usurper

Why am I feeling pointless today? It is because I can't write. Well, I can write, and I do it pretty well in school assignments and all, but when it comes to fiction writing I am plaing BAD. I did manage to get up to the thirty thousand mark once in terms of words, but then I gave up, like I always do. Everyone says that I should take writing courses, or get writing software, or read more, and I just feel pointless. What will my book have that makes it stand out from the rest? Will I even have a book? I have this problem where I get really excited about this idea which has just occured to me, but as soon as I start to write I lose heart. For God's sake, I was considering, and actually wrote two chapters of a WESTERN!!! But everything I do now is confined to a page, a paragraph, or even a sentence. I want to be good at writing, and I want to be able to craft words as beutifully as the best authors in the business, but the catch is that I have to wait until I am older to be able to write anywhere near that standard, and I DON'T want to wait. Why should I wait? Because I'm not good at writing. But at the same time, several ideas are being wasted because I lose heart. I don't know what to do. I am stuck in a catch-22. And it's because of that problem that often I wake up feeling extremely pointless, as if my life doesn't mean anything. I know it does, or to make that correct - will - mean something, but it will take time, something I am not willing to sacrifice. Because I don't want to live four more years at school knowing that I can't achieve my dreams now, but I have to wait. I don't want to be like that. I want to be free from my binds and constraints of bad writing, even though I consider my writing at times to be good or even excellent. I don't know what to do, and it is driving me insane!!! How can I overcome something that I am not good enough to overcome! It is impossible, and I don't know what to do with myself until what I want to achieve can actually be achieved.

Nickie

First of all, don't lose heart! If you want to write, just do it, and don't thnik about how well it should be.

By my guess, you're still pretty young, right? I also wrote stories (started at age 7) and when I now look at those things I wrote down at age 13-14, my hair is straight as an antenna!

You only acquire a style of your own by writing a lot. The more you write, the better the writing will go. Just believe me on that.

So write your chapters, put them away for a while, start something else ... that's all in the process. One day you'll finish what you started, and you have your first novel. And perhaps later on, you can turn to one of those early tries and turn it into another book. That's what I did. I wrote my first 'real' novel' at age 22. And now, at age 49, I've turned one of my early works (something I wrote when I was 16) into a full-lenght novel. The idea was good, so I added more ideas and chapters and got into the writing and produced a nice thrilling book.


Nickie

__________________
At www.nickiefleming.com you can read about my books, my interviews with bestselling authors, what I can do for aspiring authors (see 'News') and lots more!
Samples of what I write are to be found at http://users.skynet.be/fa040707/index.html

Superlagg

Yeah! When I started writing, it was very poorly written, on the brink of an abysmal Star Trek fanfic, and was laden with plot-holes and spelling errors. Also, alot of parts were written in a way that only people who use the internet heavily would get it correctly, and even then only those who went to a specific site. It was poorly written and now it makes me queezy.

Now, here I am almost a year later with much improved work, as I am told. Though it is far from what people have published, it is still alot better then before. I read some of my now-work and I actually found myself, well, reading it and not cringing.

Practice and not giving up in your craft makes awesome.

__________________
http://www.taotm.uni.cc/news.shtml

Oracle

I have a similar problem in that I expect my writing to be up to par, when in reality I lack the experience to fulfill such expectations. I lose heart everytime I read my writing, because I want to do justice to my ideas. I learned that sometimes you just have to sit down and write it, as crappy as you think it is. Turn off the internal critic. Sometimes it isn't as bad as you think it is. Then years down the road, if you look back and decide that it sucks, you can fix it.

__________________
The bubble is round.

Utopian Union

Um. Let's be practical.

You need to see a therapist.

__________________
Oh, take me back to the start.

--Coldplay

usurper

'Utopian Union', you have to stop being so pessimistic.

Utopian Union

Mhm. Ok! Sure thing.

__________________
Oh, take me back to the start.

--Coldplay

Tim S.

The best piece of advice I got from from a book called "How to be a writer", it said this:

"Keep writing even if you think it's rubbish."

The moral of the story is that even if what you write is un-publishable, you'ves till written something! With writing comes experience, and thusly comes ability. So write! Write like your life depends on it. Sure, your first 20 drafts may be bad, but that's true for 99.9% of authors the world over.

Only with experience and practice in things can we progress.

Well, that's my thoughts on it. Hope I didn't kill your will even more LOL.

__________________
"It takes a moment to meet someone;
It takes an hour to know them;
it takees a day to love them;
And it takes a lifetime to forget them."