So yeah, I was trying to write a novel
Mar. 2nd, 2005 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7As I anticipated, I haven't been able to get any writing done on the Vikingsnovel in the club. I made my pathetic little printouts for Chs 8 and 9, since I'm trying to sort of squash them together, and sat and read them, and the squashing really isn't feasible.
I realized I have to go back and rewrite chs 1-7 again before i can do this. Too much has been changed retroactively, and I just don't know what's taken place. I have to incorporate the plot, setting, and character changes before I can intelligently extrapolate on them.
So I can't write Ch. 8.
Well, I can't do Ch. 1 in the Club. I can't. I have too much material on it. There are rewrites of it all over the place, and I need to take a whole day or two and sit and look at all of them and really think. I've had several nice suggestions on how I should go about rewriting the first chapter, and they've all been great, but each of them has said something entirely different. [1) You have too much exposition and it's boring: Two votes (one from someone who couldn't bring herself to read beyond the first two paragraphs because it was that boring). 2) You don't have enough exposition and it's confusing: one vote. 3) It's okay: 3 votes.]
So I'm utterly baffled by that, and insofar as my own opinion goes, I've read the thing so many times I don't even see the words anymore when I look at it.
I'm extremely frustrated. The more I work on this novel, the farther it is from done. And it doesn't feel like a novel to me. It feels like a school exercise. And I'm worried that it reads like one. ("Well," thinks the reader, "she wrote this because she felt she had to. Reading it feels like a chore, but she can't make me do it the way she made herself write this." *tosses book*) I just don't have any faith in the thing as a piece of entertainment. It's not working. I'm capable of better. Except, apparently, not when it counts.
And writing is just about the only thing I do for fun nowadays. I don't have friends. I don't go anywhere. I don't even have any other hobbies. I work and I go home, and when I'm at home I write. But if I can't even enjoy writing, there's nothing I can enjoy. My job's OK, better than the last one, but I don't go to it because I think it would be fun to get shouted at all day and run around getting bruises because I'm clumsy.
It's not that I can't write. Lately I've given in to temptation on multiple occasions and have produced some fanfic stories, and it's been wonderful. People read them, people comment that they enjoy them, people tell their friends about them. It's really astonishingly rewarding. And there's a thrill of discovery in writing those characters. And when people comment on those pieces, I feel happy, I feel competent, I feel like yes, I really am a talented writer and am not just another sad deluded bastard who is a genius in her own head. I feel like yes, I really am someone who is going to publish a novel one of these days.
But my own original stuff never makes me feel like that. Not the Vikings stuff. It did, when it was new. So did Abandoned Novel. AN still feels 'good' and I enjoy writing it when I can spare a moment, as I do when I get a good idea for it. It feels like a really entertaining novel. But, as with all my original stuff-- if I post some of it, nobody's interested to read it. AN, I posted a synopsis and people were all excited, and posted a first excerpt and got loads of comments from interested people, and then posted three chapters over the course of a month and got... not... one... comment. *crickets chirping* I thought it was pretty good; I was in love with that story, and thought I told it well. Apparently the others felt otherwise.
I recognize that it's much less interesting and rewarding to read someone's incomplete original fic. I noticed this during NaNoWriMo. I thought my novel idea was so fascinating and would go on about it, and noticed that everyone else was doing the same thing about theirs, and... nobody was reading anybody else's. They just weren't interested in each other. I did my best to follow along with anyone else's novel that I'd promised to, and actually got involved in some quite fascinating storylines along the way, but I can understand how difficult it is to maintain interest: it's someone else's idea, which is ultimately far less fascinating than either your own idea or an idea you can share, like fanfic.
Ah well. The upshot is that I'm utterly incapable of doing any work on the Vikings Novel at the moment. I don't have enough time that's not at work, and it's too complicated to bring to work. (Before you begin suggestions about how I do so, bear this in mind: I have to pass through airport security to get to my job, carrying not only my bag and the Newton but also my extremely heavy and unwieldy cash drawer. It is already a stretch that I bring the Newton. Bringing more than a few sheets of paper, my wallet, and perhaps a tampon or two should the need arise is pretty well unfeasible: the only bag that fits the Newton fits precious little else.) I am not abandoning the Vikingsnovel, I'm just not working on it this week: I can't.
