I thought it was a good time to bring up a podcast I’ve been listening to lately. It’s called Writing Excuses and it’s hosted by three names in the genre world – Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. I started listening to it mainly because of the lecture on writing I found on YouTube from Dan Wells (plus, he’s one of my favorite authors). They’ve been doing the podcast since 2008, so I have a lot of ground to make up. I’m about halfway through 2008’s archive thus far. I would recommend it for any aspiring author (especially those wanting to write in the genre field).
The title of the podcast got me thinking. It’s called Writing Excuses, and I find reasons not to write and when I do have time to write, I agonize over minute details or resort to writing in this blog. Based on one of the podcasts I listened to today, this is essentially writer’s block. I’m not having trouble writing or coming up with writings per se, I’m having trouble starting. I’ve written a page for two different ideas and scrapped them both. What’s the mental block that’s stopping me? Well, my wife (who is 100% correct in her assessment) says it’s because I’m a perfectionist. I think she’s right. I get so critical of my writing – even in its raw first draft form, that instead of pushing forward, I come to a stand still. To expand on this, I’m scared of failure and with the realities of the publishing business (especially these days), I know my chances are slim and none that my work actually sees a commercially published form. For some reason, I can’t wrap my head around the fact that if I don’t try at all, I’ve already failed.
Here’s to sucking it up and giving it the old college try.
My biggest problem is thinking up ideas while I’m driving, so I’ve resorted to endlessly toting a notebook with me in my backpack, which largely travels wherever I am going anyways. I’m hit or miss with when I open it, but there’s certainly been times I’ve been pleased to have the paper and pen handy. Which brings me to the other issue – I’m so used to the idea of writing by keyboard that I fear I will only ever write if I have my pc at hand. Which is presumably why I bought my netbook, since it also goes into the backpack. But really, I think we both need to get used to the idea of putting down an idea and exploring it. The ideas don’t live – the characters do. And we’ve seen enough of life in our lives to bring those characters to life, in some manner? Maybe I should pick a character and just make them deal with all this unexplored creativity.
Brent – I feel your pain on that one. I have a few notebooks, and some of them haven’t even been used.
I almost wonder if I should write long-hand and then transcribe when I have significant chunks completed.
I like your idea re: character. I think it’s a good way to look at things.