#writingfears

i suck at describing

im only sorta good at RP but even then

fanfics kill me

Here we go.  The biggest obstacle in my way at this time. Damn you, procrastination.  Also, damn me for being so susceptible.  I should be writing right now, or editing things I have already written, or packing for the week long lake vacation I am leaving for in about four or five hours.  Instead I was looking at Facebook memes.  Most of which actually came from this website. 

So, since I didn’t feel like doing any of the things I actually need to do, I came on here, because at least talking about things here means I am typing something.

Two days ago I went and found three people to look over and critique the first ten chapters of my story.  They are first draft, largely unedited and kinda crap.  Okay, they are really crap.  First draft, first class, crap.  Crap that I love anyways.  There is some weirdly worded stuff, and needless descriptions, and even worse...  Plot items that I changed later in the story because I realized they made no sense, but did not think to go back and change them before I shared the writing with these other people.  What the hell, Jenna?

It is terrifying.  I know that it is a necessary part of writing if you are going to take it seriously, and the only way for me to know what I need to improve on is to have others look at it, but I have never done this before.

I mean, sure, I have had friends look at my writing, but only one or two people and only people that were very close to me.  They did good on the praise part of reading, and not so good at the constructive criticism.  So now here I am, opening the documents I shared with them a thousand times a day to look at the recommendations over and over again and see if they have added any new comments or changes and trying not to appear like I am creeping on their progress in the reading, even though obsessively creeping is exactly what I am doing.

This morning I realized something else horrifying about this process.  Even when I am getting a compliment on something in the writing, I feel like it probably actually isn’t somehow?  Like, what if that part is actually terrible?  You said you loved the wording or description, but what if all of it is actually crap and this is secretly somehow a lie or a fault that I am just not understanding?  Even though it is pretty hard to mix up “This is great imagery.  Very wholesome description.”

Why does it have to be so so hard to accept when people say something nice but so very easy to accept when it is something rather not so nice, or to take the things they are saying can be improved and not feel like they are a personal attack?  I know they aren’t.  The things they tell me are to help me.  I know I need to hear it.  I also know that eventually I will hopefully get a little better about it.  After all, this is the first time I have shown my writing to complete strangers.

On top of ALL of that....  As I said, these are strangers to me, but when I get nervous I talk a lot.  Since this is the internet it means I write really long, rambling posts or comments.  If you have read this far into this post you probably noticed that.  So I am babbling and babbling to these people that I don’t know, on top of creeping on them.  Turns out it is just as easy, if not easier, to put my foot in my mouth on the internet as it is in person.