Real life has really slapped me upside the head lately.
Virtually everything mechanical that I own, or use, has broken down in the last month. My wheelchair, my digital camera, my landline phone, and incredibly, my refrigerator. Luckily, I had very little food to lose--thanks to the foresight of the state of Wisconsin, my laughably meager food-stamp pittance pretty much ensured I wouldn't be able to stock the refrigerator with much anyway.
There are certain advantages to living in an apartment building, however, the most important of which being I (thank goodness!) don't have to hunt for a replacement refrigerator--the apartment management takes care of that. Medicaid took care of the chair, and for the moment I'm relying solely on my cell phone.
Therefore, I can get back to what would normally be my main concern. Namely, writing.
In several of the numerous books I've read on writing fiction (the number of words I've read about writing fiction have far outstripped the number I've actually produced) it says that many aspiring writers are hamstrung by a fear of seeming mediocre. As far as I'm concerned, the authors couldn't have been more dead-on about me than if they were monitoring my brain waves from afar. Even after writing half a dozen stories, I can't help but feel like the mentally-challenged kid who wandered into a Mensa meeting.
Which bring me to my point, and my question--are there any authors here who felt (or still feel) the same way? Did/do you feel your work is mediocre? And if you managed to get past that feeling, how did you do it?
Comments
Off the top of my head...
Without even thinking about it, I can name three mediocre writers who have several bestsellers to their names, each. In other words, don't worry, just write.
You have to pay your dues. Why, you probably haven't even written your first million words yet. So, start writing. A million words is not that many, we've got at least two stories on BC longer than that. :) After you've got a million words written, you will realize that it isn't quality of writing people want, it's just good storytelling, catharsis and fun. All the tricks of writing can be learned and the way to learn them is to write -- a lot!
Those three people I mentioned who are not really good writers? All three of them have good stories to tell and so they succeed. And all three of them have written several million words and sold a lot of them.
The cure for worrying about how well you write is to write more.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Mediocrity...
... is the one area in which I excel, and I've written a few million mediocre words but have yet to publish and earn the millions I'm assured will come. Actually, I lied, it might only be hundreds of thousands. I write because I enjoy the act of creating something and also sharing that with others. If they say I'm a genius, I know they're exaggerating, I'm only extremely brilliant because my modesty holds me back - I can also laugh at myself. Remember the old adage, 'those who can do it, those who can't teach it and those who can't do that write books about it': also, 'In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice they're different.' Dump the text books and get writing, it's a practical skill and the only way to improve is to do it - the critics here will help you polish it.
As for things mechanical - I'm changing my car next week, I'm sure the old one knows about it, driving home from work last night the electronic odometer went funny and then died. How I didn't drive it to a scrap yard and dump it shows my relative self restraint but was I mad.
Angharad
I Suspect...
Given the part numbers of your "Bike" series, I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the tens of millions of words.
-- Daphne Xu
A real writer
I love your improved quote, "In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice they're different." It has better timing that the usual version, "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is." which is usually attributed to Yogi Berra but was actually said by some anonymous computer scientist. Your version actually sounds more like something Yogi would have said. :) Probably because you're a better writer than someone who goes to OOP seminars.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Ah....
"It ain't mediocre until it's mediocre...." Yogi turns 90 on Monday, by the way.
Love, Andrea Lena
"In theory, theory and
"In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice, they're different."
I don't know with whom or where that version of the quote originated, but it's used in Engineering circles. It sums up the difference between Engineering and Science.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
I've tried "just writing"...
...and found inevitably, I get to a point in the story in which I can go no further. Trying to do a more structured story has yielded even worse results. What does a person do who cannot seem to succeed at either "plotting" or "pantsing?" I suppose that's why, up to now, I've done best with the short-short stories. Not much character development, plot, or research required.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
All I have to do...
I look at some of the internet fiction that is either a single block of text, or consists of "paragraphs" that are mere sentence fragments. That tells me that I am far from mediocre, although so is either of those.
I do agree that there are many bestselling authors out there that are mediocre, as in couldn't write their way out of wet paper bag. (One I consider mediocre, people fawn over and if he published a grocery list it would be a bestseller.)
I write for myself.
