6/18/10

Hate's An Ugly Word

Do you ever hate your novel?

Maybe I'm the odd one out this time around, but there are times when I just can't stand to look at it anymore. I walk out of the room and would be very glad never to have to return.

I feel rather awful about this. I wrote this story, conceived it in my head, gave it voice not once, or twice, but working on three times, and it's my baby. I really do love it. But there are times where I just...hate it. I wish I didn't have to come back to it. Maybe there's another piece of writing garnering my mental attention, maybe it's just that I couldn't stand to write anything more.

Does this happen to anyone else? Do you get so intimately aware of your characters that the lose their attitude and flavor? Do you get so sick of a setting that the idea of describing it just seems so pointless? Do you ever feel like you've been here before? (In the first draft...second draft...third...zzzzzzzz...)

It really is time to be done. I'm writing well, as well as I can, but I know I need to finish it quickly. To draw it out too far would be cruelty both to me and to the MS. Which means more time staring at Microsoft Office Word 2007. And my computer screen.

I'm so tired of this. My brain is drawing blanks on all things plotting.

I wonder if I could just stage some shipwreck or something. Everyone dies. Tragic. The end.

Yeah, that will work. (Not.)

Anyone have any encouragement? What keeps you going when you get - what should we call this? - writer's fatigue? Any blog posts that made your day? Any funny YouTube videos? Any inspirational stories of perseverance and success?

1 comment:

Creepy Query Girl said...

Oh yes. At that point I usually just put it away. Better to look at it after I've cooled off that go trigger happy with the delete key and just delete the whole damn thing.