Congratulations! You have won: more frustration ahead! #amwriting

in #writing7 years ago

congratulations!.jpg

Writing is great!
Writing makes you express yourself!
Writing is...

Please, I cannot hear or read any more motivational speeches and quotes about writing.
Writing is hard. And it sucks. And it is a LOT of work.
This is not me complaining...
Well... only complaining against those who pretend writing is like taking a roller coaster ride without acknowledging the roller coaster is going in the wrong direction, is going to break down and leave you hanging upside down for hours on end. That is writing, getting back in there, knowing you will die a little bit.

Nano Camp April 2018

This Nano experience has been interesting.
For the whole month April 2018 I wrote... and wrote and wrote. I wrote 30.000 words, that is 1000 words per day. On average. Some days I wrote nothing, other days I easily wrote 3000 words. And now the manuscript is almost done.

Almost?
Yeah. This manuscript is about 40.000 words now, which is short for a book.
And yeah, because now the fun only begins... the editing.

Frustration ahead...

Whereas plotting and setting out the manuscript takes a lot of time... you see progress.
Whereas writing out the thoughts you have, the scenes, the chapters, and all of this takes a lot of time... you see progress.

Not so much with editing.
You can edit and continue to edit something forever.
And then you'll have someone proofread, and you edit some more.
And then you'll get beta-readers, and you get to edit a lot more again.
It seems ever-lasting.

And then you send it to publishers, and perhaps you'll hear back from them.
And when you hear back from them, that means more editing.

And if you're very lucky and get your work published somewhere (no, I don't mean on steem!) you'll get people telling you all the mistakes you've missed. One glance and they'll know exactly what kind of person and author you are.

But at least... you'll get to say you're an author.
And when you've once felt that rush, of seeing your book in a book store, there is only one way forward.

Start again from the beginning.