Lets Start a Riot, or Something.

[rebell_love]

I hate my Technical Writing class. Why? Because we're being taught how to write "Clear Concise Targeted Writing" so that some day we can sit in a cubical and write reports for companies.

This whole ideal is really getting to me. I keep having to tell myself that this is only one class out of the tons that I've taken on writing, and the tons more I

Comments

[richard_vw]

Sorry, I kind of misunderstood some of the entry then! I'm glad the class has helped you, even if only a little. I've started many novels too, but I view them as stepping stones to the serious work I'm doing now. If I read my old stuff, I'll cringe like Hell, but I'm grateful for them :)

That professor sounds pretty cool! It did wonders for my writing when I realized that it didn't really matter what others thought - if I didn't like it, it wasn't good enough even if others liked it. If I did like it, but others didn't - oh well! :)

I never edit my work. I don't know, I just can't, lol. I will fix up sentences if they sound clumsy, and of course spelling and grammatical errors, but I never rewrite, because I find it takes away whatever emotion I poured into the scene and can make it artificial? I do the same with lyrics and poetry - I think I could improve them to make them "better art", I guess, but it would make them more artifical to me.

You might still find a writing job; it just might not be novel-writing - you can always do that on the side, as I plan to! :D I'm sure you'll find somewhere to put your skills to use, and in fact, don't give up on being a novelist yet. In my opinion, until every publisher in the world says no to your work, there's still a chance for publication. :) After all, even Harry Potter was rejected 13 times!

Sorry if I'm rambling!

[rebell_love]

You're not rambling at all. I love talking about writing, and reading about how other people write because everyone does things differently.

I never edit poetry. I think that editing poetry takes out all of the reason you were writing it. I used to not re-write my stories either, but then I started working on this one. This is a story that I think needs to be perfect, and I'm not always entirely clear on what I want to happen so I'm always adding stuff and taking stuff out.
Also the first time I wrote any of it was liek 2008, so my writing has changed, and it just...needs to be right.
I don't know how to explain WHY I feel like it needs to be perfect, it just does.

I'm crazy or something.

[richard_vw]

I agree that editing poetry is counterintuitive. :D That's kind of the idea that I work with on my novel too though. I understand you want it to be perfect - of course! It's why I write my novel quite slowly because I won't write pages if I feel it's substandard. I take stuff out of mine sometimes too but never huge rewrites. Stephen King says he has a 2000 word quota per day but I couldn't do it - it would probably mean I was producing lots and lots of substandard work that I wasn't happy with and I don't do the "quota for the sake of words" thing. :D

You're not crazy :P We just write in different ways. :)