You can’t choose what stays and what fades away*
As it turned out, I didn’t make it to 150 thousand words writen for the year in November - by 1 December I was at about 145k, so close but no cigar. I’m sure I’ve made it past since then, but I’m not totally up to date yet.
I’ve been reflecting on getyourwordsout, and whether I want to re-up. For me, the advantages and the disadvantages both have been similar to NaNoWriMo. Chiefly, it helps suppress your inner editor and keeps you writing, but it also encourages volume over quality, and new projects over completing current ones.
There’s a guy in my local writing group that really made me think after last week’s meeting. He’s a lovely guy from all appearances, a tech guy turning to writing fiction. His writing is very flat, factual, without much description or art to it (though it’s improving slowly). He’s finished and revised his novel, which is about a guy going to Thailand to meet a younger Thai girlfriend he’d met online after his marriage began to fall apart (talk about a male midlife crisis novel…). He’s writing query letters and starting to shop it to agents. Here’s this guy, whose writing is mediocre and whose plot is hackneyed and trite, trying to selling his book. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in analysis paralysis, not finishing as much as I should and having a hard time sending things out.
Somehow I keep waiting for a signal, for someone or something to convince me that I’m a real writer now and that I can act like it. Yet when situations occur when it could happen, like the launch of the new anthology that I’m in where everyone said great things about my work - I still feel like an impostor and that everyone’s just being polite. Could it be that there’s no moment, no signal? No denouement from without; rather, you have to construct it from within.
*No Light, Florence & the Machine - I’ve had Ceremonials on near-constant repeat since I bought it. Recommended.
This entry was originally posted at http://bonspiel.dreamwidth.org/19923.html.
I’ve been reflecting on getyourwordsout, and whether I want to re-up. For me, the advantages and the disadvantages both have been similar to NaNoWriMo. Chiefly, it helps suppress your inner editor and keeps you writing, but it also encourages volume over quality, and new projects over completing current ones.
There’s a guy in my local writing group that really made me think after last week’s meeting. He’s a lovely guy from all appearances, a tech guy turning to writing fiction. His writing is very flat, factual, without much description or art to it (though it’s improving slowly). He’s finished and revised his novel, which is about a guy going to Thailand to meet a younger Thai girlfriend he’d met online after his marriage began to fall apart (talk about a male midlife crisis novel…). He’s writing query letters and starting to shop it to agents. Here’s this guy, whose writing is mediocre and whose plot is hackneyed and trite, trying to selling his book. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in analysis paralysis, not finishing as much as I should and having a hard time sending things out.
Somehow I keep waiting for a signal, for someone or something to convince me that I’m a real writer now and that I can act like it. Yet when situations occur when it could happen, like the launch of the new anthology that I’m in where everyone said great things about my work - I still feel like an impostor and that everyone’s just being polite. Could it be that there’s no moment, no signal? No denouement from without; rather, you have to construct it from within.
*No Light, Florence & the Machine - I’ve had Ceremonials on near-constant repeat since I bought it. Recommended.
This entry was originally posted at http://bonspiel.dreamwidth.org/19923.html.