Sunday, July 24, 2011

ROW80: Check-In #6!

Hello, my fellow ROW80er's!

Luckily, things have changed since the last check-in post! Today I was able to get 281
new words written on my Shitty First Draft, making my total wordcount rise to 1,470 words! Getting to this point wasn't easy though, lemme tell you! Each word I wrote felt like pulling teeth-utter torture. And all through my writing session I kept stopping and thinking things like, "Man, this sucks! I really wish I could trash it and work on something else!" I hate getting to this point. With every new story idea I have it starts out as this thing I have, need to write about and it feels all fun and exciting and new...

And then, after a few days of working on Shiny New Idea, the doubts start to creep in that maybe this story isn't as good as I originally thought, and I absolutely hate feeling like that! I wish I could just keep that giddy, "Oooo, I have a shiny new idea and I love it!" feeling all the way to the END of a first draft and then maybe I wouldn't keep having these feelings of wanting to trash my current WIP and work on something else to be able to keep feeling excited and motivated to write. Has anyone else ever felt this way? Any advice?

Happy writing!
~Ella

P.S. I think to keep myself from going insane and trashing yet another WIP, I'm going to have to start a side project, even if it's just short stories. That way, it'll keep things fresh every time I sit down to write!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, don't worry. Many writers have the same problem, me included. I've said that before but I really do have a collection of unfinished first drafts.
I don't know how to solve this problem, sorry. This time, I'm at 13,000 and still not bored. This is the first time it happens to me actually and I don't know what changed.
You idea on working on short stories sounds like it could work. Keep us posted on your progress and don't give up.
Best of luck with your writing.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, that feeling. It hits me every time. I do change things up by doing other stories; the shininess sometimes transfers back to the shitty first draft.

I also have asked someone I know will love it, merely because I wrote it, to read it. Yeah, I know, and I don't show my stuff to hardly anyone, so I don't do it often, but the love helped.

Oh, and I don't write in a linear fashion. If I want to write a scene that won't happen for pages, days, months--I don't care, I'll write the fun one. Then I have something to write to, that I still feel is good.

I don't know if any of this will help, but at least you know you're not alone!

ROW80 is a very supportive group--I hope you'll shout out if you need encouragement.

Nancy (lapidaryprose)

alberta ross said...

Yup - I write the stuff that want's to be writen - jump around - write the shiny stuff first when that's written the other bits fall into line more easily - for me anyway

Deniz Bevan said...

Eek! Your doubt voices sound just like my doubt voices. If only there was an OFF switch for those. Especially while it's only the first draft and it doesn't matter at all!

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