on writing

[nyias]

The only stories I can come up with are the ones I don't like reading -- the ones that don't quite hit the mark. The ones with too many pop culture references and not enough timeless truths. Maybe that's not the problem. Maybe the problem is that I'm just not good enough at writing, at devising plots and depicting characters. Every story has a

Comments

[screendoor3]

I've always felt this way. I guess you just need to write, but don't compromise writing with learning new and exciting things.

You don't have to be good if you're confident, but that's easier said than done, and it's better to be good.

[nyias]

I haven't written anything in, well, a couple of years, but now I feel compelled to. I've got story ideas dropping out of my head every hour.

I started writing something a couple days ago and it really sucked. But I really wanted to write it, so I decided to change the style while still writing the same situations. And it's a lot better than it was originally, so I'm pretty happy about it.

I think that in the case of writing, practice makes perfect (or gives you an inferiority complex). I just need to practice more and I'll feel better about it.

[phoebesmum]

See Mr Earbrass on writing: the unspeakable horror of the literary life!

I have just read through almost my entire back catalogue and found it all worthless, but I know from long experience that if I stay away from it for a few months (or years) I will one day go back and find that some of it isn't that bad.

Um. That may not have been as encouraging as I intended it to be.

[nyias]

I find it very difficult to read through my back catalogue, but when I do I am usually somewhat pleased with what I see. Probably because I have a habit of writing the types of things I want to read, and always put in lame jokes I think are funny. There are a handful of my stories, though, that I will not touch with a ten foot pole. It's kind of weird, because I don't think of myself as prolific at all, but I have written a lot of stories, overall. (And by "a lot" I mean, say, ten, not including a multitude of drabbles.)

It's almost like that one time I was reading an LJ userinfo page, and I was reading the interests they had listed, and I was all like, "This person is the COOLEST person ever." And then I scrolled up and realized that I was reading my own info page. It's just not what I was expecting.