Wednesday, February 26, 2020

February Sweeps, Day 25


Today may have been the worst day for me so far. I'm having some serious self doubt about my writing and why I'm doing any of this in the first place. I feel like it's all for naught. Like I'm wasting my time. I'm having some serious doubts about whether I'm a good writer at all. I don't think that I am. I've written some stories that aren't too bad in the past, I guess, but they feel like flukes. Like lucky breaks as opposed to something I did on purpose.

I wrote a whole novel that is 81,178 words long. That's 324 pages long. And now I look at it and wonder after all that work if it's any good at all, if there's any point to it at all.

Part of my problem might be that I have been trying to listen to some YouTube videos about the craft of writing, and each time I do, they make me feel like my own craft is severely lacking. Things that I should have had planned out before I started writing never got any consideration at all, and now it's too late. The book is written, and it's no good. Now I'm 85% of the way through the second book, and I feel the same about it. I'm kind of freaking out, and it's making it really hard to write anything at all.

Today I wrote 1,057 words, but in three different projects. I couldn't get into any one of them enough to get any kind of a flow going. Maybe that's what I need to concentrate on for a while. Really work on some planning for my various projects, so I don't write myself into a corner like this. Crap.

My picometer says:


EDIT:
New progress meter
28733 / 30000 (95.78%)

I'm at 95% of my goal. Should I bother to complete it though? Gah ... I could use some kind of infusion of confidence or something. Anybody got some they could loan me?

2 comments:

Rish Outfield said...

You're at 95%. T'would be an Outfieldian level failure to quit now. You've already inspired me to write, and other people we know are writing every day because of you.

You have to give yourself permission to suck. Everybody says that. Even me.

Rob Broughton said...

I definitely don't have any spare confidence to pawn off, sorry. I just want to say that everything you've written so far WILL make what you write in the future better. You've been paying your dues by doing the practical work, and now you're researching the theoretical side as well. The next step? Putting those together and becoming the writer you want to be, one day at a time.