Any suggestions for a new writer?
I am in no way a writer. It's something I've always wanted to do, but could never build up the courage to actually start. Every time I think about writing, I think about the end result and how I am not a good writer. This process circles through my head until I come to the conclusion that I shouldn't write at all if my final product is going to suck. I have no real experience writing seriously (outside of school projects/poetry classes). I have a lot of stories that I want to get out of my head and put down.
Could anyone give me any suggestions? Maybe something about your writing process or how you got over something similar?
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Let's say that you wanted to become a circus performer. You want your act to be juggling flaming batons blindfolded while riding a unicycle on a tightrope over a tiger cage.
You recognize that your first attempt to do any of these things, let alone do them all together, is going to suck. So what do you do? You go away and you practice each element separately. You watch other performers to learn their technique. Maybe you go to circus school. And you practice, practice, practice.
In each of the skills in your act you will hit a plateau where you will get discouraged. If you really want to be a circus performer, you will persevere and eventually start improving again. If not, you will quit and do something else. That's fine. We all have to test our resolve to know how much we really want something. Maybe you will decide to be an accountant but you will put on a clown suit and juggle rubber balls for children's parties on the weekends. That is fine too.
One day, if you work long enough and hard enough, you will ride your unicycle blindfold across a pit of tigers while juggling flaming batons and the crowd will go wild.
Learning to write it like that too. It looks easy, but then, the great circus performers make it look easy. But a writer had to build a world, create characters, paint a scene, tell a story, expound a theme, and charm the reader with beauty all in a single string of words. It is at least as complicated and difficult a task as riding a unicycle blindfold over a pit of tigers while juggling flaming batons. It takes as long to learn. There will be plateaus that test your resolve. Most who try never get good enough to wow the crowd.
So you have discovered that it's hard. It is not just hard for you. It is hard for everyone. The question is, how much do you want it? How hard are you willing to work to get it? How afraid are you of heights, or fire, or tigers?
Suggestions? Like any complex and difficult skill, start with something small and simple. Practice till you get good. Add something else. And study the masters. Study them all the time.
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What I learned is that the writing process is something very subjective and what can work for me could not work for you and viceversa.
However, the most important thing (especially if you are a beginner) is to shut down your inner critic.
You should write without questioning how good can be. Just let it flow. You have to discover your voice and your style.
You can't expect to have a gold bar if you are not ready to get your hands dirty collecting the nuggets.
There's a time to write and there's a time to judge ;) don't mix them up.
P.S. Good Luck!
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You're letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.
Let's be blunt: your initial efforts will suck. That's because every writer's initial efforts suck. Stephen King? Sucked. JK Rowling? Sucked. Octavia Butler? Sucked. Shakespeare? Suckethed.
Your goal is not to write something perfect. Your goal is to get it down on paper. Once it's on paper, then you can edit it, repeatedly, until it doesn't suck. But you cannot edit a blank page.
So go ahead and get your stories out of your head. You don't have to show them to anyone. The grammar can be terrible, you can have lots of "TK he gets from here to there," your characters can all be Mary Sues, it doesn't matter.
Write. Just write for the sheer joy of writing.
Later, you can go back and make it better. Later, you can go ask for help from beta readers and editors and learn how to make it better. You can learn how to make the end result great.
But there's no end result if there's no beginning. Go forth and write without worry or shame.
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