From my last post, I mentioned that my current frustration might have come from that fact that I have nothing else I want to do with my life, except writing!
Looking at writing from this point of view, I see that I have invest a lot in my writing. Thus I have become extremely critical to my skill and progress. Yes, I did manage to give myself free run for writing up first draft. And when I started the re-writing of STOS # 1 on June, I thought I was o.k. with the story. It took me this long to realize that there’s a part of me who’ve been sneering at all my effort all these time. Underneath it is the sinister voice of the eternal critic who said:
You wrote shit!
You’ll never get published!
You should have stories published by now if you haven’t wasted all these years only “talking” about writing!
Now, this last comment (you should have stories published by not if …) is also crucial to my frustration. It loomed so big in my mind that I started to feel desperate and panic. And how do I deal with it? I required myself to work harder and faster. In another word, I've been trying too hard. I have turned the entire writing process into a CHORE. The daily 200 word count is just a thing on my To-Do-List which I can’t wait to get it out of the way. Having a writing (or creative) routine is one thing, but if it becomes only a task, it freezes creativity. (Having said that I’m still a big believer of routine based working method.)
And thanks to Holly’s keen observation, something else started to make sense to me. It was about the initial “glamour” associated with starting any new project began to wear off, the project became … just a project. It lost the shine and glory which I have placed on it. Holly also mentioned it might be time to give writing a rest and do something thing else. I’m not quite sure about this as when I was doing other non-writing project, I felt agitated from being away from my stories.
This is where I am:
My desperation of becoming a published writer had me pushing myself to a corner. The result is my creativity froze up and the stories no longer sparkle.
Solution:
I haven’t yet figure out steps or an action-plan to deal with it. But I believe I need to go deeper and further with the comments I so far gathered from the previous post.
Thank you for listening and hope you’ll still be with me next time …
P.S. The "arrow signs" on the pix said: Where Am I?
P.P.S. "STOS" is my current writing project. It is developed on Dec 2008 and is a series of stories which based (loosely) on the same theme.
