Dealing with Perfectionism
Posted: September 7th, 2010, 12:05 am
I finished my first book a while ago and had some friends read it. They all came back with, "it's good". That right there told me something was wrong (why isn't it great?) but, having no other recourse, I started querying it. I received a number of positive rejections (serious oxymoron right there) and two requests for partials. What I kept hearing over and over was a variation of, "you have the talent and creativity but not the mechanics". They then said I did way to much telling/not showing, was repetitious in both word use and idea, used passive voice to much, and needed some work on my formatting. Additionally my plot wasn't so great, though the idea behind it apparently was (one agent absoutely loved it, and then rejected me. :) )
Anyhoo, I've been doing all kinds of research and practice to try and get myself up to snuff. I've written out an entire new Story Bible with a brand new shiny plot that, hopefully, is far more kickass than the last one was. So now I simply need to sit down and write it. The only problem is I'm finding I'm so incredibly worried about making the same mistakes all over again that I can't write! I'll write and then go "that sucks", erase, write, "it STILL sucks", erase, and so on and so forth. I've tried to tell myself "it's a first draft, it's supposed to suck" but I still can't seem to get myself past that hurdle and just write the stupid thing. I could do it before - the first completed verstion was three hundred pages. Now, however, knowing what I have problems with I can't seem to get past the first blasted page.
Any suggestions? I know I can't be the first person in the world to deal with it so I thought I'd inquire of more experienced minds. Thank you in advance for any advice. :)
Anyhoo, I've been doing all kinds of research and practice to try and get myself up to snuff. I've written out an entire new Story Bible with a brand new shiny plot that, hopefully, is far more kickass than the last one was. So now I simply need to sit down and write it. The only problem is I'm finding I'm so incredibly worried about making the same mistakes all over again that I can't write! I'll write and then go "that sucks", erase, write, "it STILL sucks", erase, and so on and so forth. I've tried to tell myself "it's a first draft, it's supposed to suck" but I still can't seem to get myself past that hurdle and just write the stupid thing. I could do it before - the first completed verstion was three hundred pages. Now, however, knowing what I have problems with I can't seem to get past the first blasted page.
Any suggestions? I know I can't be the first person in the world to deal with it so I thought I'd inquire of more experienced minds. Thank you in advance for any advice. :)