I have to wonder if there’s some fear involved in writing that keeps me from finishing a novel. I wonder this quite often. I frequently determine, then re-determine, that my procrastination is at least in part fueled by fear. I am working on overcoming the procrastination. Maybe overcoming the fear? I had a glimpse just today of what that fear might be (or at least what part of it might be). If I finish, if I am out of the rush and the flood and the challenge of putting the words down, making new things happen, twisting the plot, heading toward the end, if I am done, then I must go back and look at this thing I made. I will have to read it. I will have to see its flaws and blemishes and ugliness. I will have to face all of the shortcomings and foibles and try to find some way of fixing it. And I am not sure I know how. I don’t know what to do with a completed story to make it really shine, make it great, make it saleable.
In a way, this is amusing. I guess it’s a form of progress. I used to be afraid that I couldn’t really write, was not a writer, was a bad writer, all of that. Now I am afraid that I can’t rewrite.
Of course, the bad writer fear still ties in there. It is both comforting and a bit disappointing to read the blogs of professional writers and see that they still fight with these "bad writer" fears (the disappointment is only because I was hoping that one day this would go away). Mostly, it's a comfort. It makes me feel like someday I might just be One of Them.
Okay, I am supposed to be writing Novel Words right now. Must go. But first, can I comment on the fact that blogger doesn't recognize the word "saleable"? No, I probably can't.
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