Crisis of Writing...
Aug. 31st, 2004 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsSo, I'm having this crisis of will, if you will, when it comes to my writing. I'm not entirely sure why, but for the past couple of weeks I've been butted up against two distinctly different emotions, neither of which has been very productive.
On the one hand, I'm starting to think that a lot of my current crop of ideas would make damn fine novels. Madships, Manumission, The Rock of the Cat, Empire, Embrace, Extinguish, and Janae are all novel-length, even serial-length ideas.
On the other hand, I'm intimidated by the prospect of actually writing a novel. The last three novels I wrote were straightforward, plot-driven things, but the authors I really admire don't just write great plots, they write fabulous, multi-layered, multi-themed wonders that I feel I'll never get close to matching. Every time I think about writing, say, Manumission in its entirety, I read a book like Use of Weapons (about which I recently commented) or Singularity Sky, which shows me how it should be done and I go back to quailing against the rising notion that, hey, I can write a book too. Once upon a time, I knew "I could do better than that," and I like to think that I was part of the small cadre' that, if we didn't succeed at banning really bad fiction from the net's erotica banks, at least we raised the bar and demanded a certain amount of skill. But "I can do as well as..." against the people I admire and adore... that's hubris I don't know that I feel.
The very idea that, in the final analysis, I might be as bad as S.M. Stirling or Kevin J. Anderson, leaves me feeling as if I might be sitting on a porcupine, rather than a good idea for a novel.
On the one hand, I'm starting to think that a lot of my current crop of ideas would make damn fine novels. Madships, Manumission, The Rock of the Cat, Empire, Embrace, Extinguish, and Janae are all novel-length, even serial-length ideas.
On the other hand, I'm intimidated by the prospect of actually writing a novel. The last three novels I wrote were straightforward, plot-driven things, but the authors I really admire don't just write great plots, they write fabulous, multi-layered, multi-themed wonders that I feel I'll never get close to matching. Every time I think about writing, say, Manumission in its entirety, I read a book like Use of Weapons (about which I recently commented) or Singularity Sky, which shows me how it should be done and I go back to quailing against the rising notion that, hey, I can write a book too. Once upon a time, I knew "I could do better than that," and I like to think that I was part of the small cadre' that, if we didn't succeed at banning really bad fiction from the net's erotica banks, at least we raised the bar and demanded a certain amount of skill. But "I can do as well as..." against the people I admire and adore... that's hubris I don't know that I feel.
The very idea that, in the final analysis, I might be as bad as S.M. Stirling or Kevin J. Anderson, leaves me feeling as if I might be sitting on a porcupine, rather than a good idea for a novel.
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Date: 2004-09-01 06:50 am (UTC)I feel very strongly the same way about my art, likely even moreso. I have so many friends who are much much better artists than I will ever be, and yet I have promised myself I will keep trying. The only way I am going to get better and even have a hope of matching my own high standards is to keep trying. In August I restarted the comic I have been working on since I was 12. Maybe this time it will be close enough to what exists in my head to make me happy about what I produce (this is the 4th or 5th time I've tried). Maybe not, and I will have to try a 6th time, but at least I've gotten a lot better through the process every time, even if its frustrating to see how far short my skills are of where I want them to be.
I'm sure the effort you put into it will not be wasted. :)