So I’ve Written a Load of Rubbish
I want to turn my hand in this blog to a subject I’m sure must force its way in the consciousness of all writers every once in a while. This is the realisation you sometimes get that what you’ve written is, quite frankly, crap.
It’s happened to me more than once. It ain’t nice. It can be more than a little bit frustrating and it can eat away at your reservoirs of self-confidence. For me just getting to the end of the first draft of a novel typically takes nine to twelve months. That’s a lot of work and a sizeable emotional commitment. To read that completed first draft and face the undeniable truth that it’s a pile of pants can leave you feeling mentally and emotionally drained. It hurts.
I am willing to take risks with my writing, which is precisely what I did with a novel I wrote during the course of 2013. It went well to begin with, but as I reached out in to the final quarter of the book there began to develop within me a fear that I would find no way to bring things to a satisfactory conclusion. Those fears turned out to be well grounded and as I brought things to a close I did so without the usual sense of satisfaction and completion.
Whenever I have looked at why things have gone so wrong, the problem, in most cases, is down to an underlying flaw in the story itself. Frankly, sometimes it just isn’t interesting enough; it can even be downright boring. Or, you can just lose your way and end up scratching around for some means of bringing things to a conclusion. This is exactly what happened with that story I wrote during 2013; I finished up bringing things to a contrived and unsatisfactory conclusion because I’d lost my way earlier on.
As writers, we never stop learning and part of this process of learning is finding out for ourselves what does and does not work. We also need to push ourselves, trying new things, in order to develop our skills. This will inevitably deliver to us the occasional unhappy experience as we realise that what we have written is rubbish, but when it does we should accept, learn and move on.
For the full version of this post please see http://www.benwesterham.com/a-writers....
Get your free copy of the Ben Westerham starter library here http://www.benwesterham.com/subscribe....
Crime fiction with attitude and humour from 1980s London.
It’s happened to me more than once. It ain’t nice. It can be more than a little bit frustrating and it can eat away at your reservoirs of self-confidence. For me just getting to the end of the first draft of a novel typically takes nine to twelve months. That’s a lot of work and a sizeable emotional commitment. To read that completed first draft and face the undeniable truth that it’s a pile of pants can leave you feeling mentally and emotionally drained. It hurts.
I am willing to take risks with my writing, which is precisely what I did with a novel I wrote during the course of 2013. It went well to begin with, but as I reached out in to the final quarter of the book there began to develop within me a fear that I would find no way to bring things to a satisfactory conclusion. Those fears turned out to be well grounded and as I brought things to a close I did so without the usual sense of satisfaction and completion.
Whenever I have looked at why things have gone so wrong, the problem, in most cases, is down to an underlying flaw in the story itself. Frankly, sometimes it just isn’t interesting enough; it can even be downright boring. Or, you can just lose your way and end up scratching around for some means of bringing things to a conclusion. This is exactly what happened with that story I wrote during 2013; I finished up bringing things to a contrived and unsatisfactory conclusion because I’d lost my way earlier on.
As writers, we never stop learning and part of this process of learning is finding out for ourselves what does and does not work. We also need to push ourselves, trying new things, in order to develop our skills. This will inevitably deliver to us the occasional unhappy experience as we realise that what we have written is rubbish, but when it does we should accept, learn and move on.
For the full version of this post please see http://www.benwesterham.com/a-writers....
Get your free copy of the Ben Westerham starter library here http://www.benwesterham.com/subscribe....
Crime fiction with attitude and humour from 1980s London.
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