I think I had it from the start. I was just writing fairly short stories.
1 Like
As much as you get frustrated with not being quite where you want to be, having finished several books make it easier to try again, no?
Iām hoping itās that way for more āsteady mindsā. Iāve liked that Iāve finished 1st drafts and edited enough. It does give me an edge to try againā¦
But for me, completing any task is lime trying to hang on to a tangled ball of eels. I know I can do thisā¦but so many things still undone. Stories that just flow out of me are easy to finish. Any point where it bogs down and takes effort?
Those are the things I need to tackle, next. Prove that I can handle finishing things in a slump. Lol
2 Likes
Before I knew it, I was heavily into writing 
Thereās nothing I wish I knew beforehand because every step, every challenge I faced helped me grow as a writer. I donāt know if knowing it beforehand would have changed anything, to be honest.
Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better I knew beforehand that self pub could be a way to go because querying terrified me. But back when I started writing, self pub was not the way to go. In fact, a lot of indie books were low quality and there wasnāt a lot of respect for them anyway. So, it wouldnāt have changed anything by knowing beforehand that I could publish on my own.
Iāve also wondered if I knew that I didnāt have to do intense, complex world building for my story, maybe I wouldnāt have spent 7 years writing a novel. But if I didnāt realize a writing style on my own, I might not have developed the one I have today.
But if I have to say one thing, maybe NaNoWriMo. That really helped me speed up my novel writing. If I try really hard every day, I can now write a 50k word novel in two weeks. It might have been nice to get this skill earlier on in my writing life.
2 Likes
Harder. Every failure makes the next new start harder.
1 Like
I wish I knew that drafts donāt always have to be perfect.
And I wish I knew that it was okay to step back from a draft because it wasnāt working - I spent so long demotivated and trying to rewrite one book before finally shelving it a little more than a year ago, and Iāve been much more motivated since then. I was beating myself up over not being able to make something better - when the truth was that I did not have any vision for the story, and I was trying to act like I knew what I was doing.
2 Likes
A fight with the feeling of futility. That is a hard barrier to overcome.
But like insanity wolfās attitude, itās living life in hard mode.
1 Like
Thereās weakness in every story. Thinking Tom Bombadill. Thereās a reason why his character was just skipped in the movies, entirely.
Not that the writing itself was bad, Tolkien doesnāt write poorly, but itās an unnecessary segue to the overall story, and if it was anyone other than Tolkien, thatās the point where readers who managed to stick through the start would be giving up at.
4 Likes
Thatās EXACTLY where I quit reading the book! Mind you, Iād thought there were silly parts before then too, but when Tom Bombadil and the River Otter are introduced it just maxed out my suspension of disbelief, and I couldnāt go any further. (*ć»_ć»)ćā*
TB is like an introduction to drunk poetry in the middle of a death scene. Heās not that atrocious if you donāt take him as a part of that story. (Or if he was comedic relief in a movie.) The problem is that modern placement should have had him ferry them through quicker, or been more serious about making his Pan/Puck limited space atributes hit a little harder so that we get that heās very powerful where heās at, but no further. Tolkien did that like 10x better with other characters.
Tolkien was really fond of āpocket Godsā.
1 Like
I wish that someone wouldāve told me that your writing is gonna suck the first few times.
When I was new to writing, no one was honest with me about anything. I was told my work was goodābut only that, no criticism, no constructive comments, etc.āand that was it. No one showed me the ropes. No one ātrainedā me or gave me any advice. It wasnāt until much later when I realized that my work sucked and I felt horrible for it, even to a point of giving up. But I decided to keep going and Iām glad I did. However, I still see people get frustrated by how insecure they are about their work and think they suck at writing or theyāre told it isnāt good and all they want to do is quit. I wish it was more acceptable to understand that your first few stories arenāt going to be like authentic art from Leonardo Da Vince or Picasso.
1 Like
Preach!