Small, Confused Being

When you're in the phase you're in now, you have all the "omg my writing is garbage" thoughts, but those are not true. Your writing is the same as it was last week. However, your ability to see it and analyze it is getting better -- and that keener perception is why it SEEMS to be worse. It isn't, I swear.

When it's the other way around and your execution is in a growth stage and your perception is on a plateau stage, that's when you have all your "omg I'm a supergenius? Omg *I* wrote that? fuck yeah im a god of writing" moments (and if you haven't had them yet, that's ok, they'll come, be patient with yourself).

Either way, this is a normal part of the growth process. It's like the ache of sore muscles after you've gone to the gym for the first time in a while, that's all. Your muscles will hurt less as you get stronger, and then you'll add more weight or more reps to your exercise routine, and you'll be sore again until your body catches up. It's just that when that's happening in your brain, it's a lot harder to set the "muscle ache" aside, because your brain's only way of expressing discomfort is to gnaw miserably on itself and make you have sad thoughts. Prescription: Have a cup of tea or whatever small treat you like best, and be gentle and patient with yourself. It's gonna be ok. Try to consciously notice and appreciate some of the things you've measurably gotten better at and give yourself a deliberate, intentional, conscious pat on the back for it. (I have ADHD, so my brain doesn't want to give me the reward chemicals automatically; I have to trigger it manually by saying aloud "I'm really proud that I accomplished this." YMMV.)

SECOND POSSIBLE DIAGNOSIS: This one also happens to me all the time. Oftentimes when I have the "my writing is getting worse" feeling, it is a signal from my subconscious that the story is going in the wrong direction -- that is, a direction which doesn't satisfying to me, or that I'm not interested in, or that leads the characters in a direction that I don't like, or that leaves a glaring plot hole that I haven't noticed consciously yet... All manner of small, fixable problems. This usually happens after I have ignored the earlier warning signs, which start with feeling a bit bored of the story but trying to push through, and then go to a vague dissatisfaction that I ignore. The end result of this is frequently outright burnout or writer's block, so the better you get at noticing those early warning signs, the faster you can address them and nip the problems in the bud. Problem is, being able to do this and use your feelings as a useful tool to flag burgeoning story problems only comes with practice. Prescription: Do the practice. When you start having those fidgety, restless feelings, try to notice what you're feeling before it gets to the "this is garbage and I hate it" stage, and then sit with that feeling. Instead of flinching away from it and hiding from the scary feeling, turn towards it with compassion and curiosity. Ask it questions like, "Hmmm, what SPECIFICALLY is garbage about it? What would make it more fun and appealing? Is there anything I'm missing here?" Your brain may initially try to continue the tantrum of "No, it's bad, it's just all bad, there's nothing good about this, it's horrible, and therefore I'M horrible" but you're gonna need to address this with all the kindness and patience that you would give a cranky toddler. Let it wriggle and cry, and just continue being curious and trying to get it to use its words to express what the problem is. Eventually you'll stumble on SOME kind of answer, and then YAY THAT IS A THING THAT CAN BE FIXED. Oftentimes when it happens to me, I have a reaction that's sort of like, "Oh! Duh! I forgot [XYZ thing]! That was a silly mistake, haha, no wonder I'm grumpy about it. Glad i noticed it now." The answers you stumble on might be things like, "I don't like mystery novels but I seem to be accidentally leading myself into writing one, whoops" or "It is so out of character for this person to be reacting that way, I need to rewrite this scene" or "I'm feeling bored, I would have put the book down by now if I were a reader; how can I jazz it up?" THIRD POSSIBLE DIAGNOSIS: (kind of a really specific subset of the Second Possible Diagnosis, but it is SO COMMON for both experienced writers and apprentice writers that it gets its own section) Your book might be having problems with tension.

Tension issues account for 99% of all book problems. It's like sewing machines?? You know how all sewing machines have the devil in them, and if you try to sew and your thread gets tangled and fucked up on the bottom, that's because the tension has gone weird, so you have to try rethreading the machine and wiggling the tension knob a bit to make it stop? Like that.

Prescription: If you are having the "this shit sucks" reaction, stop immediately and check your story tension. Are there stakes? Do they MATTER DEEPLY to the protagonist? Can they be raised? Can they be endangered? Does a new problem need to be introduced, or an existing one made worse? TENSION TENSION TENSION TENSION. There are a thousand ways of raising tension, and I cannot list them all here. When my tension is right, I almost never have the "this sucks" reaction, because I am in that document doing my job with ruthless efficiency. The SECOND it goes wonky, I have a crisis of confidence and a small tantrum and I sink into my Desponds. Every single time. It has gotten to the point where I have trained my closest friends to say, when I slide into their DMs to complain about my book: "Oh, this part. Past!Alex told us to give you a message. [checks notes] Message reads, 'bitch, is it a tension problem'" whereupon I subside, chastened, and say, "....yeah probably."

CHECK YOUR TENSION, IT IS PROBABLY FUCKED UP. How do I know? Bc tension wants very badly to fuck itself up if you're not keeping an eye on it. Same as sewing machines having the devil in them.

When you're in the phase you're in now, you have all the "omg my writing is garbage" thoughts, but those are not true. Your writing is the same as it was last week. However, your ability to see it and analyze it is getting better -- and that keener perception is why it SEEMS to be worse. It isn't, I swear.

When it's the other way around and your execution is in a growth stage and your perception is on a plateau stage, that's when you have all your "omg I'm a supergenius? Omg *I* wrote that? fuck yeah im a god of writing" moments (and if you haven't had them yet, that's ok, they'll come, be patient with yourself).

