Reader,
Oh how nice it would be to revert back to simpler times. I don't mean go back to the 1900's or anything that drastic, but instead back to my childhood, when I was first discovering writing. In middle school and the first parts of high school I could easily fill composition notebooks full of writing, on one particular story. I had at least three composition books full, and although my handwriting has always been big, it was still quite the collection of words.
Now I trap myself, before I even get too far into the story. Is this good enough to publish? What did I read in my blogs about character trait X? How will I write a query for this when it's finished? How many hours worth of revision will this take? How much world building should I do before hand? Should the plot be predetermined? Stephen King writes starting with a what if scenario and just writes. Should I do that? How detailed should my character be before hand? Should I be keeping track of these details while I write? How much research is needed to make this plausible? You get the picture, reader.
I know that first drafts are allowed to suck, but I get stuck in my head, over everything. When I was developing my passion for writing none of that mattered. I wrote for myself first, and anyone who wanted to read it second. I could spend hours writing without worrying about plot, or facts, or saleability. If I want to get anywhere with writing I need to turn this over thinking part of my brain off for writing time. I need to figure out what style of writing works best for me, but stop thinking about what I should be doing differently.
Reader, how do you get past trying to be perfect the first time?
Or do you, similarly, get stuck inside your head?
Until next time,
Rose
and 
, and found the last few stories quite entertaining indeed. The catch is that I needed the time and space to get into Joyce's style of writing, something I hadn't had the chance of last week.
in two days. I read the second one in a day. Yet I can't seem to get through Dubliners, a much smaller book.
, which I read recently. The first fifty pages, while the story is setting up seemed to drag on forever. All the little details that I could have cared less about at the time were torturous. I wanted to know more about the flowers that tortured the old man in the prologue so. As Larson pulled the details together, slowly but surely pages were turned faster. The last half of the book I could hardly put down. Even the tie ups of the last fifty pages weren't as unbearable as the first fifty had been. By that point I was invested enough in the characters to care about the final loose threads, even if the page turning was slowing down.
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