Struggling with Writer’s Doubt
Yesterday was a rough writing day for me.
So far this entire process has been pretty great! Sure there were a few moments in drafting it all out that I was a little
But overall things were pretty:
Yesterday though, seven chapters into my revisions, I started to feel it.
That creepy little fiend called self doubt.
I started looking at my manuscript thinking,
“This thing sucks.”
“No one will ever want to read this.”
“I am wasting my time.”
“Everyone probably just thinks I’m a dumb housewife with a stupid hobby.”
“I’m not good enough.”
“I’m delusional to think I could write a good book.”
“I suck.”
That, coupled with the fact I still can’t find another literary agency internship, just had me feeling all:
This whole process is frightening for me on so many levels because this is what I’ve always wanted to do with my life. If I suck at it, who am I? If I fail at it, I will have to completely change the way I view myself and my dreams. Talk about a worldview shift.
So what can I do to battle self-doubt?
KEEP WRITING.
Don’t give up.
Push through my insecurity and keep pushing back.
I don’t want to be blindly confidant, but I want to be grounded in courage.
Because even if I doubt myself at times and I’m scared to fail at something I love so much, the only way to get to the other side of this process is to:
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
-Mae West
Tips for writing while home with the kids
Trying to write with kids in the house is my life right now since they are home on summer break.
Some days it’s super easy. Some days it’s impossible. Most days it’s a mixture of both.
The average day with my three kids (ages 6, 4 and 2) is some sort of rendition of this:
and me being like this:
Then they are all:
and I’m like:
Then they come back with:
and I go:
Okay, just kidding about that last one.
But really, it’s not the easiest thing to get creative work done when you have kids at the house.
I’ve found a few tips that help me get things done.
- Make a schedule. Figure out what needs to get done that day and set realistic times in which you will be able to accomplish it. Do you need to grocery shop, write 1k words, revise a chapter and fold laundry all before cooking dinner? Schedule it out!
- Don’t try to work through meal times. Just stop what you’re doing, make them lunch and sit down and eat it with them. They need too much during meals and you’ll just get frustrated if you’re trying to go back and forth from writing to cleaning up a spilled drink.
- Don’t rely on the TV. Now don’t get me wrong, movies/shows are a great tool for you to get work done. What I’m saying is that you should try to save it for the afternoon or for short bursts (if your kids don’t take naps anymore.) That way, you get a good hour or two to work without them bugging you. However, if the TV has been on all day, they won’t pay attention to it anymore and you’re out of luck. Netflix is awesome for finding movies they’ve never seen that can keep their interest.
- Call in the troops. If you have a deadline that you MUST meet, then you’re going to have to find a sitter. If you can afford it, I would encourage you to find a reliable babysitter to come once a week. If not, try to see if a family member will come by and pick up the kids or stay with them while you head out to a coffee shop. Sometimes you just can’t afford to have any interruptions and the only way to guarantee that is to get out of the vicinity of “MOMMY!!!!!!”
- Set daily goals. This is THE most important thing for me because if I set a goal, 90% of the time I will work until I get it done. That may mean coming back to it after the kids are in bed (or before they wake up – but I’m not a morning person so that seems like torture) regardless of how you get it done, as long as it gets done, you’ll reach your goal.
Everyone has their own particular way they can get things done with kids in the house, these are just a few of mine. I also copyedit, transcribe and intern at a literary agency in addition to writing and so I use these tricks a lot!
The biggest thing is they’re your kids. They are only this age for so long. They’ll only desperately need our attention for so long. Time flies and we writers sometimes need a reminder that we can’t just live in the worlds we create. So when the kids interrupt you for the millionth time in 20 minutes and everything in you wants to go:
Just remember to:
Because the last thing you need is to give them any more fodder for hating you when they are teenagers.
The Revision Process
I’ve been living and breathing the revision process for the last few weeks and it’s been a whole new experience.
It’s one thing to be able to set word count goals and knock them out day by day, but to sit down and begin shading in a book – chapter by chapter – is a lot harder than it seems.
“Think globally”
People have told me and that has been the thing I have been focusing on.
This weekend I have tackled the first six chapters. I have some revision notes from my CP, which have helped tremendously and now I’m just trying to clean up the dialogue and make sure things sound right – as well as fleshing out the setting and the characters. I just have a few more sections to re-write and then I want to send it over to my CP for her to take a look at this chunk in its entirety.
The cool thing about revising is watching the shading happen before my eyes. For example:
- Draft #0.5 (which was really a glorified outline) had the first section at 3 chapters and it was around 4,000 Â words.
- Draft #1 had it at 7 chapters and was about 8,500 words.
- Draft #2 has it at 6 chapters and about 13,000 words.
See, it’s so fun how it’s evolving! Have I mentioned I love writing? 🙂
I’ve also decided to never fully delete anything. I just copy it and paste it into a file called – deleted sections. I know, super amazing revising advice right there. Take note. 🙂
Through all of this, I am for sure identifying with the saying, writing is re-writing!
The hardest part right now is thinking and talking about something else other than my 2 year old’s bathroom routine (he’s potty training) and my book. I’ve definitely been alienating people lately, but I guess that’s the life of a writer in the thick of it.
Destiny Cole 