When I was a kid, I wrote prolifically. In high school, I wrote in class, after school, between classes, etc. I wrote obessively and often, not to produce anything (except schoolwork) but simply because I wrote.
My mother and ex-husband worked really hard to make sure I felt too self-conscious about my writing to continue in that vein, and now years later it's like pulling teeth for me to write. I'm miserable when I'm not writing. But it takes me years to finish even the smallest thing. I can't force any ideas, I never like what I write, and even though I know I'm good when I'm on form it's such a rare thing for me to write and be happy with it.
I need to get my groove back and I'm not sure how. Does anyone else suffer from crippling insecurity and brain-freeze? How do you get past it?
Read both of these. Especially in the first one the part labeled Dunning-Kruger Effect. I think it will help you alot and address alot of the questions you have here. Let me know if it helps .
http://litreactor.com/columns/5-ways-your-brain-sabotages-your-writing-and-what-to-do-about-it
http://litreactor.com/columns/5-more-ways-your-brain-sabotages-your-writing-and-what-to-do-about-it
I was like you, I used to fill up notebooks, handwritten, until my hands cramped up. There is still a flat spot on my right middle finger from it. I went through a long hiatus, in large part due to my own crappy ex-husband. It took me a full year and a half to get back into it seriously and I still struggle with writing daily--it feels so foriegn to me, to NOT want to write. But I have found when I commit myself to an hour a day, and I make myself do it, my brain opens up the little lock box in my brain after a little while and I have lots of ideas and inspiration.
Thanks, y'all. Good articles, gave me a lot to think about. I've tried doing that whole "just sit down and write" thing, and what I wind up doing is sitting there staring at a blank screen for thirty minutes feeling increasing panic. Sometimes I will then give up and pop off something that sucks. Sometimes I'll order a glass of wine and write something. Sometimes I will give up and go fart around on Facebook until my time is up. This is why I need tips.
It doesn't help that I grew up in an extremely repressed community (Catholic school and all) and most of what I want to write about is sex. I like sex, stripping, BDSM, hookers, swinging, polyamory, sex work, sexual politics, etc., and it's hard to find an outlet. So when I do sit down to write, I generally wind up censoring myself because the things I can easily write about are "not appropriate" and I have a hard time coming up with other topics. I need to just figure out a way to be a professional erotica writer, I guess.
Okay, so I DO have a recommendation for you. I used to be ashamed of my writing when I was young because I wrote about a lot of violence, sex, etc. Just read more of what you want to write. Find the classics that cover it. I am reading Tropic Of Cancer (as my little doohickey above says) and I am blown away by the frank and graphic sex that was written and published in THE THIRTIES. Dig around and find those well respected books that take sex and lay it out. Read the new ones (try Chronology of Water by LitReactor instructor Lidia Yuknavitch--it will change your views on sex in literature, sex in life, what it means to fuck up, and maybe everything, I recommend it to everyone anyway, but it's especially appropriate here).
Then, read as much erotica as you can take if you want to write straight erotica (straight meaning straightforward not heteronormal). The more you read it, the more it will feel okay to write it, the more you will see what you can do better and what you can look to as a standard to reach for. I was just telling another member here that on Duotrope right now there is something like 103 markets for erotica on the site. Super easy to use, and there is even an article here in LitReactor magazine about how to use Duotrope (written by Richard Thomas--who is another author you may want to look for when looking into sex in literature).
That is enormously helpful. Thank you so much!
No problem!
And to think, I was intimidated to talk to you because I was afraid I'd accidentally call you "Kim".
In the same vein as sparrow, I gain inspiration from watching movies or YouTube vids, along with reading. I watched pulp fiction yesterday for inspiration. There are a lot of things you can do. Forcing yourself works, but you gotta push through that initial frustration, which is my problem.
I'd recommend reading Chuck Palahniuk's 36 essays on writing under the craft essays above. Being stuck recently on a story and not finding the motivation to write, I looked through those again, and by having certain structural elements relayed to me in a fresh way, I broke through and figured what it was that was hobbling me in the first place.
Another thing that works for me when nothing seems to come through is to leave the computer at home and take a notebook to a park or beach and write long-hand. I find the words and ideas flow SO much easier without a stupid blinking cursor to beat me into giving up. Something tells however that you're going to break through this just fine!
