Clamp Down, Stand Firm or Move On?

Sometimes I feel like the Pete Rose of writers.  Not the most talented player on the team, but the one who’s willing to hustle and work her tail off to succeed.  I’ll keep working on a project for as long as it takes, sitting at my computer until my back aches and my butt goes numb.

Photo by Dan Photo

I won’t say how long I’ve been working on my current "work in progress."  Not even if you stick bamboo shoots under my fingernails or make me listen to Unchained Melody over and over. 

I’m tenacious when I get a manuscript between my teeth.  I won’t stop until it’s absolutely right.  I'm just a girl who can't let go.

I’m starting to think this is not such a good quality. 

 

Sometimes, I’m told, discretion is the better part of valor.  It might be smarter to give up on a project that’s sucking the life out of me and live to write another day. 

 

But it’s hard to let go when it’s a project I love.  It doesn’t seem right to leave the characters in a lurch.  How can I walk away until I know for sure how the story ends?

  

Writing a novel is complicated.  So many moving parts.  So much can go wrong.  So many ways to make it just a little bit better.  If I just add one more plot twist, or kill off one more character or change the wording of one more sentence, it will be perfect.  But of course, it never is. There’s no such thing as perfect. 

 

Perfect is the enemy of the good.  So I promise to get through this one last rewrite and then I’ll move on to other projects, other journeys, other dreams.

As soon as I take care of that hinky paragraph on page 173.

Are you the type of writer who moves easily from project to project?  Or do you clamp down on a story with the jaws of death and hold on until you reach the end?

Vanquishing Self-Doubt

It's that ugly little voice that whispers nasty lies in your ear when you’re most vulnerable. 

     You’re not good enough.

     Everyone else is better than you.

     Your writing is uninspiring and cliché. 

     You’re delusional to think you can do this. 

     You can’t even type.

The negative feelings feed on themselves growing bigger and scarier until they threaten to gobble you up. 

 

Photo by Dan Holm

When self-doubt engulfs me like a dark cloud, my gut freezes.  My brain hardens like concrete.  Writing the simplest sentence feels like climbing an insurmountable mountain.  One that’s covered with sink holes.  And sticker bushes.  And flesh-eating bacteria.  Self-doubt cramps my view of what’s possible and obscures the road behind, blotting out the memory of how far I’ve already come.  

For writers, it’s a pretty common complaint.  Writing can be lonely.  It’s just you and your keyboard and that blinking cursor you’re supposed to be pushing across a white page. 

 

To deal with self-doubt, I have to make myself ignore the toxic voices and keep writing.  I have to convince myself my goal is possible, and remember that, no matter how difficult if feels right now, I’ve done it before and can do it again. 

 

Writing buddies and critique groups help in this regard.  They keep me grounded and provide encouragement when the bridges fall away.  And the ogres won’t let me pass.

Sometimes it only takes a little break in the gloom to get moving again—finding an inspiring quote, coming up with a fresh idea, gaining a small insight into a difficult plot twist, receiving a kind word from a friend.  Then I’m back on road, writing stories that I hope will someday carry my readers on their own magical journey.

  

“If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
                                                              ― Vincent van Gogh

That’s how I cope. And it works.

Most of the time.

How about you? What do you do when the self-doubt beasties start nibbling at your heels?