Why new writers (if they're any good) hate what they write and why they quit

[Gee Whillickers]

I've been struggling with writer's block.

That's understating it.

Everything I've been trying to write lately has come out, in my opinion, slightly worse than steaming, aromatic crap. I've started and started again. Then I re-read the first page or ten pages or paragraph and I'm finding myself just shaking my head and wondering why I even thought my idea might have something interesting to say.

There's a rule often bandied about in writing forums. Some agree and try to follow it, some think it absurd. The rule is, "Finish everything you start writing. Don't edit until you are finished."

I don't know how true this is. I certainly don't follow it. I have untold numbers of unfinished stories.

But, to the point. I came across this quote today.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Ira Glass

Perhaps this explains a few things. New writers seem to quit often and early. They write, they get some accolades, they write again, they read what they wrote, maybe get a critical email or two, and they quit.

How do we work with this, or against this? How do we encourage writers who obviously have talent to keep writing and not give up because they don't like their own work?

More imporantly, how do I get over this block and stop writing crap and give something Mike thinks is worth grudgingly posting?

[Cole Parker]

You're speaking to the heart of creativity. I doubt anyone has an answer to why we're creative, or not. Why we get ideas that sing, and ones that are off key. You're also speaking to our sensitivities and judgments and egos. All very complicated stuff.

However, one thing I might pick a bone with. What you're talking about isn't what I call writers' block. I've had that, and it's awful. Really, truly awful. When I had that, I'd try to write, have an idea, and sit down, and the words wouldn't come. That was decidedly unusual for me. Usually the words to complement an idea just flow. But when I was blocked, it was lucky if I could write a single sentence. Really. It was a struggle to write a sentence. Sometimes even to write a word. That may seem unimaginable, but it was fact.

You could write; you just didn't like what you'd written. I think that's a different problem, and an easier one. All you have to do is edit it. I edit my writing all the time. And while your guru may be right, that's it's best to finish first, I can't do that. I go back and read form the beginning several times during writing a piece, and I edit it each time I do. Sometimes, I end up throwing out a paragraph or two because, as you say, they're crap. And I rewrite them, sometimes a few times, until I can abide them.

I don't know if there's a name for what you're experiencing. But I don't think it's as awful as being blocked. Because, if it's crap, you can fix it. If you're blocked, you can't write it in the first place.

The good thing about being blocked is, it seems to cure itself, with time. The good thing about writing crap, which we all do is, it's fixable.

This was meant to be encouraging. I hope it was!

C

[Gee Whillickers]

However, one thing I might pick a bone with. What you're talking about isn't what I call writers' block. I've had that, and it's awful. Really, truly awful. When I had that, I'd try to write, have an idea, and sit down, and the words wouldn't come. That was decidedly unusual for me. Usually the words to complement an idea just flow. But when I was blocked, it was lucky if I could write a single sentence. Really. It was a struggle to write a sentence. Sometimes even to write a word. That may seem unimaginable, but it was fact.

Very encouraging, thanks!

I think, for me, part of the problem is that it really did lead to writer's block. I had been discouraged with the last several attempts. I sat down a few weeks ago, cognizant that I really needed to write a Valentine's story. I had one or two tiny ideas but nothing terribly great. I sat. I stared. I typed a word. I erased it. I sat. I stared. For hours. Until, frustrated almost to tears, I turned the blasted computer off and went and did something else. After two or three episodes of this, I kind of gave up for a while.

For a while.

I fully intend to try again. To write.To continue writing. I like writing. When it's going well, it's fun. It's a lot more than fun, it's somehow amazingly fulfilling. Some have told me I'm passable at it. I don't know, but it's nice of them to think so. Sometimes I think I need to just push harder. Sometimes i think I need to wait until I feel that spark, that idea that comes in the night and just burns and sizzles in my brain until it's down on paper, and the words flow and flow, because they have something important to say, and that wonderful feeling that tells you that just maybe, just maybe you are putting something pretty good to words.

[The Pecman]

Everything I've been trying to write lately has come out, in my opinion, slightly worse than steaming, aromatic crap. I've started and started again. Then I re-read the first page or ten pages or paragraph and I'm finding myself just shaking my head and wondering why I even thought my idea might have something interesting to say.