@SparrowStark as well: Sorry that you both went through divorce. Hope it had nothing to do with your writing, because I'd consider myself one lucky mofo to marry a woman some day that wrote dirty:)
Just think about all the money you'll have once you do whatever it is you don't really want to do.
or
Learn to care only about what other people think of your writing, since you'll never be satisfied with it yourself.
or
Don't worry about the volume of output and only write things you are compelled to write.
or
Follow somebody else's advice.
or
Write intensely repressed erotica. You never know, it could be like the Blair Witch Project was to horror: "It's so much sexier when you see nothing and nothing really happens."
@ J.Y. ~ now I want you to write intensely repressed erotica
@ Kimberly ~ taking a class could give you motivation to write
Hope it had nothing to do with your writing, because I'd consider myself one lucky mofo to marry a woman some day that wrote dirty:)
Ha...no. It mostly had to do with him. Or my poor decision in a partner ;) I've learned my lesson though, and current HusBANG! is making dinner while I write...er...post on Litreactor...I'd better go write...
Not to sound too militant, because that's certainly not the intention, but stop ritualizing and overthinking everything. Give yourself permission to suck.
It's just a first draft. Relax.
Write like crazy when you can, but don't beat yourself up over the quality of your writing or the length of time it takes you to get a certain amount of words written. Write to please yourself, but consider your audience and try to find beta readers who represent a portion of that audience.
Don't worry about what your parents would think; don't worry about facing your coworkers come Monday morning; and don't psychoanalyze yourself too much in the process of drafting your story. . . .
Do what makes you happy. If writing doesn't, then it's probably not for you.
Outside of LitReactor, Chuck Wendig's blog Terribleminds is your new best friend. He's just the kick in the ass you need to get down to business: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/03/25-things-writers-should-stop-doing/
(Helped me get busy, anyway.)
I'm under the impression you wrote those by hand in high school, if not this may not apply to you. What worked for me was stop typing and started longhand. I wrote 2 novels totaling 130,000 words together, and 15,000 words plus detailed outlined for two more by hand at a boring job that wouldn't let me use a computer in maybe 18 months.
The 3 years after that I left that position (some with the same company, but different job) I was trying to type resulting in 1 blog post I'm very proud of and about 3 chapters.
Since I went back to writing by longhand about a year ago I've produce a memoir of about 62,000 words to the revision phase, 4 short stories to the revision phase, 10 poems to the revision phase, a fair amount of rewriting on 1 of the two I wrote by hand at that job, 20,000+ words with outlines for rest of about 4 other books, 30,000 words on a non-fiction project I'm not sure what it will be, a dozen detailed outlines, 1 article I'm hoping to get published online, one page of sentences I love but don't know what to do with, and a few hundred vague outlines.
That's great advice. Sometimes I still have to step away from the computer and get a college ruled notebook out--though I've mostly come around to the efficiency of the word processor.
Efficiency in writing is measured by amount and quality of writing produced, so for me word processors are strictly a editing tool. Although I have a few chapters a on a book a out a super villain written on Word just as an experiment.
I agree, but as I got more used to doing first drafts on the computer, I was able to do them as quickly and as well (usually) as I did longhand...so then it is easier to revise and edit when I am ready to do that. But sometimes I need to go back to basics. In fact, I've spent a large portion of my day staring at a blinking cursor, I may do that right now.
If nothing else you can always just put a big mark on the page to get started. That doesn't work so well with a screen, but you can do it.
Hahahhahaa
If you do, go with dry erase.
I did have a computer as a kid so I did do some writing on it, but I think you're right in that longhand is more freeing. I took a notebook to a bar last night and popped off some decent stuff, and what's more I didn't go back to tweak and fix and fuss and edit and revise the whole time because I couldn't. I'd just cross something out if I didn't like it while I was writing it, and underline whatever I'd like to change later, and I kept moving a lot faster. So I think I will have to revive the old notebook techniques and saving typing for editing.
Class is also a good suggestion, it's why I'm taking the 200 Proof class here on LitReactor right now.
