Thread: A fear of writing?

I wonder if anyone here has experienced, or is experiencing, something similar to what I'm going through right now.

Here's the deal: About nine months ago, during a three-week span in November, I sat down and wrote a book. It was my third book, the previous two having been consigned to fireplace kindling long ago. It was a decent length, weighing in at around 80,000 words or so. Feeling fairly self-satisfied, I set it aside and began my standard three-month cooling-off period. Three months later, with eager anticipation, I picked up the manuscript, blew the dust off the title page, and opened 'er up.

I have yet to recover from the experience. It was a travesty. The words thunked around like hollow blocks tossed onto a sidewalk. The characters were stiff and lifeless. The plot... oh, gods, the plot. I couldn't even figure out what was going on, and I wrote the thing.

I haven't written a word of fiction since. Well, that's not entirely true. I've flapped my fingers halfheartedly at a few ideas here and there, but I can rarely get past 2,000 words or so anymore. Every time I begin to write, I'm swamped by a sense of dread. I feel like I've killed my muse.

It's like a writer's PTSD. Has anyone here experienced something similar? If you have, how did you overcome it? I've tried just wading into the manuscript with a flashing red pen, but I don't even know where to start with the edit. I've tried beginning a new project, with the results I mentioned before. I've even tried giving up on writing altogether (which is the path I'm closest to taking right now), but I just can't seem to leave it alone.

What do you think, internet? Is there hope? Can I be cured?

I haven't experienced that Dan, but then I haven't written a book yet! I've read a few of your comments on this forum, and I like the way you write I'm sure you feel much better now
I have a question for you though, how much do you reread and edit as you are writing your manuscript? Or do you leave the bulk of it for your post-three month read?

Dan, why do you HAVE to write long fiction? Is word count paramount? Writing short stories and flash fiction for the fun of it helps you to practice getting from beginning to end of the writing process quickly so that you can practice over and over.

So far that hasn't resulted in a good novel from me. Short fiction is paced entirely differently from novels so maybe I'm using the wrong tactic. It's fun to try, though, and I don't think the practice will be wasted.

I know what it feels like, the sensation that everything you've done until now has been a fruitless effort, unrewarding, and humiliating. I haven't felt that in the scale you have, but in a much smaller one. If you stop and think about it, the fact that the past you liked it well enough is an undeniable fact, and there lies the difference. Being able to understand how bad your work is means you are already a better writer. You already know how to get it right this time, you just haven't realised it.

The fear is that you might end up with something similar, that you might be disappointed again. But that won't happen, and if it does, it means you've improved a lot on the way. Try writing short things, and see if you actually like what you wrote; try to get back your confidence by taking little steps, and then run again like never before.

Yes. Here's my experience, for what it's worth:

I started writing just before the turn of the millennium. I always had a wild imagination, and there were only two possible outcomes for that. I tried both. The first was to write and direct a film. About two days into the project, I realised how much money, people, and time was involved with such an endeavour. I decided to write a film instead. Somewhere in that initial script, my idea metamorphosed. It became a novel. This was a much better use of my time, I remember thinking. I didn't have to pay for recording equipment, actors, or anything else.

I started the novel late in '99. I took almost sixteen months to complete and ended up at 125,000 words. Like you, I consigned it to my desk and immediately got to work on the next one. The thing was, I never looked at it again. I wrote the sequel in ten months and I consigned it to the desk as well. I started the third one after a short break and completed it six months later.

I never looked back at any of these novels. I kept looking forward. I wrote numbers four, five, and six before joining a writing forum in early '07. I won't give the name, but it wasn't this one. I started to peruse the posts. People were talking about passive writing, show and tell, and a whole host of things which I believed were actual writing rules. I started to study them at great detail. I found them everywhere. Writing sites, blogs, you name it. I started to question my own writing. Was I doing it wrong? These people were part of a writing forum: fellow writers who I believed knew what they were advocating.

I took everything to heart. I cut out passive writing, telling, and adverbs. I started work on novel seven with this mentality; but something wasn't right. I didn't enjoy writing anymore. Everything became a chore. Sentences were over-scrutinised. My joy for the written word was almost nonexistent. I even stopped writing for the rest of the year. It had lost all appeal to me. This was something I had loved doing for years. I looked forward to coming home and writing. Now I didn't even care.

