Knowing when to quit

[Mouse]

Caveat: it's a black dog day and I just wanna go home and cuddle my literal black dog but I'm stuck in the office and blah...

I haven't written anything since I failed the NaNo in November. I have vaguely wanted to work on my first draft of L&C but I've not had any beta feedback and I need help now as my writing has got so bad (like, all of it - plot, characters, descriptions, everything) so I can't do anything there. I was thinking about resuming the novel I left off from the NaNo but I've had such bad feedback on everything lately that I think now it's time to quit.

So, I guess what I'm asking is, how do you know when it is actually just time to say 'ok, I'm no good at this and I'm not improving so I should chop off my fingers and write no more'? Rather than just keep on keeping on thinking 'I can get better.'

I don't need an ego stroking. I don't need people to tell me I'm good at such and such. I've had so much feedback lately from people saying everything's terrible to know that there's a problem.

I'm thinking my options are:
1. give up writing romance
2. give up writing novels and stick to shorts
3. work away on L&C then trunk it when it gets no interest but at least it'll be finished (much like TBM), then give up all writing
4. give up all writing, don't bother working on L&C

I can't do what I want to do because I don't know what I want to do, so I'm interested in others' thoughts. I don't think I want to do option 4.

 

[ctg]

Darling you can try to stop but you've already admitted you're a writer. I feel this all of the time. Nevertheless, I cannot stop writing even if I wanted to and I bet it's going to be same thing for you. What you do after is your choice. Some professionals just like to chill.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Hi Mouse - great big virtual hug from across the world coming your way!

First of all - if you don't want to do Option 4, then your instincts are telling you that it's not really time to quit.

Instead, perhaps it's time to take a break in one form or another. "Take a break" could mean:

• Take a few months off writing.
• Completely switch genres. If you're writing romance, maybe switch to writing some kind of Thriller to try your hand at something new.
• Switch forms for a while - focus on shorts for the next few months while letting ideas for novels percolate for a bit in the backburner.

And the other thing to consider is this - are the people giving you the feedback people whose opinions you trust?

Or maybe you need fresh pairs of eyes on your writing to see if someone else can offer a different perspective?

 

[Mouse]

The feedback is coming from reviews so it's completely honest and what's the word... not anonymous... can't think of what the word is, but it's from people who don't know me so don't care about possibly upsetting me like someone who knew me might.

Short stories is what I'm leaning towards.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Hi. As ctg says it’s common to feel this way; sometimes, often, always - we all suffer to different depths.

Got your email and saw this. I’m going to send you my thoughts on your options when I’m feeling a little better, but till then:-

1) this suggests you’ve akready ‘niched’ Yourself in terms of what you write. You’re always writing different things.
2) I like your shorts. In fact I think you should be writing them as well as novels.
3) seems like self punishment for no payoff
4) you wouldn’t be able to.

I’d say you’ve forgotten what you started writing for in the first place. Write for you and because you love it, not for Goodreaders etc. Find the joy in writing for the sake of writing again and forget publishers and agendas and what not.

Finally remember life informs your writing and you’re going through exciting domestic stuff at the moment. All these things will come into play and get you back on track.

I know a special tenth level Pa’u who has been known to say ‘wait for the wheel. It always turns’.

pH

 

[Toby Frost]

I'd definitely second The Bluestocking's comments. It might be necessary to take a break, think about all of the things you'd like to write and wait for the ones you're less keen on to filter away. Maybe two ideas could be mixed together to make something new. Whatever happens, I wouldn't do 3 or 4.

 

[Mouse]

I just don't like doing things that I'm not good at, and if I'm not good at writing then I don't like doing it.

I guess I've already had a two month break so longer won't hurt. But the one thing people used to say I was good at (characters) is now the main thing people are telling me I'm terrible at, so something's wrong somewhere. I don't want to write bland characters so that's why the quitting thing is coming into my head.

 

[Foxbat]

After a fairly productive time for me, I've spent the last year banging my head off a brick wall. It's only in the last week that I've actually managed to complete a new story and start another. I have a pile of nonsenical rubbish to show for the last twelve months.

But just because you're not managing at the moment doesn't mean it's time to give up. Like others have said, it may be time to take a rest, think about other things and give the embers of ideas a chance to spark later.
Or to paraphrase an old TV programme why don't you just rest for a while and go and do something a bit different instead?

When I struggle to come up with anything, I reach for the pushbike and head out into the countryside (I've been doing this almost every day for the last year). Now, I've lost a bit of weight and finally got some ideas again

 

[Mouse]

Yeah, I want to get a campervan and escape.

 

[The Bluestocking]

After a fairly productive time for me, I've spent the last year banging my head off a brick wall. It's only in the last week that I've actually managed to complete a new story and start another. I have a pile of nonsenical rubbish to show for the last twelve months.