I think the years I focused on screenwriting have made prose a lot more difficult. You HAVE to do it in this very specific format in Final Draft (at least, I do, or I can't track the progress of what I'm writing without seeing it in the correct format as I go) and you HAVE to be a total control freak about structure and what happens on what page and scene length and so forth. Prose is a lot more free and sometimes I feel like those guys who get out of prison and don't know what to do with themselves once they don't have to answer to anyone or follow a list of mundane rules. I just have to learn to be free again.
Thank you so much for all the good advice, y'all. It really helps a lot!
Well just keep writing. It'll come.
@Kim: I wrote most of the first draft of my first novel in spiral notebooks at a bar. It freed me in ways I think the computer would've stunted. Draft 2 really happened while inputing it into the computer, but most of the soul got in there. I've since practiced enough to write pretty decent one-off first drafts in the computer, but when I feel stuck, I bust out the spirals:) I have a feeling you're gonna do well. In this environment, you'll be pushed and inspired if nothing else.
@ Stacy ---
There she is. Nnnnnnnnh. Nmmhmmhmmhm. Nnnnngggghghhh. Nmmmmmmmhhh. Ghghghhhhhhhnmng. Ngnmhngmnmghnmgnhgm! "Hey, what are you doing Friday?"
Honestly, what worked for me were the Thunderdome Battles here on Litreactor. You challenge a writer, get a crazy prompt, are held to a deadline, and you write. I found my creative juices would flow for three days thinking of a way to twist that prompt into a story and I'd get so amped up about it as soon as I got home I'd go at it.
Hm, I might have to get a full membership to the site (which, honestly, really should come with the price of the classes but whatever). I respond really well to deadlines for some reason. That sounds like a good motivator!
You get a discount on the classes if you're a member. It's important to remember that the instructors need to get paid, too--as they take time out of their oft busy schedules to teach the courses.
I have absolutely no quarrel with the price of the class for that very reason. I just feel like the site membership should be included, at least for the duration of the class. But it's not my site to run and it is what it is, didn't want to pick a fight about it. I'm sorry if I came off as nitpicky.
I sit down to my 'page' and say go: Write a thousand words about the state of your story and your research to back that up. While you are at it explain why you haven't actually written that stuff out yet and why you have twenty unsaved numbered only files instead of naming them and putting them in a safe spot where they can found easily. Do you have a reason for that or are you just procrastinating again? What about that whole snippet “Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.” Giordano Bruno. Is there an explanation that is percolating up from the great scripting room downstairs? Your character is being made an example of despite his minor nature, at 14 federal prison seems totally out of line. You've got that big research file about what happens to inmates as well as why it happens. You should be writing that scene as well. The character study of the criminal breacher and what ties and obligations he arrives with when his sentence is done based on his time inside and actually surviving that. The quote is for an adult situation, he's, 14 how is it going to fit in? Is the scene you write for his sentencing going to live up to that quote? How much detail do you need to put into the character to make him believable and give him a back story for when he shows up and how he shows up and what exactly is the load he'll be carrying in the main character's development path?
If this was an actual exercise or journal entry I would go on and on talking at myself about the things I have to do, have yet to do and what I need to do.
@fport: took me a moment to realize what you were communicating in that post. Now that I've thought about it: Yes. That's good shit right there, especially for longer projects.
@Utah: There seems to be a debate about the 3/750 page/word daily writing exercise being carried on in various places but from my point of view it is always about writing and one person's masturbatory rants are another's writing commitment. Uhm. What I mean is there are levels and levels of writing and not writing and writing half heartedly and so on and so forth but my feeling is to be always moving forward. That leaves the story and its various elements, the writer, me, and my motivations, actions and desires.
On one level I hunt and search for writing advice on character development and plotting. I continually scrape pages for things that I can synthesize to that purpose. The next level of research is the science and background for what I am creating. Organizing all the scraps and snippets is another part of my schedule. Then the hard part, the part I am having some trouble with, is actually writing the story.
@Kimberly: Here's a snippet I cut and pasted into a file;
I didn’t realize this until recently, but the most destructive thing smart people do is spend their lives waiting. Even people with lofty dreams and aspirations get distracted by the inertia of ordinary events and subconsciously store their goals in the waiting place.
If you would like to read more of this article then just cut any ten words and paste it into Mr. Google's search query and you will find it. That technique is a mainstay of mine with the number of blogs I read and clip things from. The other side of it is that like wordnik and its quote finder you can journey to several aspects of any thought and see how it fits in.