My epiphany didn't come until a few years later, but it came. I compared the writing I had done before joining a writing forum to the little snippet I wrote for novel seven. The latter was stilted. It lacked the tension and suspense of my other books. It felt so contrived. I asked myself what I wanted: Did I want to write in some contrived way so other writers would be happy, or did I want to write how I'd always written and how I felt people would like to read? I chose to write for myself.

Since then, I've finished number seven; and another two as well. I love writing again. I had a crisis of confidence but I came through it. I used to dread writing because I felt it needed to be perfect. I think that's your problem, Dan. It took me six novels, a crushing lack of self-confidence, and a epiphany to realise one thing: Writing isn't perfect. It never will be. It takes time to come even close to mastering it. The reality is this, though: Every time you write, you get better. Every novel you write, you get better at writing them. My first three novels are a pitiful excuse for a story and/or writing. That's nothing to be ashamed of. Think of it like an apprenticeship. You don't learn to build a house on day one, do you? Likewise, you don't learn how to write good novels without learning how not to write them first.

I've been there, I came out the other side, and so will you. First, you have to stop writing for someone else and start writing for you.

Sam W, thank you for that post. I wandered on here for the first time in a while because I've been struggling with not having joy in my writing. I think I'm having the same problem you were when you were writing book 7.

And to the original poster: I go through this all the time. Over-thinking writing does this to me. Taking breaks makes me over-think. I've written a lot of words since I began to write seriously almost seven years ago, and I've gotten better, but also slower. The thing is, I enjoy writing more when I can churn out words more quickly. What's more, I'm mostly just 'not-writing' rather than writing difficult things. I pop open a word document and then close it a moment later. It's nutty.

Your problem sounds similar. Personally, I think once you find the dread of your writing the problem can go away simply because you realize the writing aspect of it is a side-effect. I've been fueling my writing different ways throughout my process so-far. Last year I gave up one of my main goals, and I've found the writing got harder. I've been writing since my formative years, and because of that I think all my goals are more-or-less tied to the process.

I ramble, but the point is this: Find the problem (Dreading writing is probably not the core of your issues) and separate it from writing.

It could just be a case of you being your own worst critic. I'm much the same way. I do a lot of crafty things ranging from making music to building furniture to building little plastic airplanes. I even attempt to write fiction on occasion. While I'm in the process of doing whatever it is I'm creating, I have a great time and enjoy it. When I come back to it later, I find it to be utter garbage.

Once you've made something you know it inside and out, you see all of its warts that others may not notice. I still haven't found a solution to this.

The best thing to do may be to let somebody else look at your manuscript, listen to what they have to say about it and then take their word for it.


A lot of great artists despised their own work. Who knows, maybe the world will think you're a genius too

Pick out the main problems and devise a plan to avoid them in your next project.

Plot problems? Maybe you need to try starting with an outline. Maybe you need to avoid subplots. Maybe you need to stop being so clever, and try a straight forward story. You decide.

Character issues? Do you need to write a biography. Perhaps its simply a case of one or two descriptive lines before hand. Or do you need an entire novel worth of history. You decide.

One problem with one of my earlier projects was weak settings. I drew pictures, and forced myself to pull them out each time I wrote in each location. Somebody else might use a different solution.

The important thing is to have a plan, write it down and stick to it. I garentee you your next project will also be full of problems. But they will be a different set of issues. New plan and new project. Eventually you will get them all.

It's like a writer's PTSD. Has anyone here experienced something similar? If you have, how did you overcome it? I've tried just wading into the manuscript with a flashing red pen, but I don't even know where to start with the edit. I've tried beginning a new project, with the results I mentioned before. I've even tried giving up on writing altogether (which is the path I'm closest to taking right now), but I just can't seem to leave it alone.

What do you think, internet? Is there hope? Can I be cured?

Admitting you have a problem is the first step. (I'm kidding. Sheesh!)

Like Foxee, I'm going to suggest short stories, and LM's in particular, at least until you get going again.

