How do you know whether to ditch writing or stick at it?

[OldLeatherSuitcase]

For the last year and 9 months I've been trying and failing to write a novel.

I am so frustrated and dispirited. I see issues with my writing, my story ideas, my stupid brain, and my personality.

Today I think maybe I'd just be happier if I stopped trying to do this very difficult thing?! But the other half of me worries that maybe I should persist and then I might manage to overcome my difficulties. I'm not sure which route is better for my mental health!

If it is affecting your mental health, stop now. If you want to persist with it, please do, regrets are horrible so do it if you enjoy it

Put it down. Put it away for six months. Do something else, something that brings you joy. Then come back and take a look at it and see if it still feels like something you want to work on.

Nothing wrong with taking a break. Writing is hard. Do you have a support group?

What's your novel about? If you want some feedback on your first chapter I'm a published author who is currently studying a creative writing MA. 😊

It's annoying because in June I paid £1k for a two course package with The Novelry and you only have access to it for a year. You can extend access but there's a monthly cost.

Thanks for that offer QuestionableMouse, that's very kind.

Alas I have 6 different versions of my first three chapters and all of them need binning now my Novelry tutor has helped me work out my genre.

I was trying to throw too much into my novel, at one stage it was a quirky comedy up lit sci fi thriller, then became up lit magical realism and now my tutor suggests gothic suspense or thriller. Which sounds right for the idea but means I have to start again from scratch.

Why not take a shorter break, say for a month, to clear your mind of your previous drafts and then start on the re-work as suggested by your tutor? It may be that you won't need the full 12 months of the course, but if you do feel you have 'lost' a month, one month's extension won't be the end of the world.

That's a very sensible suggestion WeetabixComesAtAPrice (great username).

I probably feel extra frustrated because I lost a couple of months in the summer due to illness, but I suppose as that's happened anyway, an extra month won't make too much difference.

Earlier I was thinking about maybe reading some writers who are particularly good at prose and studying how they do it, so maybe some activities like that could help me while I press pause on the novel.

Oh God you absolutely don't need to pay that kind of money to write a book.

It's nano (national novel writing month) next month and I reckon you'd probably enjoy it. You basically aim to write 50k words in 30 days and it would get you a decent rough draft. There's plenty of support on the forums and it stops you panicking about it being perfect.

You're right, you definitely don't need to pay that money to write a book.

But I'm enjoying the course; the classes are inspiring.

I can't imagine writing 50k words in 30 days because I'm so slooooowwwwwww and can barely squeeze out 350 words per writing session!

At this rate I will finish my book when I'm 90.

It reads like you're putting yourself into lots of pressure, about writing, changing genres, about not taking a break from the course as you've paid. Why did you want to write, OP? To tell a story?

What’s going ‘wrong’? Does it help to feel that everything you’ve done so far, whether or not it appears in the final version, is part of the process? Donna Tartt has talked in interviews about junking entire subplots and six months work at one go. A friend of mine, a well-known novelist, has regularly written things her agent doesn’t like, or ended up using only one plotline out of a first draft that consists of four or five.

Zilla1 that is a very good question (why do I want to write). I've kind of forgotten now what my original drivers were!

I've always dabbled with writing since childhood, but it's been off and on over the years. When I do it and get into it I enjoy it. But with this novel I haven't enjoyed it.

I'm not sure whether that's because a novel is too overwhelming or that this idea doesn't work.

Blavatskyite that is enormously helpful, thank you. I've heard stories like that before but it's easy to forget them when you're in the thick of the process and it's not going well.

If you're not enjoying writing it, then I doubt anyone would enjoy reading it. @Zilla1 is quite right in the question 'why do you want to write?'

People have different reasons for wanting to write, and a lot of those reasons are more about kudos than compulsion.

You really need to know why you are writing your novel, and why people would want to read it.

I think it's really important that you enjoy writing for most of the time. Obviously there will be times when it's tough (most writers I know mutter "This is shit, this is shit" right throughout their first draft) but getting that particular story down should be fun.

I'd be very, very careful before mixing genres. One of the things agents and publishers want to know is where a book would go in a bookshop. When a reader buys it from Amazon, what would Amazon recommend they also read? If an inexperienced writer mixes genres it can be almost impossible to sell it.

