Kicking Writer's Block In The Pants

Okay, you remember how I wrote in all my previous posts about various fanfic projects? (It's okay if you don't, because I totally fail at updating this thing.) Yeah, pretend I didn't write those posts, because I never finished the fics.

I'm not entirely sure why. It could be because I'm up to my arse in Writer's Block Argh-ness. (Yes, I just made that up. Stop looking at me like that.) It could be because my fandom tastes have changed. It's very hard to go back and write fic for a fandom you haven't written for in quite literally years.

But this post is not meant to be about fanfic and certainly not about fanfic projects that never got off the ground. This post is about how I maybe possibly am kicking my writer's black in the pants.

I'm not willing to call it conquered yet. But I am willing to let it know that I am finally ready to fight back with all I have.

A huge part of my issue with the beginning couple chapters of The Witch of November is that I just don't like it. How can I expect anyone else to like it when I don't like it?

How did I get to a point where I don't even like my own writing? I don't really know. But I think a large part of it was because I was trying to write it with the judgments of any potential readers who aren't me. Essentially, I was trying to write for some imaginary panel of judges rather than for myself.

The only problem is you have to write for yourself. It just comes out better that way. I have to tell the story in the way that I want to rather than the way I think someone else might want to read it.

So you know what? Screw the imaginary readers. The only reader who matters (at least right now) is me. The more I write for me, the more I'll like what I've written. And maybe then we can get the confidence level back up enough to edit properly instead of deleting things over and over because I think they suck.

Want a snippet? This is what ten minutes with headphones and writing for oneself can do:

If anyone had told Lillian Blackstone a year ago that she’d be standing in her own parlor with an old card table acting as a makeshift altar while Mildred Albertson arranged candles on top, she would have laughed in that person’s face.

She’d been so young then, so naïve. So unaware that her comfortable, blissful life could be taken away in an instant. So unconcerned about the cruel ocean and what it could take from her. Her entire twenty-three years had been spent in a fishing town, but she’d believed that she and Josiah would beat the odds. Their marriage would last forever, immune to the ravages of winter storms and rough seas.

She’d been so stupid.

Life as she knew it ended on November 23, 1876, the night that a sudden storm had claimed the love of her life. After just barely eight months of marriage, Lillian was a twenty-three-year-old widow. For the past three months she’d done nothing but cry for the life she’d never share with her husband.

The day Mildred Albertson stopped by to offer condolences was the day that Lillian’s life had taken another turn. It was Millie who told her that death didn’t mean the end. It was Millie who offered her hope.


See? Much better. We'll just see if I like it this much tomorrow, ha.