While you write, you accumulate many many pages of writings. Some of them you use and some of them you don’t. You may even keep a journal with your ideas in it. Or, you might also have a three ring binder you keep notes and writings in. After some months or years, you publish a novel or two. What do YOU do with your notes and writings after you’ve published your book(s)? Do you keep them? Do you throw them away?
If you throw them away, that’s your choice. You are well within your rights to do that. BUT, that means later you can’t go back and look over them when you need inspiration. Yes, inspiration. Let’s say you’re in the middle of writing book 3 and you are stuck. Will you have those old writings to draw from? You never know what might get your “gears” going again.
God didn’t give us good memories so we could look back and regret that we can’t go back and relive them. He gave us good memories as a gift so we can look back repeatedly and smile and be glad we had them.
What are you afraid of? Heights? Small places? Hospitals? Success? Failure? Sometimes, what we are afraid of can hold us back. When that happens, nothing happens. Let’s pick on fear of success. I know. It doesn’t seem like a plausible fear, but it is. Although, I’m willing to bet the person who has this fear is most likely not aware of it. I’m not a psychiatrist/psychologist. I fear many things. At least growing up I did. As an adult I still do. It’s something I struggle with sometimes. I end up having to talk myself into trying new things.
Fear of failure is one of those fears. I have to remind myself that I won’t succeed if I don’t try. Or, I tell myself, ‘But what if I succeed instead of fail. Again, I won’t know unless I try’. Getting over one’s fears isn’t easy. But, it can be done. Trying is the key. At least that’s been my experience anyway.
We write and we edit. We try to get the story on paper or the computer screen, then we go back when we’re finished and edit what we’ve written. That’s how it’s supposed to be done anyway. Does that always happen in that order? No. Not always. There are times when we try to edit as we type. The left side of our brain wants to insert itself at the same time our right side of the brain is trying to be imaginative and creative. This process can cause you to slow down when you’re trying to come up with a story.
Let’s say you’re a paragraph into writing a scene. So far you like it, but then the analytical side of your brain (left) is saying ‘No, no. That won’t work’. You go back and rewrite parts of that paragraph. You like what you came up with and move on to the next paragraph. You’re a couple of sentences into the second paragraph when your analytical side starts rethinking what you rewrote in the first paragraph. So, you go back and look at it but aren’t sure how you want to fix it. You end up sitting there thinking. Your fingers start strumming on your desk and you lean back in your chair and stare at the ceiling. An hour later you haven’t fixed anything, nor have you moved on with your writing. Had you waited to fix what your analytical side of your brain wanted to fix, you would have been MUCH further on in your story. You may have even gotten a chapter done.
How many of you can relate to the scenario above. I know it’s happened to me at times. So, how do we turn off the left side of our brain and make its impatient self wait? It’s quite easy actually. You make it wait. Turn it off. If you don’t like something you’ve just written, make a note of it so you can go back at a later date and fix it when you’re not writing. Choose a specific day and time when that’s all you’re going to do is edit and fix.
Loosen the “rope” when you’re creating and “tighten” it back up when you’re editing.
One starry night I lay beneath the sky, the crickets strummed their violins so sweet, dewy drops tickled, the cool it prickled, the moon man smiled up high.
In a previous post I wrote about writing a critique and how easy it is not. Well, receiving them can be difficult too. We want to hear that our writing/story/novel is good/great/excellent or even a masterpiece. The truth is, yes, some will give you accolades like that. But, some won’t. Some individuals don’t know how to be diplomatic and spell things out in a constructive less hurtful way. They are blunt about the negatives in your writing. Well, I say…….LET THEM. Yes, I said let them. It hurts, yes. But you can’t stop them. So, don’t cry about something you have no control over.
I have read reviews of other authors that ripped their story/novel to shreds (so to speak). Did that affect the author any? NO. It did NOT. The author moved on with her writing. She continued. Her books are still published and most of her readers LOVE her writing, including me.
Sift through the criticism that helps you. Learn from the feedback reviewers give you. How can you make your writing better as a result of using their suggestions. Will you use every piece of advice they give you? No. Again. Sift through it. Use what you can.
WRITE TIME AND AGAIN 