Revision is your friend. There are times when it doesn’t seem like it, but it is.
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About 6 years ago, I started working on my house. I doubled the size of it, actually, raised the roof, ran the plumbing, heating, drywall, framing… you name it, I did it. It took 2 years, and I finished. It’s not totally done, I suppose. There are a few things here and there that could use a bit more work, mostly odd bits of trim. When I started, the largest project I’d ever worked on was a very big Lego set. I had no training or experience in any aspect of construction – I work at a desk, but I did it anyway. I made a plan, spent countless hours on research, and jumped in with both feet (it was very much like jumping into a large body of water, actually. It rained all summer and on one particularly memorable occasion, I was telephoned to be notified it was raining in the bedroom)
I like to think of it as being too stupid to know when I couldn’t do something, so I did. There were a lot of stupid parts to it. Lots of mistakes and mis-measurements, but I got it all sorted out in the end. This is basically how I feel about writing. I’m not a professional, lots of mistakes and revisions have occurred and it’s nowhere near as good as I want it yet. However, I’ve been cracking away on and off for a long time (because I’m also too stupid to give up, even after an extensive tantrum stating: ‘I give up, I’m too stupid for this nonsense’), and I see now that I can finish this story. I’m realistic though, it will probably never be published, most aspiring writers aren’t, but I will have finished, and that will be one more thing that I can tell myself: “I did that.”
I didn’t know I couldn’t
There are times, particularity when I’m having a difficulties carving out time to write, when I start to feel a little discouraged. It gets worse when I start looking at what other writers are up to or have accomplished. The problem is that I love my project, but I’m super-critical and when I start thinking about all of the great concepts and finished works out there, my work really starts to seem juvenile. It’s a challenge for me to just not give up sometimes. (like I really have a choice in the matter. I’ve tried to give up this project more than once, but in the end, I continue to think about it and pick it back up.) This blog is actually an attempt to prevent that sort of thing. The idea being that if I can share my thoughts, maybe get some feedback, it’ll keep me motivated. Maybe my story really isn’t as good as all of those other things I read or hear about, and won’t ever go beyond just a few friends, but I think that’ll be better than feeling down because I defeated myself before I got started.
On Writing Dragons 