Thing 3: Perspective

[slash4femme]

So many people who write and never publish do so because they are trying to write that perfect work.

The next best seller
The next literary classic 
The kind of book that wins awards and gets taught in English class for generations to come

I know back as an early teen trying to write original fiction not only did I try to write above my skill level

Comments

[ladygray99]

I wrote a half million words of fan fiction. A lot was meh, some was crap, some was really quite good I think. When I hit that half million mark it was like something flipped in my head. I sat down, wrote an original short story in 4 days, sent it in and it got published. I took on a novella next. Took about a month to get through then some edits. It's getting published next month. I just finished my first original novel and I'm working on my second. Don't have much to go on that one. Haven't submitted them yet but I feel good about it.

I think it just hit a point where after all that fan fiction I was able to look at published original fiction and had the confidence to go 'Well I can write that.

[slash4femme]

yeah the same exact thing happened to me. At some point last year I just looked at some published stuff and thought "I can do that." I sat down and powered through a short story in a month, let it sit for two months and edit it for two more, submitted it and got it accepted for publication. Wrote a novella length story and got it accepted for publication too. I now have, two novella length stories and a novel length one in editing.

But yeah if I hadn't had those years and years of writing fanfiction and learning through trial and errors and having people tell me "actually you're pretty good at this." I wouldn't have even tried.

congratulations on your upcoming release by the way :~)

[eglantine_br]

I want to get there. i want that confidence. I don't have it yet.

[slash4femme]

If you really want to write original but like me have a giant block about how it's supposed to be so much harder then fanfiction, I hope that you push past that soon, because really it isn't. Different but not harder and people who write fanfiction are just as much writers as the ones who write original fiction. Ironically though it took me having written some original fiction and getting it accepted for publication to realize that.