Mercy Killings

  1. Tenka
    Tenka
    "When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law." - Stephen King

    I never intentionally kill a story. I lose the story and it dies from my negligence, or I half-arse something and call it finished when I just couldn't continue, probably because it was bad. I wonder, how common is this sort of thing? I have written a lot of fragments, even lengthy unfinished narratives, and the only stories I have ever really finished were horrible smutty fanfics. I can't do anything except write, which I am not entirely competent with regardless of my obsessive memorisation of proper grammar.

    So, share your stories of personal failure as writers or something.
  2. Tenka
    Tenka
    Maybe this thread would have been better for Writers Block, but there is even deader than here, and I know I do not suffer alone! Anyway, I am unsure as to the value of mercy killings vs. struggling to finish something you are fairly convinced is bad and unworthy and hoping revision can fix it. I never started anything with any certainty that I could finish it, so I have started a lot of unfinished things that I hate.
  3. ÑóẊîöʼn
    ÑóẊîöʼn
    I've started plenty of things without finishing them. I have real trouble writing anything of significant length. I constantly procrastinate and distract myself with other things.

    Maybe it's just laziness, or maybe it's a fear of producing something laughable. Which is silly, because I already know I'm not that good, and can only improve by actually writing.

    But pushing through that mental barrier has proven extremely difficult. Psychoactive substances have very occasionally helped, when they don't just zonk me out or constitute yet another distraction.

    Or maybe I'm just not as creative as I aspire to be. But I do think a lot about things, so maybe I just need to get more into the habit of writing my thoughts down, whatever the fuck they might be.

    What do you think?
  4. Tenka
    Tenka
    There is no better block-breaker, in my mind, than allowing oneself to be "shitty". I actually "won" NaNoWriMo writing some unpublishable tripe full of sex. Of course it had a somewhat coherent story to it, but one would have to dig too deep, so that it'd probably need a total rewrite. Though I haven't exactly kept my NaNoWriMo pace since the 25th of last November (sadly), I am growing slowly accustom to letting my "first drafts" be "first drafts", which makes writing them somewhat less difficult. I've never been very able to compose my non-fiction thoughts outside of internet fora (and even there I have trouble) so the "writing down my thoughts" thing, directly, probably wouldn't work for me. I have written a great deal of terrible, really absolutely terrible, "j-rocker" fanfictions, in my formative years as a writer, and will probably end up doing more eventually.

    I don't even know if my response is any helpful. Still, I am subscribing to this thread (thanks for reminding me to do that).
    edit: seems I am already subscribed!
  5. Tenka
    Tenka
    P.S. (and double-post) I am something of a caffeine addict personally and some good cheap coffee seems helpful to me sometimes.
  6. ÑóẊîöʼn
    ÑóẊîöʼn
    There is no better block-breaker, in my mind, than allowing oneself to be "shitty". I actually "won" NaNoWriMo writing some unpublishable tripe full of sex. Of course it had a somewhat coherent story to it, but one would have to dig too deep, so that it'd probably need a total rewrite. Though I haven't exactly kept my NaNoWriMo pace since the 25th of last November (sadly), I am growing slowly accustom to letting my "first drafts" be "first drafts", which makes writing them somewhat less difficult.
    Interesting. Maybe I just need to lower my initial standards a bit. Then maybe I'd have to get used to returning to stuff and fixing it up (further drafts).

    I've never been very able to compose my non-fiction thoughts outside of internet fora (and even there I have trouble) so the "writing down my thoughts" thing, directly, probably wouldn't work for me. I have written a great deal of terrible, really absolutely terrible, "j-rocker" fanfictions, in my formative years as a writer, and will probably end up doing more eventually.
    I actually find it easier to write infodumps and articles rather than actual narratives. I don't write dialogue very often if at all.

    I don't even know if my response is any helpful. Still, I am subscribing to this thread (thanks for reminding me to do that).
    edit: seems I am already subscribed!
    Your advice sounds good, it's just a case of getting myself to actually follow it!

    P.S. (and double-post) I am something of a caffeine addict personally and some good cheap coffee seems helpful to me sometimes.
    Apparently caffeine really is good for providing focus, but personally I find that nicotine is better for that purpose. Chemically-induced creativity on the other hand is a much more hit-and-miss process for me, with no real consistency that I can fathom.
  7. Tenka
    Tenka
    It is probably harmful to rely too much on external chemical stimulae. We won't always have coffee on hand, after all. Of course you know all this stuff. Revision of a first draft which produces a second draft is almost as hard as the initial writing, too; I have heard that it's best to systematise it, reading through and looking out for one thing at a time, starting perhaps with characterisation and ending with the ever-loathsome "prose-tightening" (which forces us to regret not writing a tighter first draft!), but I am still working out how to do it for myself so I can't offer any real advice beyond what I've heard. Speaking of characterisation, it seems conducive to writing to let one's characters "speak for themselves", but I have trouble putting them in situations which seem probable or believable enough to have much success with this (however, the results of outlining and extensive plotting beforehand have proven even worse for me). Also, it is a huge pain to read through one's own manuscript no matter how long, how much care, one takes with it, which fact has sort of helped me to embrace having to write a second draft and thus, I think, slightly increased my general productivity.

    BY THE WAY, I am not alerted to replies here even though it says I'm subscribed. Gremlins, I suspect. But I check here somewhat regularly anyway, and will more now that someone's replying to my counter-productive but oh so writerly whining.
  8. Tenka
    Tenka
    P.S. (sorry for this awful format but it feels too late to edit my post) The only stories I have finished have been very short, and mostly very bad. But completion feels good. Deciding when a story is "complete", however, is pretty difficult. I'm afraid if I get too carried away and refuse to cut something short it'll become a rambling porno (uhm... as happened during NaNoWriMo... edit: pretty early in, too).
  9. ÑóẊîöʼn
    ÑóẊîöʼn
    I think I'll try and get some writing in tomorrow evening, and report back here as to how things go.
  10. Tenka
    Tenka
    I shall be on the look-out for this report! I started some new thing following our conversation here but have no idea where it's going, as with most things I start, but I got a good 505 words. Maybe I'll post it in excerpts or something (though it's likely to remain a fragment forever!).