Writing Rant #1: Staying Focused

 

This post is going to be a bit of a rant about one of my other loves in life: writing. I think the biggest reason I'm so obsessed with books is because as an aspiring writer, I want to write a book myself. My favorite books are the ones I wish I'd written. I've been trying to write novels since I was very young, and though it's been a lot of fun, I didn't start to take it seriously until quite recently. Something that's always been hard for me as a writer is staying focused.
 
Though I've been writing for a long time, I wouldn't consider myself a terribly experienced writer. I've started many first drafts, abandoned them, and started over again. According to my records, I've started at least 30 different stories within the last 3-4 years. Yikes, right?

It might seem like a simple thing to just start a writing project, work on it until you've got a finished draft; edit it, rewrite it, and then be done, with no stops or detours along the way. Unfortunately, in my writing journey, this has never been the case.
 
In all my years of writing, I have never finished a first draft. Not once. This is because I am a flighty, distracted writer who gets bursts of inspiration on projects, works like crazy on them...and then, proceeds to get a new one and run off in pursuit of it without another thought. As you can probably tell, I am not good at staying focused!

Some of this definitely has to do with maturity. I started many of my first projects when I was quite young. For a long time, I didn't really have the maturity to concentrate on one project, and as I've gotten older, my capacity to stay focused has improved greatly. In recent times, I've gotten a lot more work done on projects than I ever did in the past. However, the problem isn't completely solved. This past year, I've still been bouncing back and forth between several ideas. 

To elaborate: At the beginning of 2017, I decided to get my stuff together and start working seriously on a project I'd been wanting to finish for a long time. I set a wordcount goal, created a nice new "First draft" document, made cute little planning cards, and commenced working on the project daily. "Daily" turned out to be...uh....not so daily. Haha. There were many things that stalled the project, but after a month or so, I decided to quit working on it.

This was for several reasons. I am still a little disappointed in myself for quitting, but I also feel it was the right decision for that particular project. Despite my silly little planning cards, I did a bad job of planning out the idea, to the point that it really didn't even make sense. Eventually, I got to a point where I realized there was no way I could build this idea into an actual plot. If I had continued, the draft would have been a complete trainwreck. 

I still miss the characters and world I created for the story. At some point I'll probably return to it, but if I do, it's going to need major revamping. There is no way that I could finish the original draft I started. 

After I quit my first project of 2017, I moved on to a new, perhaps equally daunting one. Most of what I write is epic fantasy, which is very difficult to plan out, between developing characters, building a world, and outlining a complicated plot. When I started the second project, I decided firmly that if I was going to do this, I needed a complete plan for the entire plot before I began any drafts. I began the planning a few months ago, and though I haven't worked on it for a few weeks, I'm planning to return to it soon. Let me just say though, it is not pleasant work. I divided the story into three "Acts" and started typing up an outline, which so far is at least four full pages long...and I think I'm still on Act 1.

 I got distracted from my second project by a new, random idea I had a few weeks ago that took away all my attention lightening fast. It's another epic fantasy, albeit very different from the other one. I just really love the idea, and I keep telling myself that there's a way for me to work on all these projects at once. 

In the end, I think for writers with tons of ideas, like myself, you really have to make yourself stay focused. Plan out your ideas well, work as much as you can, and just don't spend time with other ideas until you've finished what you want. If I could do this, I would probably succeed a lot more than I have. However, I just love the feeling of inspiration so much that I kind of lose control whenever I get a new idea. 

I'm really hoping that I'll be able to get more writing done this summer, when school and everything else is over. My busy schedule is not conducive to being able to write, so it's hard to fit writing in even once a week, much less to work consistently on a single project. 

Anyway, that's all for today's writing rant. If you're a writer, do you have any stories or advice about staying focused? What are your other writing woes? Free free to tell me about it in the comments!

Stay bookish!

Kitty