I've analyzed my own bouts with writer's block, and I think it boils down to being kind of an OCD thing where you're afraid to let go of anything that's slightly imperfect (or even very imperfect). Maybe it's more important to get something down and then let it be bad, knowing you can always change it later.

In my case, 90% of it is just stress from work and bills and all the other day-to-day crap we all have. Of course, after I win De Lotto tomorrow and have $330 million in the bank, all of these worries will fade away...

Give yourself the freedom to write total crap and know you can always tear it up. Sometimes, I get a gem of an idea that's a one-sentence concept, and I realize it's the core of the whole chapter. Just today, after a very stressful escapade I went through after having maybe 3 hours sleep, I was on the verge of napping and got an idea for a new chapter that was one phrase: "My Fair Lady." That's going to yield at least five or six pages, and I know exactly where to go with it.

It's interesting that sometimes, I get my best ideas when I'm sleepy, or when I'm completely distracted doing something unrelated to writing. Try that: a total physical activity like walking, running, or exercising, out of the house, and take a note pad along. Maybe you'll find the key that unlocks the solution.

[Gee Whillickers]

Uh, so you guys are saying write about crap.

Got it.

----

Jimmy was straining out a doozy of a deuce. Eyes closed tight and sweating, the pressure on his vegal nerve made him shiver in goosebumps and become lightheaded until he or......

----

Uh, I don't think this is quite working guys.

[colinian]

I love Anne Lamott's little book, Bird by Bird. It's subtitled "Some Instructions on Writing and Life." I must have read it cover to cover four or five times. Here are some of the chapters I think are germane to this discussion, and can be useful for those of us who sometimes suffer from writer's block.

Shitty First Drafts

Perfectionism

False Starts

How Do You Know When You're Done?

Writer's Block

You don't have to read it from cover to cover. Pick a chapter or five and read those. Especially the five I listed above.

Buy a copy. It's cheap, The paperback is $2.89 for a used copy from a reseller through Amazon to $11.27 for a new copy from Amazon, or $9.99 for your Kindle.

Colin

[Merkin]

This covers a lot of ground but it is an essential topic, Gee, so thanks for bringing it up. I'd divide what we're talking about into three stages: !) Shitty ideas, or lack thereof, 2) Shitty first drafts, or fragments that don't go anywhere good, and 3) True writers' block, such as Cole described above.

I think we've all been there in all three stages. I know my biggest obstacle is step number one. I'm just not a plot spinner, and I often go weeks, or months, without a notable thought for a story that has a beginning, middle, and end. Don't expect me to be the guy who can sit around in the lounge or at the bar and entertain with tale after tale. Once I do get an idea I cling to it until I find a way into it, a place where I can put pen to paper (yes, I still do it that way) and write sentences that begin to fill in the blanks. I usually always start with conversation, because characters talking is where I get told the story and can begin to fill it in and create the situations and the surroundings to support the talk. Once I can get some kind of conversational exchange down on paper I'm usually good to go, and can at least churn out a few pages. Those provide me with my springboard for the next day's writing (or the middle of the night's hasty jotting on a pad that is so awfully hard to read and make sense of the next morning).

I guess what I'm saying here is that we all must deal with obstacles, some of them very big ones, but somehow over time we, through sheer dogged persistence, can come up with peculiar or zany or jury-rigged but workable methods for getting past those blocks. The methods we use may not be lovely to look at but if they work they become part of our bag of tricks. And tricks they are, for I am convinced that any writer who finishes a story to the point where he is willing to say it is ready to be put out there for scrutiny has performed a bit of magic, and it is the glow from that magic that makes it all worthwhile.

[Cole Parker]

I really didn't mean to be discouraging, Gee. I just came out of a spell of being blocked. I found it very painful, and was wondering if I'd be able to write again, ever. I didn't know where it came from, or how long it would last.

But I did come out of it. Tentatively, I was able to write a sentence, then several, and then I was writing again. I think that's what'll happen with you, too. You'll think of something that you feel is good, something you can be passionate about, and you'll just write it. And it'll work.

