Hi everyone! It's the first Wednesday in March. That means it's time for Insecure Writer's Support Group, hosted by Alex Cavanaugh. Anyone can join, so hop on over to the IWSG page for more information and sign up!
I've been having one of those weeks.... I have work to keep me busy and more editing inquiries coming in. My back doesn't hurt so I've been able to get the house cleaned (relatively) and spend time being active with the dog. It's been a week since I sent the NNK off to her new home.
And somehow I feel so far behind the bar that I wonder how I can even show my (dirty, animal hair covered) face in public.
Sigh... apparently I'm not allowed to be imperfect, says my internal editor. She's (I'm) so afraid of rejection that I've painted myself into a convenient corner that keeps me immobile. The problem is, there's no rejection to be afraid of! Everything is going well! Sigh...
Anyone have any creative writing exercises that can help shake off a serious funk? I feel like I need to write two characters, one who always succeeds and one who always fails, and then put them in each other's shoes for a week... and try to work out some of this hesitation on the page.
What do you do to get yourself over the weeks (or months, or years) of feeling utterly inadequate and insignificant and scared of rejections that don't exist?
I go for a run. Except I've been banned from running for a while because of an injury. Hmmm. This means those feelings are going to be attacking me soon. Yep, I'll need some advice too, please. :P
ReplyDeleteI'm not a creative writing exercise type person. Sorry, I can't help you there. :(
Read. Generally reading helps me to see; 'hey, I'm not so bad, inadequate, whatever'.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm in a funk, I blabber out words and feelings in my journal while listening to loud music. Sometimes that helps.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the funk.
ReplyDeleteI was in a major funk at my first college, and I read Slaughter House Five. You want to talk about a funk breaker? It was a year before I hit another funk because the pain in that book just made me so thankful to not have lived through those horrors.
In more recent years, I've turned to things with less substance. Princess Diaries, Blade Runner, Split Second, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Howl's Moving Castle, Sailor Moon.
As for your writing exercise, I don't do that many, but if you want to really mess with a character, then you're not talking about two characters, they are the same person. The successful and the unsuccessful character are the same person, but when the sun is shining, everything goes all wrong. When the sun goes down, everything works. You could call it the Sunlight Hours.
Happy hunting.
Thanks for all your thoughtful replies! I will try all those things... (except for the running... I don't do the running so much).
ReplyDeleteOh, and I love it when I write a whiny post and get new followers from it. <3 Hi new followers! Promise not to be so whiny all the time!!!
ReplyDelete