Am I Ready for Another Novel?
With November Looming, I’m conflicted about the value of lighting myself on fire writing another book right now.
The thing is, I see so many flaws in my writing, so many qualities that need to be improved, I’m not sure that writing another novel is the way to go. I’m half convinced that spending some time honing those skills first would be much more useful than the time I’ll spend editing the novel later.
Worse, I’m worried that I’ll set all my current works aside as hopelessly flawed. Some of them are already feeling that way.
And maybe worse yet, I’m not sure on the best approach to hone some of the qualities I need. See, the ironical part here, is that workshops and seminars and cons all want you to bring current work to show. I already know what’s wrong with all my current works.
How many of you have encountered similar stages in your writing? How did you work through them?
Merc
14 Oct 08 at 9:06 am
Yup. In that stage of realizing how much is WRONG and needs work… but unfortunately I’m still not entirely sure how to improve it. ;-( It’s like, I can’t pinpoint exactly what I need to work on, I just get a vague feeling “something needs work”, you know?
I’ve start with atmosphere and mood which, um, I sort of forgot I was trying to work on until I read this. O:)
Personally I’m not sure how else you DO improve things unless you write and work on improving whatever issues you have writing something. *shrugs* (My problem is I write stuff and then try to figure out what the hell is wrong with it, since at least then I have something to work with. Of course when I can’t figure out how to fix it, it’s even more frustrating.)
I’m sure reading and getting tips and ideas is incredibly helpful, but how do you know you’ll be able to incorporate them or improve unless you write something, whether it’s free writes or excersises or stories or whatever?
Maybe instead of a novel, you could do shorter stories (a collection of them) in November and pick something you want to work on and focus on that in each story?
Just a thought.
In the end, Wulfie, I think you still need to keep writing if you want to get better.
NOT writing anything, well, I’m not entirely sure how that will help you improve your writing in the long run. O:)
It doesn’t have to be a novel, of course. You could do shorts or practice free writes or something…
~Merc, rambley because she’s not yet awake
wulf
14 Oct 08 at 9:19 am
I hadn’t considered a collection of shorts; that seems like a spiffy plan. Though harder than a novel since each requires some planning and design time.
I certainly don’t intend to stop writing; I’m just feeling that novels might be too much energy expended for now.
Seems like shorts are a good way to go; finding some useful training exercises or an online class might be useful too, though I’ve never done any and can’t gauge their worth.
Merc
14 Oct 08 at 10:45 am
Cool!
Yeah, while a short collection might require more planning, etc, I think it’d be a great opportunity and you could count it for NaNo. 