this letter to you—been so difficult for me to write?
Sometimes the things that matter the most to us are the hardest things to actually do. Sometimes they matter so much that we never do them, because our fear of failure is stronger than our fear of not even trying.
You are still trying.
I am so proud of you.
Before NaNoWriMo, I’d never finished a draft of a novel. I’d worked for seven years on an idea, and I only had seventy pages to show for it. My fear was growing. I was beginning to believe that I didn’t have the discipline necessary to become an author, and it was devastating.
I used to pooh-pooh NaNoWriMo: “How could anyone write good novel in a month?”
But I was missing the point. It isn’t about writing a good novel. It’s about writing a novel. It’s about finishing what you’ve started—a lesson I certainly still needed to learn. I signed up out of desperation. If I couldn’t write something with a beginning, middle, and end before December, I’d stop trying. I let go of my fear of writing a bad novel and used that pent-up energy to fuel the act of writing itself.
Here’s what I want you to know: The kindest thing you can do for yourself right now is to let go of this fear. Don’t worry about writing something bad. Just write.
There will be a time when your journey grows tough. The idea that seemed so shiny and cool in your head… doesn’t seem so shiny and cool on the page. It’s not quite what you had in mind. The rush and thrill of the adventure is fading, and reality—the time and work it’ll take to reach those 50,000 words—is sinking in. Your friends, family, and coworkers are tired of hearing you talk about it. Perhaps you’re even regretting that you told them at all, because now they’re all about to watch you fail.
Well… don’t. Don’t fail.
Keep writing until you reach the end. If you get stuck, take your protagonist down a different path. This isn’t the draft that you’re going to publish. This is the draft that will help you figure out what story you’re really trying to tell.
Novels aren’t written by muses who come down through the ceiling and shoot magic through your fingers and out onto your laptop’s keyboard. Before NaNoWriMo, some teensy part of me still believed that because writing is a creative act, it should feel easy. But fairies don’t write novels. They’re written with one simple equation:
Time + Work = Novel
I hadn’t had much success before NaNoWriMo, because I hadn’t been putting in enough time or work. In addition, my experience of writing 50,000 words in a month proved that big, lofty, crazy-sounding goals can be achieved, which showed me that even bigger goals—say, turning a bad novel into a great one—can also be achieved.
All three of my published novels have started with a NaNoWriMo draft. It’s one of the few things that I can definitively point to and say, “This. This changed everything.”
Writing this letter was difficult, because this month means a lot to me. Just like it means a lot to you. That’s why this feels hard. It matters. And how beautiful is that?
Keep writing,
Stephanie Perkins
I've actually read that one a lot because of my sister lol
Dear Fearless Writer (who might just be a little fatigued at this point),When I was a boy, I watched a lot of old movies on TV, especially westerns. In nearly every western, there was a crucial moment when a character would accidentally step into quicksand. They’d try to lift their feet, but each time they did so, they’d sink deeper. They’d start to panic and flail all about, but the more they’d try to escape, the deeper they would sink.
I grew up thinking that the world was filled with random patches of quicksand. Fortunately, my worldview was inaccurate. Quicksand is a rarity in the world, and I never stepped into it… until I wrote a novel, that is.
Every novel I’ve written includes a minefield of quicksand located precisely in one place: the gaping expanse of the middle. I’ll burst out of the gate on November 1 and sail along with the grand gusts of the beginning of my novel.. then I’ll suddenly hit a slow patch, then another slow patch, and then I’ll realize I’m actually stuck—and sinking.
Every novel is full of such perilous moors. I call it the “muddy middle”—the place where most novels die. When you feel your words enter such swampy territory, it’s easy to concede victory to those naysaying voices in your head pulling you ever deeper into the quicksand. And sometimes defeat can seem strangely comforting. You drop onto those fluffy pillows of complacency where you expect little of yourself, and perhaps little of life. But giving up is never as easy as it initially seems. That empty page is like a ghost that will follow you the rest of your life. Your story won’t stop calling you.
Here’s the thing that those cowpokes in the westerns didn’t know: the more you struggle to get out of quicksand, the more trapped you become. Escaping quicksand is actually quite easy. Your body is less dense than the sand, so all you have to do is relax, and you’ll float to the surface.
The same principle applies to getting through the bogs of your novel. Your impulse might be to panic and thrash about, but the more frantically you try to lunge forward, the more likely you’ll be to sink. If you relax, though, you can float back up to the surface of your story and catch another gust of wind.
So turn off your computer for a few hours. Watch an episode of Doctor Who. Do a couple somersaults. Do whatever it takes to feel a sense of lightness. If you don’t know where your story is going, that’s not a bad thing. View the blank page as an invitation to drop a bucket into the well of your imagination. Don’t write what you know, write what you want to know. Begin with a detail, a mood. Keep expanding. Keep trying different angles. Find a sentence that surprises you. Switch points of view just for the sake of it. Just to experiment. Remember, your mind is acrobatic. Your imagination can take you anywhere.
Once you escape the quicksand, writing one sentence will lead you to another sentence, and you’ll soon see the finish line on the horizon beckoning you. You’ll know that you can keep going by simply putting one word in front of another, and you’ll sense this great gift waiting for you. The gift of your novel. The gift of your journey. The gift of your accomplishment. Plus, you’ll know how to deal with quicksand the next time you step into it—in writing and in life.
Trying to float,
Grant Faulkner
Ahh I want to write a pep talk one day
AHHHHH I SHOULDN'T BE THINKING LIKE THA
I never did finish editing my musical or finishing an album or the two poem collections
I'M GOING TO GO WRITE THIS NOVEL NOW SO BYEEEEEEEEE
I didn't go to sleep last night and I've had coffee and I had an anxiety attack earlier which means I'm starting to feel the effects of being tired which all together equals me being in a high whoo
Seriously though I've had too much coffee today
And I'm going to be seeing a movie later at my uncle's so hopefully I don't fall asleep
I think the last time we saw him was at the old house when he was dropping off mattresses and he was mad at my mom and then he ended up ordering us pizza and it wasn't really a good night, although it'd still been fun to see him
I remember when he told me I wouldn't have to worry about Bill anymore XD
It wasn't the last time I saw him that he said that though
I hope my mom doesn't start anything with him or him with her
I'm just kinda tired of all my family's drama
I'm pretty sure I've had over did cups of voffee
it's personal
Books mentioned in this topic
30 Things I Love About Myself (other topics)Challenger Deep (other topics)
Throes (other topics)
P.S. I Still Love You (other topics)
Delirium (other topics)
