So I've been writing and revising and hating everything ... I want it to be PERFECT!!!! No matter what I try, it's not good. I have scribbled many pages in my notebook and I did not mind one bit. I was trying out various things, learning more about my characters, and if was all fun. But now that I opened up a new document, I feel paralyzed. I type up a sentences and paragraphs and they are all terrible. I tell myself not to delete, but in the morning, I delete everything. Can I scream now? ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH. I feel a tantrum coming on. I feel like a fourth-grader who does not want to have to redo her work.
There is excellent advice over at Kristi Holl's blog ... the trick is to write fast and with with passion. But what if it's all crapola? I have lost all judgment about my work right now. My husband has suggested that I simply write and quit deleting and yet the delete button is my favorite key right now because the screen becomes blank again and I don't have to look at the stuff. He says to cut and paste it somewhere else. I actually do have another document where I talk to myself. Perhaps I should stick it in there ... I've not opened that document in a long time. But I promised Jen, my critique partner I will not delete anything more. We are supposed to meet Wed. and share some pages. I wanted to give her something brilliant to read ... make it worth her while.
Anybody else feel so neurotic?
I have made a decision. This revision does not have to be perfect. It cannot be and will not be perfect. It has to be incrementally better. That's all. Right?
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12 comments:
I know exactly how you feel. I read a ton of books about revision, and I think I really improved my skills in that area. Problem is, it's paralized me when trying to write my new book. I want to revise everything right then. I think I'm just going to have to force myself to write down 500 words a day, crapola or not.
YES!!! I actually just blogged about this yesterday, though not nearly as passionately as you! It's so hard because a revision SHOULD be perfect, needs to be perfect! I never thought I'd miss cray drafting, but I do!
Melissa and Anne, I used to enjoy revising short stories, but this novel, there are soooo many things to fix, I feel I cannot do anything right. I will have to take a saner approach, like doing two pages a day and only working on certain aspects like pacing ... and resinging myself to doing things incrementally because I'm afraid I'm going to go nutty.
Who'd have thunk that even-keeled Vijaya would go bonkers? Now I know what I must've been like at two.
Thank you for letting me know I'm not alone in my madness.
Yup! Incrementally better. In fact, my revision is so full of new material that it's first-draftish in a way. I've faced that I'm due for several more revisions, and since most of my previous books were series fiction, I've never had much time for other than a very good first draft and a clean-up revision. I must now accept that I can't fix everything in one go-round -- and I have the luxury of not having to.
For my WIP, I have a file called "cut material." Here is the limbo in which stuff rests before being added back, revised heavily and added back, or dumped. Even if a passage isn't much good, it might contain a word, a concept, or some other germ that might spark good stuff later.
Oh, Marcia, thank you for that perspective. I, too, have had those tight deadlines where I only got one or two passes on a manuscript, so having a dozen passes is a luxury and I should view it as such. You are so wise.
I know how you feel. BUT if you keep deleting you end up with nothing. And nothing does not equal a book. You must write Vijaya.
I suppose my prob is sort of the opposite, I keep just about everything I write, good bad, terrible brilliant. It's all there somewhere...now if I could only find the that file....
(you will NOT believe what the word verifcation is...horibl! Gotta laugh!)
Bish, you are right. In fact, this is why I turned to writing in those cheapie composition notebooks. I used to use those spiral bound ones and rip out pages ...
I will get over this phase, right? Right?
YES from me too -- I absolutely know how you feel. I've been revising an MG ms for the past two months, and there are times it reads as so much dross. When I can't make the prose really sing, I go and read something, then I come back to it the next day and try again. Almost invariably I can do better and turn telling into showing.
For me, the best way to move forward and not stagnate or spin my wheels, is to put what I want to say down on paper in bare bones, even if I am only 'telling', then go back to it later and flesh it out in a more 'showing' manner. And like Marcia, I have a huge Limbo folder where half-baked ideas float around. I go through it very rarely when I'm stuck, and there are times I do find grains of useful material there.
Yea I'm a perfectionist too. But that's sound advice from your husband and friends--just get it all down first. It's too hard to revise while you write your first draft.
Jude, thank you for stopping by. Now I really can't not delete, can I? Onward and forward.
Oh Vijaya, I so relate. That's a big reason why I've taken a hiatus from writing. I like your husband's idea of cutting and pasting the "crapola" into another document. You might find some diamonds in the rough later on.
Aw, Laura, I'm learning ... thankfully, I have settled into a routine since I wrote this post and revisions are coming along slowly but steadily. I'm a turtle.
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