Writing: Change of Focus

I tend to come to realisations. I will be struggling with something for a while and then suddenly someone will say something or I will read something that will just click with me and it will help me feel better. Most of these realisations do not stay with me long-term but they move me along on my journey transporting me to the next learning curve. This is why you will often see my posts on topics such as writing providing different perspectives as I learn and alter my perceptions. In my last post, I discussed how I have been struggling to write creatively lately. I read something that has made me realise what the source of this problem may be for me.

I have wanted to be an author for a long time and as I have grown older and left education, my focus has changed from the love of each story to the overall view of wanting to finish and publish novels. When I think about writing I feel anxious and stressed and I now think that this may be because I am pressuring myself with this overall massive goal and not focusing on the individual parts. I love writing and I should be focusing on wanting to write the story, not the end goal. So, I am now refocusing my mentality and I feel a lot better. I have a WIP (work in progress) that I have been working on for a couple of years, on and off. I wasn’t sure whether to continue it but I don’t want it to be another thing that I have not seen through to the end, like a lot of clubs that I went to when I was younger, for example. I want to finish this story for myself and because this story deserves to be told. I love the world, the characters and the storyline and I want to finish the story as much for them as for myself. I also hope that my writing will be enjoyed or found helpful to others but I am not going to think that far ahead.

I have printed my WIP so far and I am going to read through and edit any mistakes, as well as any elements of the characters that I would like to change. As I have been working on this project for so long, this will also give me a reminder on every element of the story and give me a better idea of things that I may want to add in later scenes.

I have separated the WIP by chapters and I am going to edit chapter by chapter with a different coloured pen. Then I am thinking of writing the rest of the story by hand as I used to love doing this and it may help me focus more on the story rather than word count.

I no longer need to think about the big picture but rather each individual project that I am working on and I feel so much better about doing this. Wishing you luck in all your writing endeavours. Now I am off to dive into another world.