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Writer's Log #2
7 years ago
Currently closed for story commissions! See this journal for details if you want to look anyway.
Hello again, Tasties.
Things are progressing okay, I've gotten started on re-doing "A Family Affair". Originally, I'd had this idea that I could touch up and release the original one I wrote and post it online as a sort of free sample, maybe call it the 'shareware version' because my mind is stuck in the 90s. Then I went over that story to harvest good lines and concepts for the remake, and I learned that I've gotten waaaaaay better since I wrote it, and abandoned that plan, because that story sucks. n_n *sweatdrop*
I'll just have to make the new version fantastic so it really deserves to be the title story in the bundle, then. But I have to admit... I'm a bit worried about getting started.
I haven't publically talked about it before, but for a long while now, at least as far back as "The Road Less Travelled", writing has been growing more and more difficult for me. I doubt myself, I second-guess every single thought that enters my head, and I find it difficult to even plan out the skeleton of a story, a bare framework to build off of. And considering I don't have a great history with trying to make up a story as I go along, these days the less I know, the worse the problem becomes. It's almost like I need to have every single detail lined up before it feels okay.
But the worst part is when I'm actually getting into the writing and I find myself faced with a challenge. Things like the story naturally evolving in a way I didn't expect, or I realize something about the situation I hadn't taken into account when plotting it out. That's when the paralysis kicks in.
It feels like anxiety, because I start off just being afraid that I'm going to make a mistake trying to solve this, that I'm going to choose the wrong words, that I'm going to make things worse and ruin the story. The anxiety gets so bad that I find it hard to do anything at all, and the longer it lasts, the worse it gets because by not doing anything, I'm not making any progress in the story.
A friend of mine described it as an Ouroboros, the snake that bites its own tail: "You get frustrated, it affects your work, the work slows down, you get frustrated."
Even if it's a small detail no one will ever notice, I become fixated on it and find it very difficult to move on, and then I get upset and it becomes even harder to think clearly enough to actually fix things. I very much have a problem seeing the forest for the trees.
I don't know, maybe this increased level of stress is normal for writers as their skill level increases. I once heard a quote from a famous novelist who said "Today was a good day. I wrote a sentence." But the level of stress this puts me through is quite disheartening. u_u
Maybe I'm going crazy, maybe I need to get out of the house more and it's allllll in my head, or maybe there's something I can do to make it easier to make words happen, but I must admit, for the first time in my life, the infamous blank page isn't the most intimidating part of starting a new story.
That isn't to say I'm giving up. Writing is the air I breathe, the fire in my heart (and because of my country of origin, the ice in my veins), I'm not about to give up now, especially when I'm so close to finally being able to share this whole project with you guys. That'll be a good day. n_n
Well, that turned out a bit darker than I intended, but I suppose the important takeaway is that even with these issues popping up, I've still written some stories I'm really, really proud of, and I fully intend to continue doing so.
I'm gonna keep writing these journals to let you know how things are going, but since I feel like there will be times when the sum total of the update consists of "progress continues", I thought I'd ask if there's anything in particular you guys would like to talk about here. So! Are there any topics you'd like me to cover in these Writer's Logs in the coming weeks? They can be regarding the bundle itself or previous stories and series, I'm open to suggestions at the moment (unless that suggestion is in the form of "you could write a story about my OC! :3")
Have a good one, Tasties.
Until next time.
LOG UPDATE OVER.
Things are progressing okay, I've gotten started on re-doing "A Family Affair". Originally, I'd had this idea that I could touch up and release the original one I wrote and post it online as a sort of free sample, maybe call it the 'shareware version' because my mind is stuck in the 90s. Then I went over that story to harvest good lines and concepts for the remake, and I learned that I've gotten waaaaaay better since I wrote it, and abandoned that plan, because that story sucks. n_n *sweatdrop*
I'll just have to make the new version fantastic so it really deserves to be the title story in the bundle, then. But I have to admit... I'm a bit worried about getting started.
I haven't publically talked about it before, but for a long while now, at least as far back as "The Road Less Travelled", writing has been growing more and more difficult for me. I doubt myself, I second-guess every single thought that enters my head, and I find it difficult to even plan out the skeleton of a story, a bare framework to build off of. And considering I don't have a great history with trying to make up a story as I go along, these days the less I know, the worse the problem becomes. It's almost like I need to have every single detail lined up before it feels okay.
But the worst part is when I'm actually getting into the writing and I find myself faced with a challenge. Things like the story naturally evolving in a way I didn't expect, or I realize something about the situation I hadn't taken into account when plotting it out. That's when the paralysis kicks in.
It feels like anxiety, because I start off just being afraid that I'm going to make a mistake trying to solve this, that I'm going to choose the wrong words, that I'm going to make things worse and ruin the story. The anxiety gets so bad that I find it hard to do anything at all, and the longer it lasts, the worse it gets because by not doing anything, I'm not making any progress in the story.
A friend of mine described it as an Ouroboros, the snake that bites its own tail: "You get frustrated, it affects your work, the work slows down, you get frustrated."
Even if it's a small detail no one will ever notice, I become fixated on it and find it very difficult to move on, and then I get upset and it becomes even harder to think clearly enough to actually fix things. I very much have a problem seeing the forest for the trees.
I don't know, maybe this increased level of stress is normal for writers as their skill level increases. I once heard a quote from a famous novelist who said "Today was a good day. I wrote a sentence." But the level of stress this puts me through is quite disheartening. u_u
Maybe I'm going crazy, maybe I need to get out of the house more and it's allllll in my head, or maybe there's something I can do to make it easier to make words happen, but I must admit, for the first time in my life, the infamous blank page isn't the most intimidating part of starting a new story.
That isn't to say I'm giving up. Writing is the air I breathe, the fire in my heart (and because of my country of origin, the ice in my veins), I'm not about to give up now, especially when I'm so close to finally being able to share this whole project with you guys. That'll be a good day. n_n
Well, that turned out a bit darker than I intended, but I suppose the important takeaway is that even with these issues popping up, I've still written some stories I'm really, really proud of, and I fully intend to continue doing so.
I'm gonna keep writing these journals to let you know how things are going, but since I feel like there will be times when the sum total of the update consists of "progress continues", I thought I'd ask if there's anything in particular you guys would like to talk about here. So! Are there any topics you'd like me to cover in these Writer's Logs in the coming weeks? They can be regarding the bundle itself or previous stories and series, I'm open to suggestions at the moment (unless that suggestion is in the form of "you could write a story about my OC! :3")
Have a good one, Tasties.
Until next time.
LOG UPDATE OVER.