One thing you could do is abandon it and start to write another. You can always come back to that book another day.

From what you're saying I think it's either time to set this aside completely and ignore it for six months or go back to your original idea and just get it down. On balance I'd probably recommend the first. I recently finished a short story that I didn't like while I was writing it but as a new writer you should absolutely be enjoying your work.

Nano is fantastic for getting you out of your head-- it's very freeing just to focus on getting the word count out and not worrying about the quality. Sounds counter productive but if you're stuck it can be so helpful.

Another one suggesting you might do NaNo just for the sheer fun of writing with no goal except pure words. I've been doing it longer than I care to admit to and have written many, many terrible words.

But some have been cannibalised for parts, plots, characters, settings and reused in better stories that helped me pass a MA in creative writing, so as source documents all writing is useful. (except the 2004 NaNoNovel that was dire, and the 2009 one that was just not my genre at all)

I think you've made your current writing into a job/chore, which makes being creative much harder. Step back and either have a break to clear you head, or write something for pure fun.

And you don't actually have to do 50k in 30 days. There's an area on the forums to break from that and set your own goals

Would putting your novel aside for a short while and writing something short and completely different maybe help get you re-motivated?

Having something accepted for publication is a bit of a boost, so maybe a short story for a magazine or something for a professional journal?

AmandaHoldensLips there's definitely no danger of anyone not enjoying reading it because at the moment it's not actually getting written! I just sit and try, write only a few words, then stop as the writing just isn't flowing.

When I started out with the idea it was fun writing it, I enjoyed writing the first three chapters the first time I did it (and I wrote them fast). I then learned all the theory (doing courses and reading books) and it was when I tried to apply the theory to my writing that the joy went out of writing. I kept trying to do a plot spreadsheet and finding issues with the plot and then I'd get stuck for a while trying to work it out. I'd then think I'd solved it, try my first three chapters again, then see more plot issues, or be blank on what material to write to get to the second half of the novel (where all the good plot is), then repeat the cycle.

I'm definitely not wanting to write for kudos. I spent a lot of time trying to work out why people would want to read the novel and trying to apply all the story theory to it but could never solve the problems.

HollowTalk I'm not aiming to mix genres, I've just been having problems settling on one! My idea kept changing along the way as I tried to apply writing theory to it. I can see why now, I was trying to give my main character a goal whereas she needs to be more of a passive narrator to show us what the antagonist is doing. My tutor has now helped me to identify what I think is the right genre for the book, but I'm just too sick of the story now to pick up and start again.

I'm definitely going to take a break from even trying with this novel for now. I'm not sure yet how long but this thread and conversations with my tutor have helped me realise that I do need to put it down and forget about it for a while.

QuestionableMouse and elfy cat you're definitely tempting me to at least consider NaNo, I'll think, maybe it could help me get the fun back

CherryPavlova I'm thinking about getting an old short story out and trying to improve it (I like the story but not my writing style in that story), or maybe I'll try a new one.

Thanks so much for all your thoughts and suggestions, I'm beginning to feel a lot more positive now I've decided to take a break from my novel. Hopefully I can start enjoying writing again very soon.

I've never plotted a thing. Never ever because if I do I can't write it. I usually have a vague idea in my head and a character and go from there. And I've been writing for 20 years. Plotting too much blocks some people so it's counter productive.

Chuck all the theory aside for now. That's for editing once you have a rough draft.

Set yourself a goal of 500 or 1000 words and just write a short story.

That's great that you can write without plotting. Good idea to set myself a word count for a short story.

I wish I could remember how I had the ideas for my short stories, I don't remember plotting so they must have just flowed out as I wrote.

There's a few prompt websites out there. I like martha.net/2019/11/saturday-story-prompts-2019-11-16/ see if any of them catch your attention

What exactly when you mean when you say you try 'applying the writing theory', OP? Which theories do you mean? Because whatever you're doing, it sounds as if it's making you self-conscious about your writing.

I agree with a pp who says maybe think about the discarded material as just part of the process -- I know I personally write in a wasteful way, in that I tend to overwrite and then cut back brutally, or I discover that it's turning out to be a different novel to the one I thought I was writing, and I need to go back and rejig. I think of it as pruning, and try to be prepared to butcher my darlings at the drop of a hat. But not to get too annoyed about the volume of stuff I end up dropping.