Quote:
Originally Posted by BookCat
With this particular WIP, I know more-or-less how it ends and more-or-less how to get there. I'm having problems convincing myself that it's worth doing. But I know that I need to finish it for my own piece of mind.
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I am very familiar with the "is it worth it?" question. I'm also familiar with a "I think this sucks" response to my own writing. Sometimes it does
. But often it's just that I've lost my way, lost my idea of what the story was. What I find for myself is: while I am actively writing I generally like my writing, but when I spend too long analysing any incomplete work I get hypercritical and dissatisfied with it all.
I think of this a bit like over-thinking any work of fiction. Once you start get too enthusiastic about pulling apart a story, any story not just your own, you can easily conclude that writing fiction is a pointless waste of time. But go read a good book and suddenly there's nothing better (other than writing one
).
What I find interesting is that both your outlining approach to writing, and my suck-it-and-see approach, have left us with the same question: will it be worth it?
My writing has been unproductive for months. Part of it has been my work, but the other part was looking at what I had and wondering how I was going to get away with telling a fantasy story with barely any visible fantasy. So I've kept pulling around the edges, looking for some way to make it a bit more ... traditional/typical/acceptable as a fantasy story.
Well two nights ago I finally managed to push aside my concerns and get back into writing. What a buzz! My characters were talking to me again and the story started working for me again. I still have absolutely no idea whether the result will be worth it (in terms of being publishable*), but while the writing is happening I just don't care. I never expect that everything I write will be publishable, I just expect to have fun doing it.
* For me, "publishable" is partly about whether I think the story is likely to be enjoyable to others, but it's also about whether it is rich enough to be worth all the pain and hard work required to make it ready for publishing. Writing is fun (or I think so), but editing etc. is a PITA, so the story has to be worth all that pain.