It's a horrible feeling while you have it, but it will go away. At least it did for me. And I don't see why it should be different for you. You're a very, very good writer. This has to be just a phase.

C

[Guest Dabeagle]

Lately I have begin using a pseudo outline, putting down what I want to happen in general terms - and if a character pipes up with something funny or important, I notate it - whether it's a fragment or a whoe thought. Frequenlty I let that percolate in quiet moments, like Gee's attempt up there that strangly seems to be stealing from Lugnutz...

Anyway, the thought process can be kickstarted with a simple idea for instance Gee is a hockey fan, and he gave us an awesome, hockey centered story in 'Out of My League', but that isn't the oly hockey story to be made. How about three years down the road and the main character(s) from that got famous and what it means to Canada's Youth Hockey now? Imagine being a gay football hopeful with Michael Sam now on the brain for everyone? You'd need to be a fan of either sport to pull it off I think.

Or maybe a Middle aged Canuck fan (or Canadien's or - are the Oilers still around?) meets a younger fan or player who is gay with that backdrop. As that idea perc's in your mind you'll start to hear the conversations, the hope and fear, et cetera. Even though the railbalzer faces the harshest glare, those who follow in his immediate wake must also ride out the waves.

[Merkin]

I think many aspiring writers, myself included, often get stuck when we start out on a story by beginning with sentence one, paragraph one. We often run into a creative roadblock right away after getting a paragraph or two laid down, and when we go back to it later it looks like a dud. For example, the story I just finished, "A Feast for Love" for the Valentine's Day posting, was one I struggled with from the day a month ago when Gee issued a call for stories, because I couldn't get past the image I'd generated with my first couple of tentative paragraphs: they were too wide open, and could have led anywhere. My imagination bogged down and quit, faced with too many choices.

I wasn't until I came across the actual spark for the story by writing down, weeks later and from a wholly different train of thought, the little scene in the hospital waiting room with the boy kicking the vending machine as witnessed by a much older boy, a foodie who couldn't believe anyone could get upset over the lack of honey buns. The back story began to coalesce around the idea of food as a loving transaction, and somewhere along that thought process I had an 'aha' moment and hooked it onto the scene I'd already written and put aside, set in the dormitory room. When that connection was made I had my two main characters and I saw my way toward an endpoint for the story through using food as a means to achieve fulfillment and a way to display compassion. These themes where nowhere near my thoughts when I first wrote the few sentences that begin the story and that had blocked me from going forward.

Serendipity is the writer's best friend.

[Gee Whillickers]

It's interesting that sometimes, I get my best ideas when I'm sleepy, or when I'm completely distracted doing something unrelated to writing. Try that: a total physical activity like walking, running, or exercising, out of the house, and take a note pad along. Maybe you'll find the key that unlocks the solution.

I get ideas in the strangest of places. Until I learned to carry around a little notebook to jot them down I ended up forgetting a lot of ideas that I just know would have led to some really fun or interesting stories. But two places in particular are almost always when I get most of my ideas. First, in the middle of the night. I'll wake up, sometimes musing upon a dream I just had, sometimes I'll just wake up. And then something occurs to me, something I can quickly build upon and run with.

I'm still kicking myself over one idea from a few months ago that happened precisely this way. An idea that came to me one night for a new science fiction story. It was a really great idea. I know it was. Fun, interesting, enough avenues for plot complexity and stability, something that could really work with a particular kind of character and really give opportunity for conflict with other characters and environment. So I smugly went back to sleep, thinking I'll jot some notes for an outline down the next morning.

And then I utterly forgot the idea.

I've been trying different approaches to try and remember a thread of it ever since. I really wanted to write that story.

The second place I frequently get my ideas is sitting in my hot tub. Hot tubs are reasonably common where I live in Canada. Sitting in hot water, outside, on a cold winter day, staring at the stars and listening to the sounds, and maybe if you're lucky seeing a glimpse of the northern lights while sipping a good scotch can bring a state of mind, at least for me, that often leads to interesting ideas. Half of "The Wish" was written in my head sitting right there staring upwards while warm water gently bubbled around me.

