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What are the writing blues? I’m not sure. I just made it up. I wanted to address the blah I feel from time to time about my writing. You know when the passion and excitement seem to have disappeared and you don’t want to even open the story you’ve been working on? I’ve found out part of the problem. I’m not writing for me.
Maybe you’ve been querying and gotten a few rejections and it’s made you second guess yourself. Or maybe you’ve worked on a novel for over 2 years and you’ve become burnt out. Why is that? Art needs to be seen. Take my photography for example, I get the most joy when someone views a photo and it touches them. It makes all the hard work worth it.
But, with writing, it may be years before more than a few people read your manuscript. Writers want to be read. They write to share the stories, feelings, ideas, adventures, mysteries, and fears.
What does this have to do with the writing blues?
If no one’s reading your writing, that defeats your purpose, right? You wish to be read. And if you’re like me, you try to make people feel something or take them on an adventure. And if you’re constantly getting rejections to have agents or editors read your writing it’s like slowly taking all the air out of your balloon. Or for me it drains the passion from my soul.
How do you overcome the writing blues?
Write for you. Write what you love, a story that you can’t put down. Do not seek to follow trends or what’s popular. For me, that means I need to quit trying to please an imaginary person that may or may not read my work. However, what I need to do is make my story the best story possible. Sharing with trusted critique partners and beta readers to challenge me.
As for getting your work out there, develop a plan for your novel. Self-publishing is one option that many authors are considering. However, if you don’t want to self-publish you can join sites like Figment and share your work. Various writers on there will swap stories and give feedback. There are some really serious grammar people on there too, who are willing to contribute too. Figment is where I tested the first chapter of my novel. The feedback I received gave me the push needed to finish writing my the novel. Do not forget to be professional, no matter where you are talking and posting work.
Have you ever had the writing blues? What do you think caused them and what changes can you make to protect your writing from joy thieves?
I have gotten the writing blues!! I stopped writing Wisdom many times and went months without opening the file again. Even now, after it is finished and I am waiting for it to (hopefully) be published, I started to lose my momentum and got the writing blues. I got discouraged that no one wanted to read the characters I had written. I have so much faith in them, that it is hard for me to not share them with the world, as you said in your blog.
I agree in your solution as well, when I write for myself, I am more proud of my efforts than if i write worried what other people will think. Great post!!
Yay! We are not alone my friend. Write for us! I think our books should have the same book birthday!
That would be fun!
😀
Thanks for sharing. I get like that from time to time, too.
Thank you for reading. I hope it helps you keep moving forward.
I’ve actually had a bit of blues ness this weekend while working on my WIP! I just hit 20k on it, and it’s only been a couple weeks ish. Normally I’d think that’s great, but I’m totally second guessing it!!! I’m so bad at first drafts, I’m always convincing myself my book will end up horrible, etc. It’s hard
I have 2 wips at about 25K. Too bad I can’t put them together.
Not sure if it’s a typical experience, but every time I write a new story the by product is repulsion of my older work. Thus, I feel like an old truck without very good gas mileage, a very steamy smoke stack. Well a little melodramatic, I guess.
Thus I’ve been stuck in a poetry phase for about a month, where I’ll sometimes do stories. But mostly found myself mostly writing poems.
I finished a chapter book, but it feels more like that needle in a very big haystack the size of the cosmos.
I’m glad you found my blog!
I had the writing blues until recently because my sales were quite low, and I’ve been focusing so much on my academic writing that I felt I’d fallen out of love with fiction. I’d think about writing, and then find something else that needed doing instead. Luckily all it took was a double trip to the cinema and the immersion in someone else’s story to get me itching to go back to mine. I don’t know why but every time I lose interest in writing, I get back into it by watching films!
I love films. I learned all about story telling from films. 😀 Keep writing!