I think the being mediocre is fine. I don't live under any illusion that one day, I'll settle in and write a best seller and suddenly be able to make a living churning out stories that people can't wait to buy.
My first work was simply therapy for me. I posted it on line and was surprised that anyone else who read it thought it was good enough to even make a positive comment on. I'm no where near a million words. A few hundred thousand maybe, if you count all the genre I write in. (I sell some work in one of them and it wouldn't do have that work associated with my pen name here as it's entirely a different audience, so I keep them separate.) I have some of my trans work for sale on Smashwords. My other work sells on Amazon and they won't let me write under two different pen names. I'm not getting rich, but I manage between both, to pick up a hundred dollars or two each year. Not enough to warrant a 1099 so it doesn't show up on my taxes.
However I still write for myself. If someone else likes it great. If not... I'm not writing for recondition anyway so that's OK.
I think an author who writes because there's a story inside that just needs to come out is a better writer than one who has all the training and knows all the tricks and churns out story after story because they can.
I do some technical writing and I'm told that I have been able to explain things in such a way that heretofore mysterious processes are easily understood. So I guess I have some expertise in that area, but that kind of writing doesn't do anything for me. I'd much rather tell a story I enjoy telling, then see if anyone enjoyed hearing it and not worry about it being good, great or mediocre.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I agree with all of the above comments
I spent years writing only technical stuff in connection with my work, certain that I would never be able to write fiction. In the end I thought 'what the hell' and began to tell the stories that had been forming in my head.
Once you understand basic grammatical structures (clauses, sentences, paragraphs, chapters) there is nothing to stop you from making a start. You don't have to publish immediately; if, upon re-reading, you could have said something better, then go back and fix it. My dialogue was rather stilted at first and some of my characters sounded as if they'd come straight from their elocution lesson, but in time and with practice I tried to make them sound more natural.
Write for yourself, not for other people, then your work is unlikely to be mediocre. Take note of the comments of your readers, but don't be put off by them. There are a few idiots out there, but also plenty of perceptive people who can see things in your fiction that you might not have noticed. So put away those books on how to write fiction and start telling some stories.
Best wishes
Louise
mediocre good great
Working through mediocre you become good. Working through good you become great. Staying afraid of mediocre you stay less than mediocre. Your choice.
I often feel like my writing is mediocre at best
especially compared to some of the amazing authors we have here. Mostly, I try not to worry about it, and just write my best .
Mediocre writing?
I let the fans speak on this one... my own judgement is questionable. In truth, if I stop to second guess myself at all I'll hit the delete key without regret, and stories like RiH and summer mutation would never exist. That's why my editing process is so rough... if I stopped to edit them like I should they would die. There are many authors on this site and others I post to that are better than I am, but Erin is right; there are some truly awful authors out there getting published every day. Talent alone isn't an indicator of success, and if you love it do it.
I know that I'm never quite so happy as when I'm writing.
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Every novice and journeyman...
writer has that fear, whether they are published professionally or not. I'm on my fourth professionally published book and I think 7 freebie reads on SOL, and each time my finger hovers over the button that blinks "Submit" a squadron of fire breathing dragonflies take wing in my stomach. The fear of It's not good enough! has killed more nascent writing careers than any other thing.
Learn technique, learn story structure, learn sentence structure. Read! Read! Read! Read fiction, read romance, read science fiction, read the authors you enjoy, looking at both the style of their writing and how they tell the story.
Along with reading, write! As Erin has said, the cure for fear of writing is more writing.
I have a spare set of Writer's Digest books on subject like self-editing, "bitches, villains and bad guys" and a couple of others. If you want, send me a PM with your street address and I'll send them along.
A million words?
I don't think I'll ever reach that. I try to keep my stories at a length that you can read them while in the john...
Melanie
You have a 'puter in the bathroom?
Wow, that is organised.
Angharad
IPad
in an otterbox. It's splash proof.
Bathroom reading
I usually do my reading on my phone while indisposed.
Mediocrity?
My own hunch is that it's more than fear of mediocrity. It's fear of ridicule, fear of doing something wrong, or fear of some kind of unknown, unpredictable bad consequence. Antsiness due to some cause. Something paralyzes you, leads you to forget whatever you were going to say, or leads your mind to run mindlessly.
I don't know.
-- Daphne Xu