This is REALLY stupid.
It happens to me quite often. I'll be composing one of my scenes and I'll be thinking, "this is straight up, giggle inducing moronity. And if this is bad, it means the whole thing is bad, so I should probably just scrap it."
These are not helpful thoughts. They are the sort of thoughts that lead me to metaphorically throw my computer away in disgust and find other things to distract me for a couple weeks. Eventually I'll come back to the manuscript, I'll reread what I wrote, and I'll declare, "Hey, this isn't so bad. I mean, it's pretty bad, but it's salvageable. In the second draft."
Yes, what any writer must remember is in the first draft, you're not writing the book. You're writing the blueprints for the book you mean to write. The second draft is where that actual book begins to take shape, and the third draft is where you sheepishly begin to show the work to others. But it's getting through draft one which is the true terror of the whole messy process. And I'm only offering this here as an explanation for why it's been taking me so damn long to finish this thing. I don't think prolific writers like Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates deals with this sort of problem, but I'd imagine Thomas Harris and Donna Tartt have days like I often have. Not that I want to put myself in their company. At this point, I'm still sub-Stephanie Meyers. But at least I know it and plan to do something about it.
End therapy session. Cue group hug. More to follow.
-EtotheWoh
