I am so sorry that is immensely frustrating and I feel the exact same way…sometimes it’s just an issue of marketing and has nothing to do with your work but if you’re like me and work full time and have a busy lifestyle your writing time is your sacred writing time and you don’t want to sacrifice it to put all the necessary hours into marketing so your stories just…sit there, no sales, no reads
Then there’s the issue of genre and audience like I write hard sci-fi+cuberpunk which is pretty niche and sometimes it feels like my work has no value because I don’t feel like writing a more popular genre like romance and no one cares about the sh*t I actually want to write…makes you feel worthless as a creative person too, like you’re not welcome in your own community
To be successful you have to seek out your own audience these days and I just don’t have the energy or time to do that tbh
but yes I feel you about the “nothing of value can come out of the final output” because it’s so painful and I’m right there with you I feel like quitting more and more everyday
Last night I wanted to write but nothing came to me, watched TV instead until my eyes stung and watered (quite normal, they do that), so I called it a night, went to sleep. As usual, I was thinking about my story and imagined a scene that was too good to risk forgetting.
So I got up and wrote it down and one scene turned into two and I went to sleep way too late but happy.
I’m getting close to the end. I skipped a few scenes that I’ll have to get back to later but I’m really happy with how everything is developing.
But as I’m writing these later scenes, it becomes even clearer that I’ll have to go back and add more set up (hopefully I can squeeze it in with the missing scenes, won’t need extras). I’ve been very scarce with explaining things and now I’m afraid it’s come to the point that everything is coming out of nowhere.
It’s funny because to me this is what things always were but readers didn’t get to see them so they might think that the worldbuilding is inconsistent. It isn’t, but in my attempts to not bore readers with exposition, I’ve withheld too much.
So that’s what’s up right now.
Also, I need to create a new character. It’s so weird to think of a new character for a story I’ve been (re)writing for three years.
I tried putting my poems into Kindle Create so I could be like, “Whoa, so this is what my book will look like if I self publish, and all I’ve gotta do is edit (are there editors for poetry?), maybe write a few new poems, hire someone for a cover etc.”
And then I closed it, pretended it didn’t exist, and wrote 10k words for my prequel book to Without Parole which is still being edited as a second draft instead.
So I brought my plans for my novel to my research supervisor. She is lovely, she does studies about music culture, gets her students’ research permanently archived at museums, and calls my creative nonfiction “an honour to read”. She’s recommended me to an intensive writing programme run by her colleague.
And now I have two weeks to produce a writing portfolio which essentially is a 40 page manuscript of my new novel. I am screaming. I haven’t written a single word, and I don’t write that fast! I think she assumes I have it ready to go, or at least a large section of it. I should’ve clarified that by “working on it all summer” I meant sitting on ideas.
Shit, can I join it? lol. I have a 175-page first draft ready to go with my Wattys Entry lol. I can write fast, but it depends on the actual planning I have done. But yeah, sitting on ideas is still a part of the writing process, lol. 40 pages is a lot in 2 weeks, though when you wanna get it right. Good luck, though.
(Also, watched Ema and I enjoyed it, thanks. The cinematography and the music were great. The editing too.)
I know, I’m the same way. But there’s only so much I have time for. Even for the ideas I am juggling atm, I have one novel to edit, writing a prequel to said novel, then two other brand new novel ideas that I’ve put some words into already, and then I want to self-publish a poetry book too. Oi… It’s too many. I’m having a hard time haha
Thank you for your reply. Yeah, being indie is tough. I’ve developed a twisted love/hate relationship with writing over the years I have my moments where I feel I’ve finally made a break through to find myself back at square one. And so quickly too.
Ikr about the mainstream and popular stuff, it’s hard to be niche when everyone just sees the same thing before them.
Let’s hang in there. Hopefully one day we can start a new trend. Keep fighting.
So started to reuse Inkitt since I’m finishing off one of the stories I left hanging there for a year.
Never used the site much, so still not sure how the site works really. The dashboard seems vague. Is 7k reads a good number? I don’t know, since I don’t understand their metrics. Just looks like a pretty graph for board members.
well it only took like four times as long as it should have but this chapter’s finally done.
I want enough chapters to not have to worry about working on this during nanowrimo, which means I need at least five more. That shouldn’t be too bad. I’d prefer to finish both this and the first draft of GH but that’s probably pushing it so I’ll stick with five chapters and as much of GH as possible for now.
I have to travel far out for work yesterday and today, so I had no time to do anything apart from tiny bit of reading and editing She Kills for Radish, because I really don’t want to lose this editing rhythm. I still have another hour before I have to leave rn, so I will see what I can fit in. But tomorrow I will work from home, and then it’s 4 days off, so… lol, I will catch up on reading, I guess.
that is immensely frustrating and I feel the exact same way…sometimes it’s just an issue of marketing and has nothing to do with your work but if you’re like me and work full time and have a busy lifestyle your writing time is your sacred writing time and you don’t want to sacrifice it to put all the necessary hours into marketing so your stories just…sit there, no sales, no reads
I have my moments where I feel I’ve finally made a break through to find myself back at square one. And so quickly too.