Friday, May 18, 2012

The Most Interesting Thing: Writer Fail

"You fail only if you stop writing."
--Ray Bradbury
Writers write, right? 
For the past six weeks I felt like a failure.
And I couldn't figure out why.
Then I read that quote from Ray.
I wasn't really writing. 
I had reasons.
Excuses.
Fears.
Not anymore
No more excuses.
I am writing again.
I am a writer.
And I will not fail.
So how are all of you doing? Have you ever stopped writing? How did you feel?

24 comments:

  1. That quote keeps me going too, and although I haven't stopped writing, I have felt like what I'm writing is no good--and sometimes it isn't--but there's another quote (probably lots of them) that indicate you can't write something good without first writing bad.

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    1. Dispels the myth of writing the perfect first draft. ^_^

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  2. Great post! I always feel better after I write so I don't understand why I procrastinate so much! Today I write! (love exclamation points today.)

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  3. Yes, I've quit, for a week or so, then I felt so disjointed and weird that I had to plunge back in. Glad you did, too, you're too talented to stop.

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  4. This is TOO weird, Angi! I JUST posted about failure and rejection on The Mind's Elbow. It seems that we are always on the same page! Like you, I start to feel pretty rotten, if I'm not writing (blessing or curse? Hmmmmm...). Thanks for the quote; I will keep it handy so that I can keep on keepin' on when things get tough (and, alas, they always do).

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    1. Staying buckled into the writing rollercoaster. Sometimes I think I'm gonna hurl!

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  5. THANK. YOU.

    1 hour of writing = happy lady

    1 hour of tweeting = sore butt and time I'll never get back

    Great post!

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  6. I've also been too busy/distracted to write much over the past two weeks, and it's really gnawing at me now. Looking forward to getting back onto a regular schedule next week and back into my WIP! =)

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    1. Gnawing. That's exactly what it feels like. Darn the distractions!

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  7. *hugs* Thank you for the truth in that post. We all feel that way, sometimes. Nice to know we're all here for each other.

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  8. Yes I have. I stopped writing for nine months (hm, metaphor there much?) as I read and read and read. By the end of it I was itching, absolutely *cranky* about not having written. BUT it did give birth (yeaaaah, metaphor) to a new story. One that had technically been gestating for much longer than that.

    Oddly enough, I think one of the reasons I'm having so much trouble catching up on my *reading* is that now I don't want to lose sight of the writing that I forsook for so long. Like I'm scared I'll stop again.

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    1. I've been having trouble regaining my momentum after getting in the habit of reading instead of writing.

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  9. I've taken breaks, but I never thought I was done with writing. I always expected to return to it.
    The thing is, as difficult as writing can be sometimes, as much as I am sometimes dissatisfied with a given day's work, it is still something I love. I did it when nobody else read it and when I got paid nothing for it, and so I expect to keep doing it as long as my brain still works--to do it for its own sake.

    Writing for others, as in writing for publication, has a whole other layer of challenges!

    Finally, I think "failure" is temporary. We all have days where we can't write, or where what we write isn't what we'd hoped, but there's always tomorrow. Or even later today.

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    1. Yes. I was taking a break, brainstorming a new project, filling up the creative well, but it didn't feel right because I wasn't writing, wasn't putting new words on the page or tearing up a manuscript and sewing it back together. I felt like I was failing because something was missing. I love to write, whether or not any of it ever sees the light of day. The feeling of failure came as a result of the emptiness inside. I've learned that taking a long break is not good for me.

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  10. Yep, I've quit before, whether it was a failure to start work on the brain child or I put the keyboard away for too long. I always end up coming back, because no writing = irritability.

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  11. Yes - gone months w/o writing. I wanted to do something productive, y'know? Something that had a greater than .01 percent chance of success. ;)
    And I fought that feeling of being all pent up inside. Took me a long time to realize the joy of writing is enough, whether or not I ever get published.
    Now, 3 MS in 1 year later, I'm taking a summer-long break due to work demands. My creativity will be sucked into the vortex of academic writing. Sigh.

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    1. Yes. The joy of writing has to be enough. I'm sorry about the summer vortex, but I suppose academic writing is better than no writing at all. Thanks for stopping by ^_^

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  12. I stopped writing for about ten years. Biggest mistake I ever made!!

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    1. And then you started writing again and look what happened! ^_^

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  13. My muse always pulls me back...
    Thank goodness!
    I'm glad yours did too.
    :)

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