So, I'm going to spend my next three days in the Club writing simply for fun. I am too tired, unhappy, depressed, and thoroughly disenchanted with my life to force myself to do something so entirely unrewarding as work on this stupid goddamn novel. When I resume posting it, I'll do so according to the results of the poll, but I'm a bit confused at how many people voted in it-- I had expected that the people voting would be the people reading, but that hasn't been the case. I think there are only two people still slogging through with the reading-- I cannot thank you two (three?) enough, by the way, and I hate to leave you dangling and hate still more to admit that the public beta isn't working. As for the rest of you, thanks for voting, but I don't know why you did, if you're not reading it.
I am just tired. That's all. I need to do something fun. So fling your plotbunnies while ye may. I'm going to write things that are fun to write, that are fun to read, and that people will actually enjoy reading and leaving comments on. I don't know when I'll resume updating the novel. I hope soon. But at this point, the more I work on it the more work it needs, and I can't inflict that on people, let alone myself. I need to do something that I like, that other people like. Because I have nothing else, right now. I don't even have the faith that if I persevere I can do it: Maybe I can't. Maybe it's just not a good story.
In the meantime, I'm going to try to write something to restore my enjoyment of writing and maybe give me back some confidence that I can tell a good story.
Because I have nothing else going for me this week. And I need more help, more mental focus, and more self-esteem than I can currently scrape together if I'm going to finish that Novel.
I realized I have to go back and rewrite chs 1-7 again before i can do this. Too much has been changed retroactively, and I just don't know what's taken place. I have to incorporate the plot, setting, and character changes before I can intelligently extrapolate on them.
So I can't write Ch. 8.
Well, I can't do Ch. 1 in the Club. I can't. I have too much material on it. There are rewrites of it all over the place, and I need to take a whole day or two and sit and look at all of them and really think. I've had several nice suggestions on how I should go about rewriting the first chapter, and they've all been great, but each of them has said something entirely different. [1) You have too much exposition and it's boring: Two votes (one from someone who couldn't bring herself to read beyond the first two paragraphs because it was that boring). 2) You don't have enough exposition and it's confusing: one vote. 3) It's okay: 3 votes.]
So I'm utterly baffled by that, and insofar as my own opinion goes, I've read the thing so many times I don't even see the words anymore when I look at it.
I'm extremely frustrated. The more I work on this novel, the farther it is from done. And it doesn't feel like a novel to me. It feels like a school exercise. And I'm worried that it reads like one. ("Well," thinks the reader, "she wrote this because she felt she had to. Reading it feels like a chore, but she can't make me do it the way she made herself write this." *tosses book*) I just don't have any faith in the thing as a piece of entertainment. It's not working. I'm capable of better. Except, apparently, not when it counts.
And writing is just about the only thing I do for fun nowadays. I don't have friends. I don't go anywhere. I don't even have any other hobbies. I work and I go home, and when I'm at home I write. But if I can't even enjoy writing, there's nothing I can enjoy. My job's OK, better than the last one, but I don't go to it because I think it would be fun to get shouted at all day and run around getting bruises because I'm clumsy.
It's not that I can't write. Lately I've given in to temptation on multiple occasions and have produced some fanfic stories, and it's been wonderful. People read them, people comment that they enjoy them, people tell their friends about them. It's really astonishingly rewarding. And there's a thrill of discovery in writing those characters. And when people comment on those pieces, I feel happy, I feel competent, I feel like yes, I really am a talented writer and am not just another sad deluded bastard who is a genius in her own head. I feel like yes, I really am someone who is going to publish a novel one of these days.
But my own original stuff never makes me feel like that. Not the Vikings stuff. It did, when it was new. So did Abandoned Novel. AN still feels 'good' and I enjoy writing it when I can spare a moment, as I do when I get a good idea for it. It feels like a really entertaining novel. But, as with all my original stuff-- if I post some of it, nobody's interested to read it. AN, I posted a synopsis and people were all excited, and posted a first excerpt and got loads of comments from interested people, and then posted three chapters over the course of a month and got... not... one... comment. *crickets chirping* I thought it was pretty good; I was in love with that story, and thought I told it well. Apparently the others felt otherwise.
I recognize that it's much less interesting and rewarding to read someone's incomplete original fic. I noticed this during NaNoWriMo. I thought my novel idea was so fascinating and would go on about it, and noticed that everyone else was doing the same thing about theirs, and... nobody was reading anybody else's. They just weren't interested in each other. I did my best to follow along with anyone else's novel that I'd promised to, and actually got involved in some quite fascinating storylines along the way, but I can understand how difficult it is to maintain interest: it's someone else's idea, which is ultimately far less fascinating than either your own idea or an idea you can share, like fanfic.
