Random Musings

Critique Motivation

Week 6 / Prompt 1 - How do you find motivation on difficult days?

On those days that I really can't seem to get my writing mind into gear are a pain in the butt. I hit several of those days recently. It often comes from looking at what I've written recently and finding a great number of faults in it. So many that I can't see how to fix it through the forest of errors or lackadaisical writing. And rather than begin to write better from there forward, knowing that with more care I can write better, I get stuck in the rut of believing I can't write and it clams me up to get past it.

January was not a good writing month for me. I got less than 10k words written on my novel. My most recent attempts fell into the cycle above. I realized I was just writing dialogue with almost no description to accompany it. I know I write good description, but sometimes it doesn't flow as well as I would like.

Last night, I went to a critique group. I took with me the first few pages of my novel that I wrote back in November. This group is frequently quite good in their critiques, giving plenty of constructive feedback and tearing apart the submitted pieces to give lots and lots of advice. I'd been wary to submit one of my own works, for fear of it ruining my confidence, but I finally remembered that it is only through these types of readings that I will get my piece to a publishable level.

Anyway, the group had a lot of great things to say about my piece. They loved my descriptions and my dialogue. Their biggest questions came in that they didn't understand anything about my world, which left them a little bit confused. Most of the suggestions were small minor edits. One great suggestion was that my main character likely needed a bit stronger goals even at this early stage. But overall, I came away with the secure knowledge that they really liked my writing.

And today.. I want to edit and write and fix.  I feel like I'm past the doldrums. And when I read back over the piece I submitted to the group, I can honestly understand why they loved it so much. It really was very well written. Looking back at those pieces I have written well is definitely a way to get me back in the right frame of mind to continue working on my writing. It reminds me that I CAN do this, I have done it. Doubting myself is a hole I don't want to get caught in, and I just need to remind myself that I'm good at what I'm doing and need to keep at it.