Another Day, Another Dollar...But More Writing Done

[queenoftheskies]

Back to work after the holiday. Work was the pits, but maybe a little worse than usual. Too much to do, the computer's still crashed, no help. Everybody making demands for things all at the same time.

A new job would do nicely right about now.

I'm really down on my writing right now. I can see what I need to do, see how I need to weave the threads together, add the complications, make the story complex...but I'm not sure I really have the skill to do it any more. It frustrates me, makes me not want to write.

I had a really hard time forcing myself to keep going tonight. I'm not quite sure how to get over this. I feel like everything I'm writing is crap now. Don't know if any of it can be salvaged.

Beginning of the End 2198

Total word count to date 63,904

Comments

Re: Thanks!

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

>>, how do you explain the fact that you sell the pieces you think won't sell?<<

I figure there are two explanations: One, most of the stuff that's sold this year wasn't stuff that I usually write. Each were challenges to myself, so I really didn't have a way to judge them, I suppose. But I think a lot of it was also targeting: the two magazines that have bought stories of mine so far this year were specifically looking for the kinds of stories I was selling.

>>Somehow, I guess I'd just figured they were all geniuses and started out great.<<

So did I; it was quite a revelation. Also, to add to my original list, I recently read interviews with Mike Resnick and Jack Williamson where they both said they wrote crap for years because they needed the money, before they fine-tuned their writing skills and made a name for themselves. There's also an urban legend--at least I think it's a legend :) --that Harlan Ellison will tear up certain books or stories you bring him to autograph. So even he figures that a lot of his early stuff is crap!

That's what I keep telling myself when I think I'm writing crap. That and I still don't necessarily know how to judge my own work objectively, so I remind myself that even if *I* think it's crap, someone else might really enjoy it!