Writing Therapy
First of all, thank you for everyone who commented on my last post. All your lovely thoughts & support mean a lot to me :)
In terms of getting back to the work, I've had a number of different thoughts in the past few months.
For a while I was trying to revise TTOB. I'd gotten some good responses, but as it's the project I've been working on the longest, it's also the project I feel the most perfectionisty about. It shouldn't matter that I'm adding a whole new POV that wasn't there before and that I'm changing the other narrator from third person to first-- it should be close to perfect so many drafts in, damn it! Current me says: Errr... yeah. Right... About that... You're basically writing a different book. Chill.
After the un-agenting, I thought I needed to push through a revision of DARLINGTON, cause, well, that's the newest project I was working on pre-agenting. Obviously best choice for next draft out to query. Around November it came to a screeching halt. I hated it. I hated everything about it. It sucked. My CPs/crit group will tell you this was not the case. I will now tell you this was not the case, but at the time-- it sucked. I hated it. That was all that mattered-- cause if I was already failing at everything, why not just add another thing?
Another thought I had after the un-agenting was that I needed to take another look at a certain part of ACCURSED. This came mostly from one agent's (not the one I wound up with) and one editor's feedback. Usually that's not a big enough sample for me to decide to make a major change, but these were professionals whose opinion I really respect. And the more I thought about it-- and the way the editor phrased it really brought it home to me-- the more I realized they were right. So I toyed with the idea some, wrote a few new scenes. But it's hard to work on a story that has already been on sub, since you know it might not be able to go back out again. So while I played with it, and wanted to make it the best it could be, at the time I couldn't give my whole heart to it.
Throughout this I had the feeling that what I really needed was to lose myself in a first draft. But I felt totally adrift-- what would this New!Project! be? I had a few ideas started and while I thought them good, they weren't hooking me. And then CONVICTION popped into my head. It's the same basic premise as a story I began waaaaay back in 2002, but I re-thought the casting and made the MCs much more YA and put them instantly in a life-threatening situation and boom! New story! New first draft! For a while, I was moving along at a good clip. But, like with all new stories, there came a point where I realized I had no idea where I was going or what I wanted to be saying. Thankfully, this has been a recent bump, so I'm feeling more hopeful about continuing than I would have been a month or so ago.
What does this very long tale of writing disappointments have to do with what I'm doing right now? Well... everything. Because somewhere in the last couple years, with so much focus on getting ACCURSED ready to query & then querying it, I forgot how I write. And I am inherently a project-hopper. So what am I working on now?
Everything. All of the above.
Not every piece every day. That would be crazy. And not a lot every day, because I'm still re-finding my groove. I wish I could go back to my easy 1k+ days, but writing is a muscle, and I have to build mine back up. But trying to focus on just one project has left me feeling like I'm failing when I'm not. Getting stuck is not failing. It's part of the process. It happens to everyone. But where I've been at lately, it felt like failing. So now if I'm feeling stuck on what comes next in CONVICTION, I switch over to what I know has to happen next in my ACCURSED revision. If I'm not sure what happens next in TTOB, I play with a scene in DARLINGTON that I know needs tweaked. Even if it's only a few hundred words, it's forward-motion. It's progress.
And it feels good.
Plus, I no longer feel guilty when I see this:
Source: amandaonwriting.tumblr.com via Kathleen on Pinterest
Yessir, Sherlock-Benedict.
Oh! And before I forget, early next week I'll have an announcement RE: new pricing for my critique services. One thing I've also figured out in these past months, despite my own floundering, is just how much I love helping other writers, so in an effort to reach more of them, I'm lowering my crit prices. Please check back Monday or Tuesday for an announcement and contest!
In terms of getting back to the work, I've had a number of different thoughts in the past few months.
For a while I was trying to revise TTOB. I'd gotten some good responses, but as it's the project I've been working on the longest, it's also the project I feel the most perfectionisty about. It shouldn't matter that I'm adding a whole new POV that wasn't there before and that I'm changing the other narrator from third person to first-- it should be close to perfect so many drafts in, damn it! Current me says: Errr... yeah. Right... About that... You're basically writing a different book. Chill.
After the un-agenting, I thought I needed to push through a revision of DARLINGTON, cause, well, that's the newest project I was working on pre-agenting. Obviously best choice for next draft out to query. Around November it came to a screeching halt. I hated it. I hated everything about it. It sucked. My CPs/crit group will tell you this was not the case. I will now tell you this was not the case, but at the time-- it sucked. I hated it. That was all that mattered-- cause if I was already failing at everything, why not just add another thing?
Another thought I had after the un-agenting was that I needed to take another look at a certain part of ACCURSED. This came mostly from one agent's (not the one I wound up with) and one editor's feedback. Usually that's not a big enough sample for me to decide to make a major change, but these were professionals whose opinion I really respect. And the more I thought about it-- and the way the editor phrased it really brought it home to me-- the more I realized they were right. So I toyed with the idea some, wrote a few new scenes. But it's hard to work on a story that has already been on sub, since you know it might not be able to go back out again. So while I played with it, and wanted to make it the best it could be, at the time I couldn't give my whole heart to it.
Throughout this I had the feeling that what I really needed was to lose myself in a first draft. But I felt totally adrift-- what would this New!Project! be? I had a few ideas started and while I thought them good, they weren't hooking me. And then CONVICTION popped into my head. It's the same basic premise as a story I began waaaaay back in 2002, but I re-thought the casting and made the MCs much more YA and put them instantly in a life-threatening situation and boom! New story! New first draft! For a while, I was moving along at a good clip. But, like with all new stories, there came a point where I realized I had no idea where I was going or what I wanted to be saying. Thankfully, this has been a recent bump, so I'm feeling more hopeful about continuing than I would have been a month or so ago.
What does this very long tale of writing disappointments have to do with what I'm doing right now? Well... everything. Because somewhere in the last couple years, with so much focus on getting ACCURSED ready to query & then querying it, I forgot how I write. And I am inherently a project-hopper. So what am I working on now?
Everything. All of the above.
Not every piece every day. That would be crazy. And not a lot every day, because I'm still re-finding my groove. I wish I could go back to my easy 1k+ days, but writing is a muscle, and I have to build mine back up. But trying to focus on just one project has left me feeling like I'm failing when I'm not. Getting stuck is not failing. It's part of the process. It happens to everyone. But where I've been at lately, it felt like failing. So now if I'm feeling stuck on what comes next in CONVICTION, I switch over to what I know has to happen next in my ACCURSED revision. If I'm not sure what happens next in TTOB, I play with a scene in DARLINGTON that I know needs tweaked. Even if it's only a few hundred words, it's forward-motion. It's progress.
And it feels good.
Plus, I no longer feel guilty when I see this:
Source: amandaonwriting.tumblr.com via Kathleen on Pinterest
Yessir, Sherlock-Benedict.
Oh! And before I forget, early next week I'll have an announcement RE: new pricing for my critique services. One thing I've also figured out in these past months, despite my own floundering, is just how much I love helping other writers, so in an effort to reach more of them, I'm lowering my crit prices. Please check back Monday or Tuesday for an announcement and contest!