Either way, this is a normal part of the growth process. It's like the ache of sore muscles after you've gone to the gym for the first time in a while, that's all. Your muscles will hurt less as you get stronger, and then you'll add more weight or more reps to your exercise routine, and you'll be sore again until your body catches up. It's just that when that's happening in your brain, it's a lot harder to set the "muscle ache" aside, because your brain's only way of expressing discomfort is to gnaw miserably on itself and make you have sad thoughts. Prescription: Have a cup of tea or whatever small treat you like best, and be gentle and patient with yourself. It's gonna be ok. Try to consciously notice and appreciate some of the things you've measurably gotten better at and give yourself a deliberate, intentional, conscious pat on the back for it. (I have ADHD, so my brain doesn't want to give me the reward chemicals automatically; I have to trigger it manually by saying aloud "I'm really proud that I accomplished this." YMMV.)

SECOND POSSIBLE DIAGNOSIS: This one also happens to me all the time. Oftentimes when I have the "my writing is getting worse" feeling, it is a signal from my subconscious that the story is going in the wrong direction -- that is, a direction which doesn't satisfying to me, or that I'm not interested in, or that leads the characters in a direction that I don't like, or that leaves a glaring plot hole that I haven't noticed consciously yet... All manner of small, fixable problems. This usually happens after I have ignored the earlier warning signs, which start with feeling a bit bored of the story but trying to push through, and then go to a vague dissatisfaction that I ignore. The end result of this is frequently outright burnout or writer's block, so the better you get at noticing those early warning signs, the faster you can address them and nip the problems in the bud. Problem is, being able to do this and use your feelings as a useful tool to flag burgeoning story problems only comes with practice. Prescription: Do the practice. When you start having those fidgety, restless feelings, try to notice what you're feeling before it gets to the "this is garbage and I hate it" stage, and then sit with that feeling. Instead of flinching away from it and hiding from the scary feeling, turn towards it with compassion and curiosity. Ask it questions like, "Hmmm, what SPECIFICALLY is garbage about it? What would make it more fun and appealing? Is there anything I'm missing here?" Your brain may initially try to continue the tantrum of "No, it's bad, it's just all bad, there's nothing good about this, it's horrible, and therefore I'M horrible" but you're gonna need to address this with all the kindness and patience that you would give a cranky toddler. Let it wriggle and cry, and just continue being curious and trying to get it to use its words to express what the problem is. Eventually you'll stumble on SOME kind of answer, and then YAY THAT IS A THING THAT CAN BE FIXED. Oftentimes when it happens to me, I have a reaction that's sort of like, "Oh! Duh! I forgot [XYZ thing]! That was a silly mistake, haha, no wonder I'm grumpy about it. Glad i noticed it now." The answers you stumble on might be things like, "I don't like mystery novels but I seem to be accidentally leading myself into writing one, whoops" or "It is so out of character for this person to be reacting that way, I need to rewrite this scene" or "I'm feeling bored, I would have put the book down by now if I were a reader; how can I jazz it up?" THIRD POSSIBLE DIAGNOSIS: (kind of a really specific subset of the Second Possible Diagnosis, but it is SO COMMON for both experienced writers and apprentice writers that it gets its own section) Your book might be having problems with tension.

Tension issues account for 99% of all book problems. It's like sewing machines?? You know how all sewing machines have the devil in them, and if you try to sew and your thread gets tangled and fucked up on the bottom, that's because the tension has gone weird, so you have to try rethreading the machine and wiggling the tension knob a bit to make it stop? Like that.

Prescription: If you are having the "this shit sucks" reaction, stop immediately and check your story tension. Are there stakes? Do they MATTER DEEPLY to the protagonist? Can they be raised? Can they be endangered? Does a new problem need to be introduced, or an existing one made worse? TENSION TENSION TENSION TENSION. There are a thousand ways of raising tension, and I cannot list them all here. When my tension is right, I almost never have the "this sucks" reaction, because I am in that document doing my job with ruthless efficiency. The SECOND it goes wonky, I have a crisis of confidence and a small tantrum and I sink into my Desponds. Every single time. It has gotten to the point where I have trained my closest friends to say, when I slide into their DMs to complain about my book: "Oh, this part. Past!Alex told us to give you a message. [checks notes] Message reads, 'bitch, is it a tension problem'" whereupon I subside, chastened, and say, "....yeah probably."

CHECK YOUR TENSION, IT IS PROBABLY FUCKED UP. How do I know? Bc tension wants very badly to fuck itself up if you're not keeping an eye on it. Same as sewing machines having the devil in them.

This is one of the few times when I’m actually going to weigh in with my expertise, I did my PhD dissertation on North Korean propaganda. North Korea is, contrary to popular belief, a right wing authoritarian ethnostate, and there are a lot of reasons why that is that I’m not going to get into in this video. 

But as someone who thought a lot about propaganda, I have some things that I want to share. The main thing is exactly this point, that it’s a bad idea to pay attention to every little thing that you see. A lot of people think of propaganda as something that’s trying to teach you something that you end up believing, so it’s like “profits are great now, profits are great now, profits are great now!” and then all of a sudden the audience is like “oh yeah, profits are great now,” but that’s actually not the case most of the time. 

One of the articles that really broke my brain about this is, again, this is a very academic article in 20th century music, called “Stalin and the Art of Boredom” by Marina Frolova-Walker who specializes in soviet propaganda of sort of the mid 20th century. And she argues that the point of a lot of propaganda is not actually to convince you of anything, but to bore you into submission by basically filling up your brain to the point where nothing else can take up that space. So like, if you see a statue of Stalin in the courtyard, it doesn’t actually inspire any feelings about Stalin, but what it does do is fill up that “statue” position with something of Stalin so you cannot image something else being there.