Funnily enough - me too. For most of last year, I got stuck in the mid-point of my WiP (mainly because too many life thingies were happening) and then decided to switch to writing a short story in the same story world, if only to keep on writing without feeling the horridness of the mid-WIP slump. Still took me 6 months but I finally finished it in January 2018 and amused myself no end while writing it.

So @Mouse you are not alone re being in the writing doldrums. Just roll with it - as Foxbat said: perhaps go and do something else for a while.

 

[crystal haven]

I've just come out of a time of not being able to write, so I know it's a difficult place to be. As others have said, you maybe need a time doing something else. You have a lot happening at the moment - it might be you need to focus on other things for now.

 

[Hugh]

I think of any creative activity as being driven by stuff emerging from or being accessed from the unconscious, and it’s only natural that this spring goes through times of flowing better than at other times, and sometimes of drying up for a while/ weeks/ years. I suspect that this is true even for the more technical aspects of writing such as character portrayal, as if there is no inner force/energy driving the character then it’s likely that the description is going to be flat and lacking depth.

At school I was taught the medieval system of crop rotation where, supposedly, there were three big fields, and the village left one field fallow every year so the fertility could recover.

 

[Mouse]

But if you're just crap at something then no amount of trying, or the longest break in the world, is going to make you better at it. I think that might be it for me. At least with short stories they're not really long enough for people to either remember or pay much attention to.

 

[The Bluestocking]

But if you're just crap at something then no amount of trying, or the longest break in the world, is going to make you better at it. I think that might be it for me.

Prior to the bad reviews/feedback you've received recently, how was the feedback to your previous work?

If this crop of negative feedback is an anomaly, it may well be just a temporary blip.

 

[Hugh]

Personally, when I'm overwhelmed or over-extended I always try to get back to basics, just sticking to what I feel I can manage.

 

[ctg]

Yeah, I want to get a campervan and escape.

May I suggest a holiday with Subnautica. I'll promise you're going to like it. Some people claim that game lifted their bad mood, even depression. It might do that same thing to you. It certainly has improved my life - as I cannot ever go to a holiday or Mrs Grey might die.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I had a similar frustration last year. I felt I was constantly pedalling backwards with my writing. Everything became rubbish because I dreaded sitting down at the computer to write so what I was writing was coming out badly.

I've come full circle and realised I love writing, but I don't want to be a full time writer. I like playing in worlds, I like spending time with characters and putting words down on paper. When I took the pressure to be good, to succeed, to finish a project in a certain time frame etc then my ability to write came back. It was fun again.

For the foreseeable future I'm going to remain amateur hour and put my books on Wattpad with other options for those that want to read Mayhem; Black's Nest; Sun, Seagulls and Selkies and Girls on the Rise.

I'm not suggesting you do the same but maybe finding ways to take the pressure off so the critics don't matter will help your writing get back on track.

 

[Montero]

I had a memory of reading something of yours and thinking it fine. Tracked down it was the sample section of Whitecott Manor - not seeing any problem with the characterisation in it. Only reason I didn't continue reading was M&M romance is not for me. I liked what you wrote, thought it entirely professional. Any chance of pointing us all to the bad reviews? I'd like to go have a look, see what they are saying, see if there is anything I can say about it that will help.

 

[Toby Frost]

But if you're just crap at something then no amount of trying, or the longest break in the world, is going to make you better at it.

Yeah, but you're not crap at it. Writing is a strange mixture of things: at the same time you've got to have the self-confidence/lunacy to think that a story you made up is good enough to try to get published, and yet you've got to have the humility/basic sanity to be able to take critique and try to improve. I don't worry that what I'm doing is fundamentally bad, but I do worry that there are big problems with some of it, especially the stuff that I'm currently trying to write and sell, which is somewhat different to my previous work.

Besides, if the problem is supposed to be character, what exactly don't these people like and is their view worth bothering with? If they don't like the characters, does that mean that they think they're badly written or not people they would want to know? This may be a particular problem with romance, where I guess you've got to fall for the characters more than in say, a thriller, where the hero is just less of a villain than everyone else. If you write something without that requirement, would it be easier?

 

[HareBrain]

What makes you think L&C will get no interest?

Anyway, I just came here to say that Seoul Survivors by Naomi Foyle currently has a Goodreads score lower than Space Mac, and she went on to write one of my favourite ever series. And the reviews of hers remind me of those of yours a bit. You've written something that's provoked a wide range of reactions, but you seem to be focused only on the negative ones -- and some of those seem to have been given for quite frankly bizarre reasons. Also, from what I've read so far, isn't Mac supposed to be shallow? Isn't that kind of a running joke? (If it's not, and I've just made things worse, then, er, soz.)

I've had a couple of really bad reviews. One of them said the dialogue was dire, even though that's something a lot of other readers seem to like. The title of another was simply "Meh". And it's very, very difficult not to care, when you've worked hard at something. There's no easy answer, that's for sure. But it might help to remember that a professional publisher liked your book enough to put some actual money behind it.