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Feeling crap about everything you have ever done?

Undesired Walrus

Penultimate Amazing
Undesired Walrus
Joined
Apr 10, 2007
Messages
11,691
Now, In my spare time, I write. I mostly write thoughts and poetry.

The only damage that I manage to inflict on myself is to think I have written something good, only to realise how crap most of what I have ever written has been. How pretentious it is, how banal, and how ultimatly meaningless it all is.

I go off my nut realising that I'm not actually that good, nor will I ever be. This drives me insane, as art is my life, and if I am no good at it, I cannot feel meaning in anything.

Or am I being overdramatic?
 
Suggestion: Cognac.

But seriously, gaining profiency at writing is a very long process. And how are you determining you're no good at it? Do other people enjoy your writing efforts?

It's pure physics. If you really enjoy writing, and you haven't hit your stride with it yet, but still continue to write: You'll get good at it. Like falling off a log.

If you're a writer then you must read a lot. Keep that up.
 
ConspiRaider said:
Suggestion: Cognac.

But seriously, gaining profiency at writing is a very long process. And how are you determining you're no good at it? Do other people enjoy your writing efforts?

It's pure physics. If you really enjoy writing, and you haven't hit your stride with it yet, but still continue to write: You'll get good at it. Like falling off a log.

If you're a writer then you must read a lot. Keep that up.
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I have thought OCD, so I tend to find that 1 gripe outweighs a praise... :)
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Now, In my spare time, I write. I mostly write thoughts and poetry.

The only damage that I manage to inflict on myself is to think I have written something good, only to realise how crap most of what I have ever written has been. How pretentious it is, how banal, and how ultimatly meaningless it all is.

I go off my nut realising that I'm not actually that good, nor will I ever be. This drives me insane, as art is my life, and if I am no good at it, I cannot feel meaning in anything.

Or am I being overdramatic?
Click to expand...
You're only 20, right? You're supposed to be writing banal and pretentious stuff now. This is the time to get it out of your system. For a long time I saved everything I had ever written - big mistake. As stupid as I may think I am now, I was astonishingly more stupid when I was 20.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Now, In my spare time, I write. I mostly write thoughts and poetry.

The only damage that I manage to inflict on myself is to think I have written something good, only to realise how crap most of what I have ever written has been. How pretentious it is, how banal, and how ultimatly meaningless it all is.

I go off my nut realising that I'm not actually that good, nor will I ever be. This drives me insane, as art is my life, and if I am no good at it, I cannot feel meaning in anything.

Or am I being overdramatic?
Click to expand...

A writer said "The first 100,000 words anyone writes are rubbish." So, you may as well get those first 100,000 out and stay on the horse. And, hey, at least you're exercising control over the quality of your work. A quick perusal of the internet will reveal a plethora of writers who desperately need the self-editorial skills you possess.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Now, In my spare time, I write. I mostly write thoughts and poetry.

The only damage that I manage to inflict on myself is to think I have written something good, only to realise how crap most of what I have ever written has been. How pretentious it is, how banal, and how ultimatly meaningless it all is.

I go off my nut realising that I'm not actually that good, nor will I ever be. This drives me insane, as art is my life, and if I am no good at it, I cannot feel meaning in anything.

Or am I being overdramatic?
Click to expand...


Ask yourself, "What would Groucho do?"
 
Undesired Walrus said:
...
I go off my nut realising that I'm not actually that good, nor will I ever be....
Click to expand...

Well, right there is your problem. How do you know that you'll never be anything one way or another? "Never" is a damn big word.

When you're feeling down about yourself, "never" sounds so true. It'll sound that way forty years from now.

When you're feeling good about yourself, and especially about your work, "never" don't mean a goddamn thing.
 
MelBrooksfan said:
A writer said "The first 100,000 words anyone writes are rubbish." So, you may as well get those first 100,000 out and stay on the horse. And, hey, at least you're exercising control over the quality of your work. A quick perusal of the internet will reveal a plethora of writers who desperately need the self-editorial skills you possess.
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I think that was David Eddings saying "Write a million words. Then burn them."

Of course, David Eddings should have burned the LAST million words he wrote, but that´s another story.

Undesired Walrus, may I suggest this site to get some useful feedback for your writing: www.fmwriters.com? It´s a big community of (professional and amateur) writers. I have been known to hang out there, too, occasionally.
 
As long as you are improving over time, learning from what mistakes you make, I don't see a problem.

Go to a bookstore and wander down the aisles and see all the mediocre writing that sells. The romance aisle is especially mood lifting when you think how many of those type of books are sold.


Just keep writing.

And don't forget to get out there and live a little so you can bring that to your writing.
 
Piscivore said:
Really? It makes me ill. I tried writing one once, just for the money, and I couldn't be that insipid.

At least, not willfully.
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Well, one piece of motivational advice I´ve heard several times so far is to put the absolutely *worst* book you have ever read next your computer (or whatever you use to write), so it constantly tells you "That moron got published; I can do that, too". And, of course, "As long as I don´t write worse than *that*, I´m not a hopeless case".

So the romance aisle does have its uses, I suppose.
 
Chaos said:
Well, one piece of motivational advice I´ve heard several times so far is to put the absolutely *worst* book you have ever read next your computer (or whatever you use to write), so it constantly tells you "That moron got published; I can do that, too". And, of course, "As long as I don´t write worse than *that*, I´m not a hopeless case".
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That would be "Bridges of Madison County". I tried reading that on my mother's recommedation at the time it was really popular.

I got to the second chapter- the one summarising the biography of the author's surrogate protagonist- and I began to wonder why Waller inexplicably omitted describing the angels that surely heralded this man's birth. I stopped reading.

This was before I learned what a "Mary Sue" was, incidentally.
 
Don't panic. Many people have long and fruitful careers before realizing what idiots they were. Get that out of the way first and you're good to go! :D
 
Keep going. You can't possibly be worse than some of the crap that's already been published.
 
I do it, too. I write a bit (or a lot), tell myself it's unoriginal muck, and trash it. It's not the writing; I write some of the best unoriginal muck you've ever read. ;) It's the ideas. I can't do ideas. Especially endings.

You know those people who annoy you at the beginning of a movie by declaring, "OMG, I know exactly where this is going!" and they tell you in spite of your protests....and they turn out to be right?

I am not that person. :(
 
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