You know, the old saying "We are our own worst critic" has never been truer for anyone than it is for writers. We over-analyze our stuff to the point of nausea. We drive ourselves crazy and lose sleep over one line or one word or one punctuation mark. We pour so much into ourselves into our stuff that one bad critic can level us or infuriate us, even if we don't show it. We agonize over all things justified and most things no one else would give a rat's whisker about. We're like that, seeking 100% perfection and 100% acceptance even when we know neither are attainable, writing being subjective and beauty being in the eye of the... reader.

So how do we overcome that? Good question. Perhaps the same way we view ourselves—by accepting ourselves, flaws and all, doing our best, never stop learning and writing, asking and taking help, and (like Sam said) writing for ourselves first. Rules can and will be broken. A book made out of one horribly long and extremely hard to read paragraph is proof of that. Made-up words are proof of that, too. Run-on sentences are okay, especially to break up the read, and passive voice is cool. All things are cool in moderation, even moderation (a twist on the Twain quote… or was that Hemingway? Whoever). The point is don’t let yourself get so bogged down with mechanics that you lose your drive and joy. Just write and don't be so hard on yourself. Later, edit. As for your manuscript, put that red pen away for a bit, jot down how you first wanted the story to go, then see if you can't find a way to get your manuscript to match up.

Don't be afraid of writing. Write with joy, and then edit. When it's done, crack open the white and invite me over.

Well, holy cow. I'll be honest, folks: I didn't expect much of a response on this one. You guys and gals are great! A lot of heart and soul went into the responses here, and I really appreciate every one of you. Jeez. It's enough to make an ol' misanthrope tear up a bit.

Aderyn: Thanks for the complement. And, to answer your question, I am the world's worst about editing while I write. It's something I've gotten better at suppressing over the past few years. Once in a while I can go a whole page without doubling back and rewriting something!

Foxee: I have tried short fiction. Oh, have I tried. My shortest story to date clocks in right around 11,000 words. Situations that can be condensed down into 2,000-word bites just aren't my cup of tea; I can't seem to get interested in a story that takes me a day or two to write. There's not enough there for the teeth to grip.

elite: You whacked the mole right on the head: "The fear is that you might end up with something similar, that you might be disappointed again." That's exactly it. I've poured my heart into three novels so far. I've lost sleep over them. I've dropped weight over them. I've gotten friggin' hemorrhoids from sitting at my computer for eighteen hours a day pounding on them. (I know, TMI...) And what have I gotten? A bunch of crap. I think the fear that's paralyzing me is that if I sit down and start a new project, it'll just be the same dirty barroom waltz and I'll end up tired and disappointed and a little hung over at the end of this one, too.

Sam W: I had a very similar "I'm doing it wrong" crisis when I went through a couple of years of college-level creative writing. There was so much emphasis on avoiding cliche and using tactful alliteration and developing a theme and stabbing the ugly face of every adverb you could find that writing became a minefield. I couldn't set my pen down anywhere without getting my ass blown off. It took me a long time to detox from that. I still have flashbacks. To this day, the sight of an adverb makes me want to poke holes in things with bullets.

You're absolutely (stabstabbangbang) right about seeking perfection. It's a fool's game. I very much like this: "...you don't learn how to write good novels without learning how not to write them first." That's a statement worthy of an epitaph.

dwellerofthedeep: I completely agree... writing is the most fun when the words just fly. It's when you've got to creep along and tiptoe from word to word that it becomes less an exhilarating escape and more a lesson in survival.

Softscience: Show it to another person? Are you crazy? Wait, yes. Yes, you are. So crazy... it just--might--work!

BoredMormon: If anything, I need to back off the outline. For my second novel I had an outline that ended up being eighty pages long. It was insane. This last one was better, but I still had a folder in the file cabinet dedicated to nothing but outline material. I do wish I had any artistic ability so I could try out your method. My sister is a photo-realistic artist... maybe I could convince her to do some sketches for me. Hmmmm....

