Tag Archives: Fiction

Frustration, Anxiety, and Writing.

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There are few things that ruffle my feathers more than trying to figure out my writing.

But hey, that’s where I’m at.

I have a book in the cosmos being queried, another with problems I’m trying to solve and I’m wondering if I’m doing this wrong.

Did I do something wrong in the writing and it’s frying circuits? Is there some magically gibbon or deity I’m not praying to?

I doubt any of that but I also know when it comes time to edit, I get really fucking nervous. I get severe anxiety from editing and revising.

It’s bad enough that right now my hands are shaking and my brain feels like it could explode out of my head. Left to float in the ether for all time.

I know those thoughts are bad and my wife tells me I have to get through them. I can’t keep rewriting the stories. That doesn’t solve the issues with the story it only prolongs those issues and at some point I’ll have to deal with them. But I really don’t want to.

I’m a discovery writer and I’ve written all but 1 of 9 books without a beat sheet or outline. I’m wondering if I may have to deal with that, bite the metaphorical bullet and do an outline for every project.

I see other writers take a few months to do an outline. For me, taking two months away from writing to work on an outline for a story I could be writing freaks me out.

I’m frustrated. I don’t know what to do so I’m throwing this out there even if I look at it a couple of months down the road when I’ve figured this shit out and laugh.

But I honestly feel stuck, frustrated, and bewildered by the lack of traction I’m getting.

I’ve thought about shutting down the blog for a while but it’s felt like an online confessional lately.

I guess I need that.

I’m trying to figure this shit out but damn, right now I don’t know.

I’ve thought about quitting a lot lately. More that I have in a long time.

I feel like it’s not going anywhere and I don’t know why.

I like the jazzed feeling of writing but right now I don’t know what to do.

Anyway, happy Monday. Kick some ass, take some names, and get shit done.

Nothing scares me…

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I’ve watched horror movies since I was 6.

The first one was a movie called “The Boogens” its a horrible movie, but it was my introduction to real horror.

Then came the original Halloween and Children of the Corn.

Everything that came after scared me and made me enjoy horror. Hellraiser will always be at the top of my list not because it’s scary but it’s just cool.

Now the horrible part. Nothing I read or watch truly scares me anymore.

I watched the recent Annabelle movie the other day, eh. It was okay. The second was good. It goes this way with a lot of movies for me, books too.

I have a difficult time finding books that scare me. I’m currently reading Wanderers by Chuck Wending, it doesn’t scare me it’s just so on the nose for our society that it’s unsettling.

It’s been a while since I read or watched something that truly scares me. And that’s why as a horror and fantasy writer I’m having a trouble writing something.

Yes I’m writing, but it’s not as scary as I want it to be. I believe this is because I’m having a hard time being scared anymore.

My wife and I talked about it and she said the same thing, “Nothing really scares you.”

Now I don’t know if this is a phase, I hope so, but I’d like find a movie or book that would scare me. I have Rosemary’s Baby up next on my tbr.

I’m hoping that one does it. If all else fails go with a classic.

Any suggestions would be wonderful.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend.

I changed how I read my first pass and saved my sanity, and story.

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I used to print my stories out, go through them, and that’s it. When our printer died, I read it off my laptop.

I realized it wasn’t working.

I put the file in Mobi form and put it on my kindle. I rarely use my kindle for reading and it seemed a good reason to use it.

It’s worked out well.

But seeing it on the Kindle in the form it would take after publication energized me. It made me realize the story is good and that it would one day see the light it deserves.

It was an epiphany. It gave me a new view at my work that I’d never had before.

It’s not reading through my own eyes, it’s reading as if I were the one who purchased the book.

It felt like a new book, one with more potential than I’d seen before.

Having a book as a file on a computer is one thing, reading it as the intended audience would gave me a whole new perspective on the draft and where the story could go.

I’m only sorry that I’ve never done this with previous stories. It makes me want to go back through the books I’ve shelved and see if they’re worth saving.

For the longest time I didn’t think about the other stories I’ve written. I wrote them, worked on them a little and moved on to the next one.

Seeing it in a published form gave me new eyes when I didn’t believe I needed them.

I have a lot of work to do with it but reading it the way the intended reader would is changing how I work on a draft.

It’s definitely increased my enthusiasm for the project.

I didn’t see the problems the other way, but now, I see the problems and understand how to fix them because I’m reading it the way my readers would.

I hope you all have a great week.

Moving to the next writing stage.

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On Monday I wrote about taking time with what I’ve written.

I wrote a book in December(talked about that here), another in May and June. I didn’t write about that second one. I don’t know why.

But I’ve written 7 short stories since then. I’ll be going over those as well as others I wrote after the one from December.

There’s a weird thing about finishing a book for me. I have to write something short afterwards. I tried writing something long after December’s book.

Because I wrote that book quickly, I got sick and had a general feeling of ill health while trying to write it. I quit it and it’s sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to return.

Now I still have a plan for it. It’s the second part of the book I wrote in December.

Here’s where that gets tricky: I have trouble doing read throughs of drafts. Maybe I’m not doing it right, but I have trouble with it.

I know I should do it to figure out what wrong with the draft, but it always feels wrong. Like I should just write another draft.

I am a discovery writer or pantser.

I was telling my wife that maybe that’s the problem. I’ve written 9 books and though one is out being queried, I’ve only written a beat sheet once. I’ve never done an outline because it feels wrong to me. I get bored of the story idea.

I used a beat sheet after I had a first draft done and maybe I need to do that again.

I realize that writing another full draft after the first one is 86,000 is an undertaking but maybe that’s what I should do.

Maybe that’s what I should start doing with every story?

I love writing and I enjoy everything about it. Maybe it’s time I start using a beat sheet/outline.

If it helps me get my writing in the hands of readers who would enjoy it I think that’s what I should do.

I’m moving to a new stage. One where my writing needs more focus and I believe an outline after the first draft of where I’m heading

Happy writing and I’ll talk more on Friday about this. It’s a new idea and I’m trying to bounce it off my head.

We have to change our lives for ourselves.

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I’ve thought a lot about where I’m going in the last couple of weeks.

It’s brought me to realize I’m not working on me as much as I should.

Sure, I write something new all of the time but I don’t work on what I’ve written.

Last week I talked about characters and how important they are.

I still believe that but things change.

I have a lot of stories that need work. They need their characters developed further.

I’ve always believed in having a goal for the summer.

Whether it was spending time with my cousin as a kid, with my kids now, or figuring out that what I’ve written is a good start, it just needs work.

What I’ve written is good enough for now.

I’ve thought I needed something new to keep me fresh and keep writing, but I have a lot of good stories they only need fixing.

My goal by the end of the year is to have most of them ready or submitted to agents or magazines.

Until the end of the year I’ll be focusing on improving all of them.

It will be difficult to ignore that little voice in my head telling me to write something new but writing isn’t always about that something new.

It’s about editing, revising and I’ve ignored that aspect of my writing for too long.

It’s time to work.