I have tried to write something meaningful more than I dare to admit. There's a box underneath my bed filled with notebooks. All of them containing parts of stories that weren't good enough to make it into something more. I've tried rereading them and finding mistakes to avoid in the future but for some unknown reason I am back at where I started.
I've always enjoyed writing and creating worlds in my head. I don't know how old I was when I wrote my first "book" but it was made out of coloring book pages. It described the life of an Indian girl but I can't remember anything else. There was a story I wrote as a play that I actually finished. It wasn't really that good but I am proud of it. I guess I must have been such an innocent little girl, because a few years back 9gag taught me I had named my protagonist after a famous porn star. For some reason I didn't feel as motivated to keep going with that story. Changing the name would have changed the character I had grown to love. Maybe it would have been good publicity to keep the name and publish it anyway :D
Now, when looking through the box underneath my bed I found a few papers with some ideas that had never been made into a story so I decided to change that. "Stone birds" is that story. I wish to test myself one more time and see if my dreams of being a real author can come true. I do not dream of being the next J.K.Rowling and earn millions. I just want to make one person disappear in my book the way I have lost myself into so many during my life. A good book can spark a flame in ones soul that can never be put out.
Lack of words
As a wannabe author for whom English is not the first language, I have lately found myself struggling with the lack of words. Seriously, I was always good at English but when I try to describe things I find that I simply don't know enough adjectives. But adjectives make the characters come to life, the situations seem more real. I wish I could write in my mother tongue, but it makes the audience of my books so small that I'm afraid the only person to actually read it, will be my sister. Writing in English gives me at least some hope. I know, I know, practice makes perfect and you can't expect results too fast. I guess I'm just a bit impatient.
Good idea, wrong time
It is often said that the shower is the best place to think. Or was it the bed? For me it is both. And also on the bike. It just sucks when I feel like I've had an extraordinary idea for the story and think to myself "I need to remember it and write it down later!". Guess what happens? That's right, I forget it and only remember the thought of needing to remember something.
Dreaming about your book becoming published and then becoming a movie rather than actually finishing it
Yeah, I'm not going to comment it.
Avoiding cliches
Every time I come up with some plot I have to think at least a million times whether it's a cliche or not. Sometimes I enjoy cliches, romantic comedies and happy endings but when a book manages to surprise me, it has won my heart.
Becoming a successful author and not giving up
As I said before, I've tried to write for a long time. Maybe I'm just too young to be a good writer but maybe I've just not given my best. Giving up is easy but it's also easy to sometimes forget why I gave up in the first place. I've loved writing for as long as I can remember. And I won't give up yet although the chances of being a successful author and making a living writing books is molecular.
So, here's a question to you:
What are your problems as an author and how do you overcome them?
Leave a comment and share your stories.
I definitely agree with you about all of the struggles you have mentioned, that being said I did manage to once write an over 500 page-long story, which yes, only my sister read, but I was very poud of it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way your sister sounds like a great person.
As for the main problem I have, is that I don't always have a very clear vision of what is the goal of the book and where I want it to lead, I tend to change my mind and decide to go in a different direction, that sometimes I feel like the book is allover the place, but I really enjoy writing and that's what keeps me going.
Totally agree with you! My sister is marvellous!
DeleteNot having a clear vision is sometimes good in my opinion because it allows the story to grow. But for some reason it usually ends up creating major plot holes.