Now I'm FREE for the rest of the summer! And I'm going with a different approach to today's post
So while I was sitting on the train yesterday, I began to mull over my WIP (you can read more about this on my writing blog). This novel has been an ongoing process for me, but one aspect has remained constant, and this applies to everything I write: essays, short stories, a quick scene, an ~80k novel... It is also my question for you all today.
Do you ever feel a certain disconnect with your work?
I know, it sounds weird. How can you feel disconnected from your writing when it's coming straight from your head? Let me explain. Usually, books have the ability to absorb the reader into its world. Usually, said reader will forget everything around them--assuming it's a good story--and one can even imagine themselves as the hero or heroine. But what about the weaver of such a tale? Do the writers get absorbed with their work also--don't confuse this with the writing process, I'm referring to when you sit down and read what you've written--or do the story, characters, and overall writing process inevitably interrupt this in some way?
For me, whenever I try to read something I've written, I'm always (even if it's unconsciously) trying to improve the work in some way. I can temporarily become absorbed as I try to picture the imagery I describe... but for the most part? I'm conscious of what I write, and that somehow interrupts my reading experience. Maybe it'll be different if I ever get a book I write in published form.
Is this the same for the rest of you, or is it easy to let go and simply enjoy what you've written?
About the Author
Congrats on being done for the summer! By the time it's close to the end, everyone just stops caring for the most part. My last class for the summer was last night and I turned in my craptastic paper. Grades are due by Tuesday so I'll know my fate by then hahah!
ReplyDeleteYep. I totally know how you feel. I'm constantly thinking "Is this sentence right? Have I already said this before/too much? What could I do to make it better?"
ReplyDeleteI think it's normal, but when I read I turn my mind off, for the most part, and just enjoy the story. I'm pretty sure other writers are the same way. It's too hard to go back and read what you wrote once it's "finished". You'll just want to change it. :)
Whenever I read my own writing I constantly think, "Oh, there's typo #7292893829282990172537," and "There goes another grammatical error," and it's usually stuff that would be easy to ignore in someone else's work :(
ReplyDeleteThank you! Now I have to sit down and finish the rough draft now that I'm not busy ;) Hey you ended the same day as me! I find out my grade sometime next week too >.<
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Ugh even when I'm writing, I'll become way too self conscious about sentence structure! I'll write a sentence describing the way something looks, and then a paragraph later, I'll start worrying that another sentence sounds way too much like the one above. It's ridiculous lol.
I can't turn my mind off. I've tried. I think I'm too much of a perfectionist.
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I feel you. I feel like if anyone ever wanted to torture information out of me, all they'd have to do is make me edit my own work for the rest of my life... or something.
If I write something and then go back and read it say, days later, I am extremely critical. I usually end up wanting to erase it all and start over.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are some things I've written months ago, and when I go back and read them, it's almost I don't even remember writing it. That's not to say I like it though, I rarely like anything I write.
I do both, but I guess it depends on who is going to see it. If it is a WIP that my writing group is going to critique, believe me I agonize over it. But I do also find that when I'm having the most fun is when the most creative things come to me.
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