It’s crap. It’s all a big steaming pile of garbage.
Yes, I’m going slightly mad.
I couldn’t sleep last night. I tossed and I turned picking it all apart and trying to put it together again. The trouble is that when you start to force it the whole thing becomes contrived and it ends up being a big steaming pile of garbage.
I’m a fraud. I’m a phony. I don’t know what I’m doing and any minute now you’re all going to realise that fact and start mocking me for creating nothing but a big steaming pile of garbage, ahh!
What I’m experiencing goes by the name of, “a crisis of confidence”. The writing process is a rollercoaster as displayed by my mood this week. Less than forty-eight hours ago I was so excited about my WIP that I was positively giddy. I couldn’t wait to get it out. I couldn’t wait for you all to read it. I was totally psyched. Switch to last night, it’s crap, it’s awful, I’ve messed this up royally!
We don’t hear as much about this blight writers have surrounding their work as we do other things. Writers talk about the process, we talk about the stories, and the characters, we talk about publishing and about reviews, we even talk about the dreaded “block”. I don’t know if it’s just me but the crisis of confidence thing hits me more often than anything else.
Give me three pieces of information, any information, about anything, and I’ll write you a story. I can do it, easy peasy, trust me I’ve done it before. But will that story be any good… hmm.
I can write. I sit down at my computer and type, but does that mean there’s blood and passion flowing through it…? Hmm.
This is the curse of the sequel if ever I saw it. However, knowing that intellectually doesn’t help at all. “Sit down, shut up, and write. This is the same story you were thrilled to have created two days ago.” But that doesn’t matter because I made a mistake when I got myself excited about it. I judged the book on it’s own merits – d’oh!
The book is fine (I’m not going to fancy it up with lyrical prose here) there is nothing wrong with it. But, it’s a sequel.
It’s not going to be judged on its own merits because people want more of the first, they want the same wow, the same surprise, the same tension and energy. So I match it to the first novel and come to one irrefutable truth – it’s one big steaming pile of garbage.
The trouble is of course that I’m the only person who has read it, obviously, it’s not polished yet. It’s not out yet so there is time to fix what I don’t like, but that doesn’t help me now. I’m nauseous, the skin on my face tingles, the urge to scream out vibrates in my throat and I want to punch something, hard. I want the kind of instant destruction that makes us feel better for half a second until we realise we’ve hurt ourselves, broken something, and so now have another two problems to deal with.
In short, I want to be Rushe. I want to have seen this coming. I want to have been ten steps ahead. When things don’t go my way and I’m frustrated I want to see myself have an impact on something, even if it’s just physical. Ahh!
Again, I scream, not aloud, I scream inside. I scream in my head. I scream in my heart. My arms feel heavy and my sinuses swell. I can do this, I know I can, I know it. But if that was truly the case then why is it a steaming pile of garbage. If I can do it then, why did I create this mess?
I could go on all day and I babble here because there’s nowhere else to do it. These words should be written into the novel, I should be busting my ass there but I’m not. I’m here, because I hate it. I’m rubbish. It’s just one big steaming pile of garbage.
Scarlett
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