Multiple Frustrations.

[leene_chan]

Maybe the incessant rain is getting me down, but ugh, I am not a happy girl today. I have a rash on the back of my neck that's driving me crazy. Also, even though I've finished almost forty pages of my story I've hit a big snag that's going to force me to rewrite the whole bloody thing.

With the changes I have to make, I think that the prologue will be a lot stronger. But hell, nothing makes me feel more incompetent than having to seriously retool the setting and characters this early on. =_= The flaws in my writing keep hitting me in the face. I can't tell if I'm becoming a better writer or a worse one. How do people just work off the top of their head? For me the process is always about crossing out, tearing up and starting over. Ugh! =_=

And I tried playing VP2 last night and already it's draining me. I just want to finish it but what exactly am I getting out of this? I'm so frustrated with myself for finding this game disappointing. I feel like tri-Ace took a 30-hour game and padded it by making it be too difficult to create items, learn skills and manage your party. I never finish anything any more. The last time I played a game and enjoyed it straight through was with Mother 3. I am sick and tired of playing mediocre games...

Comments

[leene-chan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the support! ^_^ I believe very strongly in editing and revising your work but I have had a few writing friends that discouraged it. I don't agree with the whole "my work is sacred, the minute I put the pen down it's done and no one can make me change it"--I think that attitude is very destructive.

I don't know if people who do art have problems with their work getting away from them! Writing can be both good and bad for the spirit, I think.

[tsubasahome.livejournal.com]

If it's a matter of correcting a possible plot hole, don't get too broken up about what happened. You'll be happier in the long run. Kind of like making a mistake knitting a sweater and deciding to unravel it and do it over. If you're trying to make a sound piece of literature, that kind of thing is going to happen.

I think the problem is that you(and me)are not used to working on a novel-length story, or working without the deadline constraints of a class. If you're writing something like a short story for a class, you know you're going to have to give up on polishing the story at some point, because you do have to hand it in. So you get used to working with that constraint. You don't let yourself get too disappointed with your work because you know there's only a certain amount you can do in a few weeks.

Also, not to sound totally arrogant, but when you're taking a class, you take it for granted(and it's true, sorry!) that most of your classmates are going to be producing awful work. Sad but true. So you think to yourself, even if I have problems with pacing/plot/building up to an appropriate climax, it's still better than the drunk frat boy college stories that everybody else is writing(hell, most of them don't even understand basic rules of grammar. Some of them can't even spell). And that gets you into a rut, because the bar is set so low there isn't enough room for you to grow, or recognize what you need to do to write a genuinely good story, not just one that's better than what they write. Because better than bad is not necessarily good.

[leene-chan.livejournal.com]

I feel like at this point, I'm trying to transfer an ocean's worth of water with an eyedropper. ^o^ It makes my head hurt. Zzzz.....O_o