Grr and Other Writing Angst

I like to refer to anything that causes me to pause in my writing as causing me to "Grr." (I also like to make up verbs.)

So, let me go through some things that have caused me some writing angst in the last year (shoot, am I even using 'angst' properly? Let's pretend I am.)

I've been working on my current WIP for the last 5 years. I'm still not satisfied with it. Yeah, that's going to cause some angst. But that isn't even my biggest problem lately with writing.

Let's go back to last September. The ever awesome, dude-tacular James Dashner spoke at UVU's The Book Academy. After the first section of classes, I went up to James and introduced myself. Why? Because he's cool and most people who follow my other blog know I hero worship (modern phrase is 'man crush' but that sounds worse to me for some reason) James. Anyway, the thing is, he gave me some advice, which was kind of him. The rest of the day was spent trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. So, what did I do? I begun rewriting.

I finished the draft and was basically told that it was kinda anti-climatic (blogger thinks that needs to be hyphenated, so it is.) So I started rethinking the story...again.

When I went to LDS Storymakers in April, I had an awesome boot camp critique group, including the ever awesome Julie Daines. The advice I received from the writers, along with Kirk Shaw, was very useful. But, that meant redoing my beginning, which led to me redoing my entire book for the fourth or fifth time. Shoot, it took over 3 years just to finish the first draft. I'm impressed when I can do a new draft in a few months. How Brandon Sanderson writes his novels in such a short period of time, I haven't any clue?

Well, I got past a certain point in my book recently and I felt like something was wrong. When I do that, I back up to the last spot that felt right. So, I proceeded to erase some things and start a section over again in my latest chapter. It still felt wrong. I backed up further...again, it felt wrong. I backed up again and realized that if I continued how I was going, my story would once again become anti-climatic. Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

So today, I get to (yes, get to) figure out what I really need to do. Well, I take that back. I know what I need to do, it's the 'how to do it' that I'm debating. Why can't the computer link to my brain and create the changes that I need?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

But please remember, as I always say, that...

Alien abductions are involuntary, but probings are scheduled.