Too Many Thoughts About Writing (by someone who only marginally knows what she’s doing)
(rebloggable as requested. Originally posted here)Hi. I’m 42. I wrote intermittently when I was a teenager, but I read everything I could get my hands on—lots of Classics. Back then I would start writing a story, decide it was terrible and give up, or obsessively edit the start of something. Because if I couldn’t get the beginning right—how would the rest of it come out? Huge mistake.I was not patient enough to figure out what “the rest” of a story even was. I thought I should know it all immediately. Another huge mistake.
You have to be more patient with yourself and your stories than you ever thought. More than I ever imagined. When people talk about spending six years writing a novel (which I just did) you write it over and over. Many versions. Many different drafts with different plots. I wrote three different POVs before I found the correct one.
Here is my writing history.
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/53232640120.
