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Oct. 28th, 2008 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wildflowersoulSo I am just brain dumping here about upcoming NaNoWriMo. At first I was all scoffing and wondering why everyone who signs up promptly freaks out. And now I am doing so. Fun!
I am still waffling between two ideas, one I’ve had for months and is a story I’d really like to write, but I keep getting hung up on details that feel like enormous road blocks (like: how does time travel work in my universe? So many logistical problems! It’s frickin’ time travel, it should just work the way I say it does). My other idea is not very well articulated in my own head, and what little I have of it feels way too Mary Sue to be a valid idea. Which brings me to:
Problem #2: Mary Sues. I am so worried about this that it’s really becoming an impediment to character development. And then I worry that I am so uncreative that the only thing I can think up for characters are thinly veiled versions of myself. Am I that solipsistic? I probably am. Look at all the “I”s in this paragraph!
Which is ridiculous in light of the fact that I actually really dislike opening up too much of myself to very many people, so I’m also wondering- how much of yourself should be in your writing? Too little feels like there’s no heart in it, too much and you end up with Twilight where the main character is you and every reader quickly identifies all of your neuroses and hang ups. Clearly, I am probably overthinking this.
So many writers that I’ve read about seem to get all their ideas from awesome flashes of musey inspiration, and their characters talk to them in their heads like they are real people. I don’t have working for me. Does every good writer have that? Is everyone that doesn’t doomed to failure?
I don’t know why I’m worrying so much about this, I know great writers and I am not so deluded that I think I’m among them. I just… would like to be able to put something out there that doesn’t suck, and I feel pretty insecure about the huge amount of suckiness I am about to unleash for a month. Blerg! I am going to try very hard to not be a quitter and actually follow through with this thing. Honestly, I think the biggest problem is that I hate the idea of doing something and not being good at it.
I am still waffling between two ideas, one I’ve had for months and is a story I’d really like to write, but I keep getting hung up on details that feel like enormous road blocks (like: how does time travel work in my universe? So many logistical problems! It’s frickin’ time travel, it should just work the way I say it does). My other idea is not very well articulated in my own head, and what little I have of it feels way too Mary Sue to be a valid idea. Which brings me to:
Problem #2: Mary Sues. I am so worried about this that it’s really becoming an impediment to character development. And then I worry that I am so uncreative that the only thing I can think up for characters are thinly veiled versions of myself. Am I that solipsistic? I probably am. Look at all the “I”s in this paragraph!
Which is ridiculous in light of the fact that I actually really dislike opening up too much of myself to very many people, so I’m also wondering- how much of yourself should be in your writing? Too little feels like there’s no heart in it, too much and you end up with Twilight where the main character is you and every reader quickly identifies all of your neuroses and hang ups. Clearly, I am probably overthinking this.
So many writers that I’ve read about seem to get all their ideas from awesome flashes of musey inspiration, and their characters talk to them in their heads like they are real people. I don’t have working for me. Does every good writer have that? Is everyone that doesn’t doomed to failure?
I don’t know why I’m worrying so much about this, I know great writers and I am not so deluded that I think I’m among them. I just… would like to be able to put something out there that doesn’t suck, and I feel pretty insecure about the huge amount of suckiness I am about to unleash for a month. Blerg! I am going to try very hard to not be a quitter and actually follow through with this thing. Honestly, I think the biggest problem is that I hate the idea of doing something and not being good at it.