Ah well. The upshot is that I'm utterly incapable of doing any work on the Vikings Novel at the moment. I don't have enough time that's not at work, and it's too complicated to bring to work. (Before you begin suggestions about how I do so, bear this in mind: I have to pass through airport security to get to my job, carrying not only my bag and the Newton but also my extremely heavy and unwieldy cash drawer. It is already a stretch that I bring the Newton. Bringing more than a few sheets of paper, my wallet, and perhaps a tampon or two should the need arise is pretty well unfeasible: the only bag that fits the Newton fits precious little else.) I am not abandoning the Vikingsnovel, I'm just not working on it this week: I can't.
So, I'm going to spend my next three days in the Club writing simply for fun. I am too tired, unhappy, depressed, and thoroughly disenchanted with my life to force myself to do something so entirely unrewarding as work on this stupid goddamn novel. When I resume posting it, I'll do so according to the results of the poll, but I'm a bit confused at how many people voted in it-- I had expected that the people voting would be the people reading, but that hasn't been the case. I think there are only two people still slogging through with the reading-- I cannot thank you two (three?) enough, by the way, and I hate to leave you dangling and hate still more to admit that the public beta isn't working. As for the rest of you, thanks for voting, but I don't know why you did, if you're not reading it.
I am just tired. That's all. I need to do something fun. So fling your plotbunnies while ye may. I'm going to write things that are fun to write, that are fun to read, and that people will actually enjoy reading and leaving comments on. I don't know when I'll resume updating the novel. I hope soon. But at this point, the more I work on it the more work it needs, and I can't inflict that on people, let alone myself. I need to do something that I like, that other people like. Because I have nothing else, right now. I don't even have the faith that if I persevere I can do it: Maybe I can't. Maybe it's just not a good story.
In the meantime, I'm going to try to write something to restore my enjoyment of writing and maybe give me back some confidence that I can tell a good story.
Because I have nothing else going for me this week. And I need more help, more mental focus, and more self-esteem than I can currently scrape together if I'm going to finish that Novel.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-02 06:48 pm (UTC)Although my reviews may have seemed overly critical, I really like the Vikings novel. It sounds like you're deciding which writing is fun based on the comments (or number of comment) you receive from different stories. I think you should find a storyline, characters, etc. that you love and then write them until you have as much depth as you feel you have with fanfic characters. But until you publish lots of very popular stories about those characters, you're not going to get the same sort of devoted loving response to them as you will to fanfic characters.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-02 08:34 pm (UTC)I doubt this will help but... that is so very true, at least where most fanficcers are concerned. For many reasons. First of all, stories tend to be less interesting when they're incomplete. I might even argue that a story is not complete until it's as interesting as you can make it. (At least, that's the main criterion I use, together with "is it consistent?")
Secondly, fanficcers are, almost by definition, here to read mostly fanfic--because they like (or even are obsessed with) the world, the genre, the style this is likely to involve, etc. If we want to read original stories, bookstores are full of the stuff, finished books, too. And there's no guarantee that the sort of original fiction we'd pick in a bookstore is the sort we'd want to read... (I would guess that many Tolkien fans are far more likely to head into the fantasy section and not the historical romance section. Myself, I tend to head for crime, of all things.)
I hope that doesn't sound too harsh. What I want to say is, don't get discouraged if your draft doesn't get much response from the fen. They're not your target market, and anyway your story is bound to get more gripping as you polish it. Also, the lack of comments is not necessarily indicative of lack of interest. Writing good constructive comments is hard work, all the harder when a fic is long. Actually, in my first fandom (Harry Potter) we used to joke that there is a law that the number of reviews a fic receives is inversely proportional to its length. This could be what is going on with your fanfic vs The Novel--it's so much easier to comment on the fanfic. I would guess that many people are reading it, but chickening out of leaving comments, especially since you ask for detailed ones. (I know I feel very uncomfortable leaving just two-three sentences!)
Finally--I think getting disenchanted with one's novel is a normal stage of the novel-writing process. At least, so say the writing books I have read. My only experience is with my 40,000 word novellas, and I can tell you that there are times when I hate them for weeks on end, but then eventually I get drawn in again.