If you’re not interested in writer insanity, you can stop reading now. It’s okay.
I should be asleep right now, but two things are keeping me awake. I have a chapter up for my critique group this week. And I was having trouble getting into my scene today.
I’m putting this down, in public, on the blog, because people might find it interesting. Also, it’s like 1AM, so expect the typos to be worse than usual.
I re-joined my critique group recently because I like helping other people. I never intended to put things up for critique for any other reason than turnabout is fair play, and yet, here I am awake. What if they all say the chapter isn’t ready, or it needs work? I’ve reworked it more times than I can remember. Of course, I tend to forget things rather easily, so that might just be three times, but I’m sure it’s more like ten.
I think some, or possibly most, of the anxiety I’m feeling stems from the story itself. You see, when I write, I tend to take on aspects of my character’s personalities, and Nick Baker is just a little bit crazy. He jumps at the slightest provocation. He’s not one to poke around a dusty attic, or sit with his back to a dark room. Hopefully, he will be fun to read, but right now, he’s in my head.
Okay, second reason for crazy, or are we up to three. I worked on re-writing a scene today, and I realized I’d walked off the edge of the world. I’d always intended to do a complete re-write to the end of the current book, but now that the time is here and I find myself gun shy to modify a manuscript I’ve always put so much work into. Everything I write form here on out is just a first draft hanging on 60,000 completed words. The book could be another 10k or 30k or 60k long. I don’t know. Usually, I say this is the fun part, but today, I just got caught a little off guard.
I feel like I’m never going to finish this book. I’m not tired of working on it. Things seem to be going reasonably well. I’m just not working that fast, and there’s a bunch to do.
Yes, I could work longer or harder if I wanted to see things move faster, but I discovered long ago that I have my own internal clock and it is broken. When I’m on, I can give Superman a run for his money, but sometimes the gears just don’t want to mesh. I’m starting to think tomorrow morning’s not going to be a good day. What time is it again? Oh, yeah.
They say that everyone is a little crazy on the inside. I’ve just shared a little of mine, but blogging is an imperfect form of crazy release. I need to start stockpiling my crazy for the forces of good and channeling it into the manuscript.
For me, writer’s block is when my expectations aren’t matching the words I’m writing. It’s pretty hard on some of the larger projects I’ve worked on.
I did notice that when I think a chapter sucks to high heaven, I set it aside. The next day, I realize it wasn’t quite the feces smeared on the page that I thought it was. The problem is that while I’m writing it, I’m the lousiest writer in the world. My little one could write better than me. Fluffy just rolls her eyes and tells me “yeah, yeah, you suck, blah, blah, go to bed.”
In the end, I’d say its going to be good and just let it go. Submit it to the group and trust yourself. If anything, they can give you an idea of what you are missing or give you a suggestion that, in itself is horrible, but manages to lead you to the right choice. I know that some of my chapters were a lot stronger because of the ideas you and the others have given me.
Oddly enough, I read through the scene today, said, “Not bad,” and moved on.