My dreams, how they mark me

[wayfaringwordhack]

I don't know if I should be coming back to LJ-land yet, but well, here I am.  I went offline to force myself to get some writing done, and I did, two chapters' worth (4.5K words).  But I'm still three chapters away from the end. I knew when I decided to write the story that these chapters would be the toughest, hence why I saved them for last. I'm not sure now that that was such a brilliant idea. It makes getting to The End that much harder. As if finishing a book needs to be any harder.

I need to do what all writers and concerned friends of writers counsel and Just Write the First Draft. I know that, but the fears of inadequacy, they cripple me.  And they have spilled over into my dreams of late.

In one dream, I had to infiltrate a diabolical sect, but I couldn't even worship the Devil correctly. He refused me!

Last night, I dreamed that I could not take a photograph to save my life. Everything was against me: the light faded; no matter how hard I tried, the image refused to be framed correctly; the camera malfunctioned. Lots of factors outside my control, but I stupidly just kept pushing the button, pushing the button. Finally I turned to another subject, but again, everything went wrong. I thought that I should stop and check my camera, see if it was on, if it had charged batteries, etc. but no, I kept pushing the button.

So I woke up this morning, secure in the knowledge that I feel inadequate, that I have performance anxiety.  Only, I already knew that.  What I need now is the kick to get me past it.

I don't know what to do besides accept that this draft will not be perfect--nor will the next--and just keep typing one word after the next. Yet, that feels frighteningly like pushing the button.

Any advice from the masses who have trod this hellishly hard way before me?

Comments

[clarentine]

There is *always* another draft. Maybe you can get your subconscious convinced that the next draft is when it needs to be bothering you?

Or try just putting in a bracketed comment where you run out of forward motion. Sometimes not trying to get it perfect - indeed obviously (even to my subconscious) not even trying to get it perfect - will let me get past a me-imposed blockage. As long as you note what you were trying to get at, you should be able to pick up and fill in what's missing once the perfection pressure fades.

(Which leads to the multiple color-coded brackets in my later drafts, where I note the progress of various bracketed inserts: yellow means yet to be tackled, green means completed, pink means still needs some work, and blue means there's something mentioned that remains important, but the work in this particular spot is done. I don't usually erase the bracketed comments until the final clean draft; they provide clues in case I go astray.)

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Very clever with the colored brackets! And yes, I need to just put the gist and move on. More time for layering--heck, simply getting down some basics--later on. :P