But you're right, Pec. Ideas can come anywhere, and at any time. Often in the middle of the grocery store, or during a run or bike, or while teaching a class. I remember a good portion of my last Halloween story coming to me in the middle of a sentence while talking about sublimation of carbon dioxide. I have no idea what one had to do with the other, but suddenly there it was.

I know it'll come. It's been a frustrating few months for me in terms of writing.

I'm curious what everyone thinks of the rest my original post, the quote from Ira Glass, how new writers are so often discouraged by themselves and others, and how they give up before they give themselves a chance to really get rolling.

[Graeme]

I've just come off a three year hiatus from writing. The first part of that time I spent on a new novel, but I never finished it. I may go back to it one day, but for now it's sitting unfinished.

Part of the reason for stopping was because of some real-life events. In particular, the horrendous Black Saturday bushfires here in Victoria. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but that's about the time when I stopped writing. I lacked both motivation and inspiration, and I didn't regain them for a long time.

Merkin's comment about about the problem with starting with chapter 1, paragraph 1 is interesting, because I started my writing career with a single scene; a scene that ended up not appearing until chapter 8 of that novel. I don't know how many times I've written future scenes that I then incorporate into the story when appropriate. I'm doing that at the moment. I've got a block on how to start the sequel to Leopard Skin Cover, but I've got some scenes I want to include in that opening chapter, so I've started writing those, and I'll go back to the start at a later date.

On perfection vs crap, I've had that problem, too. Well... I don't think I've ever aimed for perfection, just something decent. However, sometimes I'll write something and it just doesn't work out. It happens, and I'll go back to delete it eventually. I remember a couple of scenes I wanted to put into Heart of The Tree that never made it in because they just weren't working. The solution I came up with was to put those two scenes off-camera, and show the aftermath, rather than the scene itself.

So... my suggestion for when a block happens is to write something else and come back to it later. That could be writing something completely different, or write a scene that appears elsewhere in the story. If nothing at all is working, go for a walk, see a movie, make love to your partner... whatever you like as long as it's completely different and will take your mind off writing. Sometimes we all just need a break

[The Pecman]

Uh, so you guys are saying write about crap.

No -- be willing to fail. No harm in that... but if you don't like it, don't post it.

Another trick I use sometimes is to jump ahead in the story and write a latter section, then go back, pick up where I left off, then write up to that point. Nobody ever has to know what order you write the novel in, so it can work.

I'm just tossing out some ideas here, so don't bite my head off. We all suffer from stress and over-analytical behavior, and I'm my own worst critic when it comes to my stuff.

I'm still kicking myself over one idea from a few months ago that happened precisely this way. An idea that came to me one night for a new science fiction story. It was a really great idea. I know it was. Fun, interesting, enough avenues for plot complexity and stability, something that could really work with a particular kind of character and really give opportunity for conflict with other characters and environment. So I smugly went back to sleep, thinking I'll jot some notes for an outline down the next morning.

And then I utterly forgot the idea.

Doh! That's only happened to me about a hundred times. I have two notebooks and two pens right on my bedside table, and I still occasionally am too tired to reach over and write the thought down. Same deal with me: I remember having the thought, but damned if I know what it was.

[Gee Whillickers]

I'm just tossing out some ideas here, so don't bite my head off. We all suffer from stress and over-analytical behavior, and I'm my own worst critic when it comes to my stuff.

Woops, didn't mean for that to come across that way!

Your response, and, Cole, yours too, really were encouraging! I was just making a poor attempt at a bit of humor there.

Doh! That's only happened to me about a hundred times. I have two notebooks and two pens right on my bedside table, and I still occasionally am too tired to reach over and write the thought down. Same deal with me: I remember having the thought, but damned if I know what it was.

There's an inverse relationship between the probability I have a notebook, or even my phone, easily at hand and the probability of having a really great story idea spring to mind. I'm sure of it. Some kind of quantum brane fluctuation causing the multiverse to remain tau-zero in energy fluctuation. Or something. In other words, the universe is laughing at us.

