Tuesday, August 28, 2018

"Wow, This is Really Bad"

As I sit here, reading through Unequal and attempting to whip it into some kind of okay before it lands on my editor's desk, I hear the words whisper in my head and pop out my mouth.  "Wow, this is really bad."

Wooden dialogue.  Lame descriptions.  Purpley prose. 

Yuck. 

Not the entire manuscript, mind you.  Just the scene I'm reading now.  It's BAD.  Blech.  I feel like I need to re-write the whole thing.  But I only have until Saturday to get this ready.  Hell, I'm not sure I could fix it if I had a month. 

And I have to ask myself, is it really that bad, or am I having a crisis of confidence?  (No, I won't subject any of you to it.)  I mean, I don't write bad.  But I am prone to crises of confidence on a regular basis. And the current crisis is a whopper. 

With the entirely lackluster roll-out of Sleeping Ugly, I'm wondering again what the hell I was thinking becoming a self-published author and wondering why I ever assumed anyone would want to buy my books. 

And then there's the review thing.  Losing one review wouldn't be so bad if I had loads of reviews, which I don't - a fact that whispers in the back of my head that if I was any kind of good, people would get an overwhelming urge to write a review.  I don't even spur people into writing a bad review, which would at least mean I evoked some kind of response. 

And the more I think about all the reasons why I could potentially be craptastic, the worse the crisis gets.  An endless downward spiral of crappy internal dialogue.  :shudder:  So I try not to think about it.  Except when I can't NOT think about it.

I'm not sure what I'll do to resolve the issue with this book.  I might just leave the scene alone and see what AWE thinks.  If she comes back and tells me it sucks, then I'll deal with it.  On the brightside, no one out in the world has seen it sucky and no one ever will.  It's not due out until late November / early December, so I have plenty of time to fix it.  Unless AWE proclaims the whole damn thing unfixable. 

Gah.

Do you suffer from crises of confidence?  How do you overcome them?  Or do you just motor through and hope they'll go away, like I do?

5 comments:

  1. Do I suffer? All the time. How do I overcome it? By knowing I'm not alone. I guess belonging to RWA helps. I see that crisis pop up all the time (even for the big-named authors).

    I'm thinking maybe you just need to step away from this project for awhile. Is there a reason it HAS to go out this year? I mean, you're on your own schedule. Maybe you're pushing yourself too hard. I was doing that at one time then remembered why I was writing: for something to do in retirement (although that came earlier than I expected) that was fun (and it is) and maybe make a little money (I'm making way less than a little!). Going back to that, though, helped relieve the stress I was giving myself. Of course, if you're writing to make a living, then that probably won't help you any and you can ignore me. :)

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  2. Bet you if you had read through BLINK before you sent it to me, you would have had the same internal dialogue!! It's an early manuscript - give yourself some slack - you've grown so much as a writer. AND the main point is that you tell a great story. UNEQUAL is most likely a great story.

    Stop beating yourself up and get to work!! (said with my tough love voice ;)

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  3. Sometimes I read my stuff and I think its horrible. Other days I love it. Don't beat yourself up. Get a second opinion.

    If you want a beta reader, for that scene or the whole book, let me know. I can be tough (um, hopelessly blunt) if you want me to be.

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  4. Yeah, what everyone else said! It goes with the territory of being a writer. Heh, I'm revising a book that I'm beginning to think it would have been easier to just start completely over. I'm 19 pages from the end. It might have been easier, but I'm slowly beginning to understand that this story needed all this stuff done to it. It's better. Maybe.

    Let J-AWE do her magic. You do yours. And the story will be what it is. A good one. ;)

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  5. Thanks for the comments everyone. I kicked my own ass this afternoon and went over the chapter again, fixing what needed to be fixed. You know, once I got out of my own way. ;o)

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