Writingtowne discussion

Any problems that you find constantly reoccurring in your writing? Or any struggles that keep happening to you? Anything else that is a writing struggle feel free to post .
Write about the struggles of writing here.

Ooh! Good topic!
I might be a tad annoying on this one, though :P
Because I have no confidence in what I write... so I always, ALWAYS wanna scrap all of my novels halfway because I think they suck...
I'm always terribly afraid to disappoint. :(

Same thing happens to me! I'm also so worried of failing that I keep re-editing and revising over and over again , then I just scrap it because I've changed it to the point that it's not the story I wanted to tell anymore . :(

Oh boy! I can totally relate
So you know what I do now? I avoid rewriting.
I know, I know! Most authors produce 4 or 5 drafts before they publish anything, but I heard an artist say something the other day and it struck me: "Everyone has an audience."
So in my belief, that means that your first draft will probably find readers just as well as your 12th draft.
The difference is, in your first draft, you still like your story and have fun and it shows in your writing whereas in your 12th draft, it feels like, if someone so much as says the name of your main character once more, you'll throw up! :P

Don't get me wrong, though. I am all for revising, correcting grammar and stuff like that. But as for the writing, I believe that, if you have a solid outline that you like, then you won't need to rewrite the entire thing.
We grow as humans and as writers everyday. We learn something new everyday! So logically, because of that, our books can be bettered EV-RY-DAY.... If you don't say "stop!", you'll find yourself revising forever.

Also, it depends on which path you seek to take. If you go with self-published, the only person you gotta please is you before the book gets on the "shelves". However, if you go the traditional route, then yeah, you'll have to rewrite half a dozen times to please the agent, the publisher, the editor, etc.
But in my experience, with so many people to please, so many people changing things in your book to make it more marketable, it feels like the book isn't even yours anymore. (Well, that's how I felt anyway when it happened to me...)

Wow! Long post! LOL
I'll stop here.
Hope this helped! ^^

Let's do it !!
I'm really excited for what will happen when I *gasp* stop rewriting and editing ! That's such a well thought out and interesting strategy!

Just push through your first draft :)
And when you're done, let it stand for a couple of weeks before rereading and correcting grammar.
You'll see it with a fresh eye as if it was someone else that had written the whole thing!

That is great advice, Valerie. I totally agree.
My problem is--and it's similar to yours--that I read something I wrote, and I instantly see how I could make it better, and I don't want anybody to see the first thing that I wrote. I literally cringe at most of the things that I write.
Because I know that my work will never be perfect, I limit myself to one re-write. But that is after I write it on paper and then type it all.
And I over-complicate things.

Riana, I completely understand the urge to rewrite and cringe, rewrite and cringe . Sometimes , I'll even publish things on the Internet and then later take them down .

I have accepted it as a part of life, and know that I have to let go.

I do that, too, publish things and take them down.
I also just keep writing, pushing through and try my best not to look back at what I wrote and delete it all.
It's been easier, though, because I had a terrible nightmare where I deleted a 35, 000 word book I was working on by accident! I woke up horrified and immediately went to make sure it was all still there. And thank gosh it was.

Yes , that would be the worst nightmare for a writer ...

Something like that actually happened to me. I was trying to open my completed book file to fix a formatting issue. But the file would not open, and it told me that the file was corrupted.
And it was the only file of the fully edited version that I had saved. So basically I lost three years of my life.
I did have another version saved, but I have to go back and fix all the grammar errors. . . AGAIN.

I love grammar. My dream is to correct all the grammar mistakes in the world of literature.

Oh dear. I can't imagine having that happen!

Post above for Riana :)

@Riana: OMG, the horror!!
I save all my work on a USB key AND on my Dropbox.
It can be a pain, all the savings, but at least, it's safe.
Also, I write in Scrivener so I can keep various versions of a text in the same file. :)

Okay, girls, it's time we break this cycle of hating our first drafts!
Maybe we can open a topic here, like, some kinda therapeutic group where we write a small text, first draft style, and publish it and can't take it down until the others have had a look at it, what do you think?

I know. It's gonna be several hours in front of the computer fixing it again. But at least I had a previous version saved. And I immediately saved my important files on my three different flash-drives.
ALWAYS SAVE IN MULTIPLE LOCATIONS!
And make sure that your file has finished saving before removing the flash-drive!

That is an amazing idea, Valerie.

Yeah sounds good, Valerie!

Wise advice, Riana. Totally true!!

Okay, let's do this!! ^_^
We'll make this only short scenes at first. Like 1000 words MAX. How's that?
Who wants to create the topic?
And where?

I'll put it up in the Post Your Writing space.

But why would you want to stop hating your first draft? That's the point of the first draft. It's supposed to be bad. You're supposed to hate it. You're supposed to read what you wrote and think "Dear lord, did I actually write that?" After all, if you like everything you wrote in your first draft, why would you bother writing the second?

But yeah, losing all your work sounds like a nightmare. I can be a bit paranoid about that as well. And yet, I still only save my work to one flash drive...it's like I'm tempting fate.

Well, I believe there are two schools of thoughts when it comes to writing.
Some value only novels that have been through seven drafts.
And some can't bear the thought of having to go through seven drafts.
Funnily enough, both are valid.
Because both are going to appeal to different readerships.

I've long learned that a first draft can have actually as much of an audience as a ten-draft novel (thank you, Wattpad!)
For instance, I got booooooored out of my mind with some over-revised, over-polished novel. So much, in fact, that you couldn't discern the voice of the writer anymore, but you could tell there were actually four pens in that book: the writer, the agent, the editor and the publisher.
To me, that's not the writer's work anymore... It's not pure anymore. But that's only MY opinion, nobody has to agree with it :P
The exercise here is to believe in your work.

But then again, that's my way of looking at literature.