[Cole Parker]

I'm sure we've all had dreams that in our waking state seem will make wonderful stories. However, ones I can remember well enough to think about when I'm fully awake have never amounted to anything. Dreams allow you to skip over reality. Little things that work in dreams don't work at all in actual life.

I've yet to have a story start from a dream. If you guys have, I think that's marvelous and wish it could happen to me, because I too slowly come awake thinking, this will make the best story ever! It never yet has worked out that way for me.

C

[The Pecman]

I'm sure we've all had dreams that in our waking state seem will make wonderful stories. However, ones I can remember well enough to think about when I'm fully awake have never amounted to anything. Dreams allow you to skip over reality. Little things that work in dreams don't work at all in actual life.

Sometimes they do. That bit I threw into Destiny, where one of the main characters turned out to have three crippled fingers, was something I glimpsed in a dream. I remembered it as I was falling out of bed and threw that in the story at the last minute. Worked very well. I have no idea where that came from, but I jotted down "crippled hand," and the rest I made up.

The great 1960s singer/songwriter told the story that he dreamed that he heard a new Elvis Presley song on the radio called "In Dreams," complete with a melody. He sang and played it for a friend at the studio, and the guy said, "wow, that's a great song!" Roy agreed but said, "unfortunately, Elvis already did it." The friend assured him that Elvis had not done any such thing, and after some checking, Orbison was floored to find that it was an original song. They recorded it very quickly and it became a Top 10 hit in early 1963. McCartney had a similar experience with "Yesterday," dreaming the melody but without any words, but it took them two months to make sure nobody else had used the same melody before.

It's interesting to me that we're talking about how sometimes, great creative moments come out of dreams or near-sleep. More than one writing teacher has noted that when you read a great novel, you're almost lulled into a dreamlike state, to the point where the room you're in and the chair in which you're sitting completely disappear, and the story unfolds before you like a movie. I think the two states are related, yet it's tough to harness them and find a way to work this into a usable story.

[Cynus]

I'm curious what everyone thinks of the rest my original post, the quote from Ira Glass, how new writers are so often discouraged by themselves and others, and how they give up before they give themselves a chance to really get rolling.

You bringing up this quote was what dragged me through this post, even though I went kicking and screaming... I've been in a similar funk, especially with my first novel coming out. I still haven't finished Rumors of War, though I'm not far off. The last little bit has been a serious struggle to write.

But I'm one of those people who likes to torture myself with my problems. I wasn't sure what was wrong with me, but I knew that it was hopeless and that I wasn't going to be able to make it through. I honestly was close to giving up.

The quote brought me back to reality. And this conversation has actually helped me a great deal. I'm quite grateful for all the advise that's been given here.

As my only available gift I think fitting to offer in thanks, here is the quote in comic form. http://zenpencils.com/comic/90-ira-glass-advice-for-beginners/

[Chris James]

That bit of wisdom Gee brought to the table in quoting Ira Glass is quite interesting. The man himself is interesting and quite the professional...not sure what to name him. You can hear his work on public radio, read his stories in the print media, and from what I gather, see him live at various functions.

Perhaps he would be called a journalist, but then some of his work is an off the wall reflection and quite humorous. Whatever label applies, Ira Glass is a man who gets paid for what he produces. In his position I don't think writer's block is an acceptable excuse, he has deadlines to meet, perhaps every day or week.

That kind of pressure will drive a novice writer to drink, and perhaps scare him away. For those like us the only pressure is personal since posting stories for free is only an expression of our inner desire to be here. The fun factor of this little hobby of writing never seems to go away when the mind is ripe and filled with ideas.

But we are free to write about most any subject in the world, although we choose to focus on stories that inspire the readers to think positively about gay issues, it's almost in our Awesomedude job descriptions. I reread mine just the other day, trying to keep Mike's concept for the site fresh in my mind. Only three rules: proper grammar, well conceived characters, and no alarm clocks.

[DesDownunder]

I'm really not surprised that the dream state is conducive to creative insight and inspiration. Psychiatrists Jung and Fromm have both written about dreams as a forgotten language where our unconsciousness talks to us through dreams.