WriterBro: You have a wonderful advantage in that you have people who are willing to read what you've written and comment on it. So many budding writers have to fight a savage battle for even the smallest audience. This is one reason why I hate artists and musicians with a burning, fiery, pepper-spray-on-Mercury passion... their craft is instantly appreciable. People will gather around to see a talented artist paint. They will crowd into a bar to hear a good guitarist with a husky voice. And they'll mob a coffee shop for the joy of seeing a writer put pen to paper. Yeah, okay, I lied about that last one. Which is why I hate the first two. Appreciation, for a writer, is extremely rare and valuable. Stake a claim on what you've got. Hire armed guards to protect it. It's that important.

Hawke: Short stories? But I'm skeeeeered!

On a more serious note, Hawke wins the internets with this one: "...the old saying "We are our own worst critic" has never been truer for anyone than it is for writers. We over-analyze our stuff to the point of nausea. We drive ourselves crazy and lose sleep over one line or one word or one punctuation mark. We pour so much into ourselves into our stuff that one bad critic can level us or infuriate us, even if we don't show it. We agonize over all things justified and most things no one else would give a rat's whisker about. We're like that, seeking 100% perfection and 100% acceptance even when we know neither are attainable, writing being subjective and beauty being in the eye of the... reader."

There's not much I can add to that. I think that, as writers, all any of us want is to turn out that one story, that one essay, that one poem that makes someone say, "Damn. I've never seen the world like that." It's the dragon we all chase. And, more often than not, the dragon turns out to be a windmill. What separates a writer from someone who writes is that a writer crashes into that windmill, picks herself up, and charges off after the next dragon on the horizon. The writer doesn't care about the dents in the armor or the concussion-blurred vision. There's a dragon out there.

And we're going to find that sucker.

Well, while I do agree with Foxee and Hawke that short stories are a great place to start if you need organization and brevity, they were also part of what killed my long fiction.

I've struggled since a short story writing course to write long fiction. Sam is right about not learning to write from learning how to not write. In the case of the course, the instructor insisted that I couldn't possibly write long fiction because the word count was too high (she's a short story writer by profession, when she's not schooling people how to write short stories, web designing or running doggy day camps). Thus I stopped in the middle of writing of five-part novel series, convinced it was tripe even though she'd never read it.

I've struggled with finding readers who can give meaningful criticism and get all the way to the end without getting bogged down in daily life. It's much easier for readers to get distracted in the middle of a novel (work, kids, social obligations, other people begging them for crits). Almost nobody crits them on writing sites. I've had a 30K story posted since last year and never got anybody to finish it, and that's precisely what led to me dropping that project (which, thankfully, I'm trying to get back into). It has nothing to do with the quality of writing either, it's just that most of the people who crit on these sites are out to get crits and get out, so they skim through the first part and make up some generic comments. Critting others doesn't give you a like critique, and it's easy to waste time giving someone else a detailed critique and never get anything in return.

You're probably better finding readers in the genre. People who know how to read, who tote their Kindles and eReaders to work, who read on breaks and lunches and even while they're trying to eat. Avid fans of the genre are more likely to get all the way through a story.

Also remember that much of what we write in the beginning really is tripe and has no bearing on future stories. You'll learn, and you'll write better for it. Nothing wrong with writing tripe. You may go back to it later and refine what nuggets are there into some magnum opus. You can spend years untangling that and losing interest, or you can write something fresh and exciting now and go back later. You'll either keep making the same mistakes and eventually figure out what the mistake really is and fix it, or you won't make it again, having learned sooner. But you'll learn if you keep writing.

Oh yes yes, I know what you mean. I'm not too serious of a writer, I do it because I want other people to enjoy it, you get so SCARED. When you reread it, you want to burn it. I've never wrote a book, but I understand the feeling of wanting to burn your work out of sheer embarrassment and frustration. The sad thing is, as afraid as you are, you got keep on going, and keep working so that your work flows smoothly like melted butter. Till that moment you can point at something and go 'HA. I WROTE THAT!' with pride. But you are not, and neither will I, if we keep cowering in our corner. So write till you can't write any more! And when you reach that point, brainstorm. You can get over that fear, and we're here to help you. And yes, you are your own worst critic, but sometimes you have to shut them up. If you ever feel really bad about your writing, go find a copy of 'My Immortal' The Harry Potter Fan Fiction. It inspires me to write and will make you feel instantly better about your own writing. It's almost inspiring...