Writing or Mneme Embraces Her Inner Emo *headdesk*

[lady_theta]

So, I realized I'm terrified of writing my novel. Yes, I have 2000+ words down. Yes, I want to finish it. Hell, I want to write it.  But whenever I sit down I feel pathetic.  Unworthy. Ill-prepared. This is also part of the reason, I don't write fanfic.  I realize that no writer, in theory,  starts out with elegant, crisp prose streaming across

Comments

[astropixie]

You might actually be the kind of writer who needs to plan everything out in advance, if sitting down and writing it is the problem. Novels are big scary things, I'm not going to lie. I'm starting my seventh in February and I'm pretty stressed out about it. It's been churning around in my head for like five years now. I've been reading literary theories, studying films, actively reading a book a week, reading how-to books and essays left and right. Do I feel ready? No.

For me, I can't plan in advance. Tried that this November. Went down in flames--I kept running into things that my characters wanted to do, but my plan wouldn't let them. My novel felt stifled, cliche, limited. I'm never doing that again. My style is much more "barge in and hope." But, that also means I waste a lot of time to get to the 10% of usable material I end up with, which is scary for some people do to.

I recommend you read Write Away by Elizabeth George. She writes 300,000-word high-art mystery novels and doesn't edit them. She takes almost a year to plan

[brevityiswise]

yep, if you need a phone call...