Never underestimate the power of guilt. :-)
I have never stopped writing. I have just stopped believing any of it was worth posting.
Out of an overwhelming sense of shame that I have abandoned the characters in my tales and the readers who have taken the leap of faith to invest their time reading ....works in progress... I have - very reluctantly - posted slight additions to three of my unfinished tales.
They don't terribly advance the narrative. Their purpose is more to show that I have not given up on telling any of the stories.
I am still determined to lead all the stories - in hopefully enjoyable ways - to the denouement I had planned when I began the tales.
...except for 'Roomies' ...which began with an intriguing premise but no preconceived endpoint.
Thanks for your patience while I flail.
Prudent readers will wait for completed tales to be published. Daring readers will watch as the sausage is being made!
K@
Comments
You are not alone
in having periods where everything you do you think is worthless smelly dog poo (or worse baby No 2's).
When this applies to my writing, I get over this by doing something completely different for a period of time and forgetting about stories, characters and plot lines.
I have a number of unfinished stories posted on my own blog site. Some will get completed and make an appearance here. Others? Well they seemed like a good idea at the time. They'll join the 100+ other stories in my unfinished folder. Sometimes I go back through them and finish them. Others get a 'did I really write that POS?'.
I at a point with another story where I am rambling. I'm going to enjoy some 'steam trains' at the Kent and East Sussex Railway today and forget about it totally. Perhaps tomorrow, I'll see the ending more clearly. Who knows eh?
Samantha.
Story writing
Sometimes its hard to motive yourself to continue writing a story you started. You get inspired and as you continue on writing the story you realize you really didn't plan it out or you don't know what direction you want to go in. So you put it on the self saying I'll do this later and one day you start realizing that one day has turned into years.
The best thing to do sometimes is what Marion Zimmer Bradley once said. "Sit down and just write for a little while. It doesn't have to be long, just an hour or two. Do that everyday." Sometimes as you write the story it will start heading into the direction you want it to go.
If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison
You didn't delete.
"Others? Well they seemed like a good idea at the time. They'll join the 100+ other stories in my unfinished folder."
Thank goodness, you didn't delete them. Even the ones labelled 'POS', you might later view (or smell) their aroma favorably. Or at least you could mine them for ideas or episodes. I've looked back on patches I'd written long ago, and thought, I wrote that? Wow! It's educational being reminded of how one thought much younger -- especially realizing that one was absolutely right.
Two stories I began around 2008 got finished and posted in the summer of 2014. A third got revised and posted in the spring of 2017, after lying stiff for eight or nine years.
-- Daphne Xu
Discovered
Well, you're posting a new episode of Secondhand Life got me intrigued enough to read the first few chapters, now I'm a fan. :)
Keep writing.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
You many discover
That some of the funniest stuff on the site is in this story!
Please, Kat, stop beating
Please, Kat, stop beating yourself up. I have been writing poetry, for over a decade, and I have numerous poems (more than I want to admit to), which are outstanding, as unfinished, because I'm not, in the right frame of mind, to continue them. Truthfully, it has taken me, several years, before I am able to reach it (for some). I, rather wait, then you force yourself, to write crap, to appease this guilt, you have. True art can't be rushed.
Remember
Writing is supposed to be FUN!!!!!!! At present you are clearly not enjoying it go away do something else your stories are worth waiting for and beating yourself up isn't good for you.
As another comment says forget about writing do something totally different and RELAX wash the dinner plates or something we'll wait though personally I'm fascinated by sausage making!
Christina
Sausage making - Yummies
My local butcher is an award winning Sausage Maker.
He makes a mean Pork and Marmite banger!
I'll stop now as it is making me hungry. I have some of his 'Lincolnshires' in the fridge.
Samantha
Note that these are UK Sausages and totally different from the Wurst type found in Germany and even more different from US Sausages. These are made with minced uncooked Pork and seasonings.
Otto Inside Out Is Toot
"Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." - Otto Von Bismarck
Other claim to fame is that he had a jelly filled doughnut named after him. The same doughnut in Germany is known as a Berliner. Which on this one hundred year anniversary of JFK's birth reminds me of his famous speech. Ich bin ein Berliner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56V6r2dpYH8
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)