I’ve been thinking about writing a lot lately, as happens from time to time.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in writing fiction, but apart from a few short stories, the occasional flash fiction contest, and some writing assignments back in school, I haven’t really written anything.
I have an incredibly difficult time turning off that internal editor. I understand that the first draft is meant to be terrible, but that doesn’t stop me from consciously parsing every letter before the key is hit. I also understand that every story idea has been used before, and that you just have to make it your own, but I still hold each idea up to everything I’ve ever read, heard, and watched to highlight the similarities.
I’m also quite lazy and easily distracted. I really have a lot of respect for people who can sit themselves down, ignore distractions, and pump out a daily word count. It’s an impressive feat and takes a lot of determination.
These are really just excuses, and they certainly aren’t unique to me, but that’s what gets in the way. Essentially I’m just a whiny bastard.
I’ve been trying to stifle these doubts lately, though, and I’ve started to play around with a couple story ideas. I started writing one the other day. I’m not sure if it’ll amount to anything at this point, but even if it’s a dead end, I’ll still have written something. It’s probably better to have dozens of false starts than never starting at all.
Know what? So weird, but I’m in exactly the same place as you, right now. I have a wonderful writing exercise that makes me happy no matter how bad it is (take a dictionary, pick seven words at random, write a 2-page story using them), and this morning I was determined to play with it. So I spent half an hour delirious, watching words flow from my hands to the screen, and when I finished, I went to save. FAIL! Hmm, that’s weird, I thought, so I tried again. FAIL! And this time it wasn’t recoverable. Anywhere. Not even an auto-save. So I wrote a crossword puzzle instead. I find that writing things other than what I think I should be writing, really cuts down on the pressure. There’s no guilt in writing for the sheer giggle of it. And a word count? Please. I gave up on that ages ago. Now I just write until the story sticks. And then I get a mug of coffee, sit back down, and unstick the story. Or a writing exercise. Or a poem about two disparate metaphors and the gulf between them. I’ve been struggling with this a lot, lately, and I hope this is of help. If not, feel free to call me on it. Because I am full of a lot of things. Notably, it.
Yep, we all have loud internal editors, we all want to produce something perfect the first time, we all have to work on discipline and issues of distraction – yep, you’re not alone! ;-) So great that you’ve got some idea and are writing – that is just how you do it. Just sit down and right, and try to do it regularly so it becomes a habit, so that when you don’t write you feel like a junkie in dire need of a fix! It’s that “just do it” thing really.
And tell the internal editor to just “shut up!” – you have to be able to just let the words flow – the cleaning up can happen later – if you get stuck with wanting perfection initially, you’ll never get anything written!
Go for it – and have fun with it!
:-)
Thanks you two. It is actually nice to hear other people struggle with the same issues and push through it. I find I’ve been getting a bit better at ignoring the internal editor, and I’m sure it’ll get easier as I write more.
I’ll give that writing exercise a go, mb. I actually have a book kicking around with writing exercises in it, so I should probably pull that out if I’m having a hard time getting going.
And sorry to hear about the text editor crash. I’ve been bitten with the same thing a couple of times. I’ve started to copy (as in copy & paste) everything I’m writing as soon as there’s any sign of weirdness with the computer.
Rob, you are BRILLIANT. Seriously, I’m doing that forever now. Also backing up to three flash drives. Might seem silly, but I’ve lost an entire novel by not doing that. Sad panda!
That all sounds very much like myself. I’m easily distracted and have a difficult time concentrating. I don’t really have the internal editor problem though. I’m just lazy.