It doesn't always happen of course. Sleep, in the cerebral sense, seems to me to be mostly nothing more than the clusters of information in our brains being defragmented and tidied up, ready for the next day's conscious efforts. What does seem likely is that sleep offers a way for us to confront intuition, and information that our waking consciousness cannot, for a variety of reasons, spend time to exam.

Also, this might explain why meditation aimed at cognitive tranquillity as an observational state, encourages connectivity to creative intuition; perhaps related to what we call, the Muse. Moreover, it seems obvious that such instances of accessibility to our intuition are akin to moments of enlightenment, particularly in those 'ways of life' that encourage the mind to admit free thought processes for the sake of relating to, and exploring reality as it is, and not just how we think it should be. This creative reality, being the source of our discoveries based on both evidence and intuition. It is really very close to a Zen enlightenment - Satori, which like any fleeting insight cannot but be hinted at, before it is again gone; much like the moments we have when writing or creating any work of art. It cannot be forced. We have to allow it to happen and the dream state is both psychologically and philosophically conducive to permitting us access to that which inspires us.

[Cynus]

I usually always start with conversation, because characters talking is where I get told the story and can begin to fill it in and create the situations and the surroundings to support the talk. Once I can get some kind of conversational exchange down on paper I'm usually good to go, and can at least churn out a few pages. Those provide me with my springboard for the next day's writing (or the middle of the night's hasty jotting on a pad that is so awfully hard to read and make sense of the next morning).

This suggestion has actually helped me a lot. I was maybe getting a few hundred words done a week, trying to struggle through the block. Over the last few days I've written four thousand words of dialogue, and I'm ready to flesh out the in between bits.

Thanks for this. It's been a refreshing experience.

[colinian]

The instructor I had for the Short Story Writing course I took at UC Berkeley wrote mysteries when she wasn't teaching. She said her rule for a mystery is to always start it with dialogue, and that is a good rule for any fiction story. She also said that rule, like any rule about how to compose a story, is there to be broken if that's what it takes for the author to convey what they want to say.

Colin

[The Pecman]

The instructor I had for the Short Story Writing course I took at UC Berkeley wrote mysteries when she wasn't teaching. She said her rule for a mystery is to always start it with dialogue, and that is a good rule for any fiction story.

I agree -- that's a dynamic way to start a new chapter, or even begin a story: have one character saying something outrageous, or frightening, or bizarre. That'll definitely hook the reader.

I just started a new chapter the other day, and the first line was, "So now the cops think I've killed four people..." and it goes on from there. I think it'll work well.

[Cynus]

Wish I would've known the trick earlier, but now I just have to make up for lost time.

[Guest Dabeagle]

Each story unfolds differently, and so starts differently. That method is a great way to get started on the action and hook a reader - the more bizarre, the better in some cases.

However, not all good stories start that way - do what comes naturally.

[Cole Parker]

One of the things that most endears me to writing is that there are no rules. Well, Pec would differ with that vigorously, but it's true. Wherever you can quote me a rule, I can show you places in literature where it's been broken. Then we get to decide if we agree with the license that's been taken or if we don't.

But that widespread freedom we enjoy as writers is intoxicating. I can't think of any other place in life where we're so free. We can put something on paper anyway we wish, in any form we like. We only have our own imaginations to limit us.

We learn by doing, and we do pick up tricks that seem to work along the way. Beginning a story with a quote is one way to pull the reader in very quickly. Another trick we learn? Well, how about, when we've come to a stumbling block in a story and are stuck, simply stop writing there and move on to another part of the story. That avoids the block mentality, keeps us going, and eventually we'll have different parts done and only have to build a bridge, or bridges.

Another one? Forshadowning is a good way to keep people's interest and involvement. Another? Changing from strict chronological reporting of events by using flashbacks and cutting forward in time really engages the reader and helps draw him into the story.

We learn all sorts of tricks as we write and learn how to do so effectively, and in the process realize there are different ways to present what we're doing than we've tried or thought of before. All this is great fun, and allows us to unleash our creativity and to enjoy the adventure of trying something brand new and seeing if we can make it work. That's one of the great joys of this that keeps me going.

C