I've lost all confidence in my ideas and writing ability

Wow some good advice here.

Feel like i have had a good old fashioned pep talk. I should close the browser now and carry on writing.

crunchyblanket said:

Firstly, and most importantly: don't panic

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Ahhh... Ford Prefect would be proud.

But, other than that jewel of advice, I echo the words of everyone else hre; damn your inner critic and just write what you want to write. 9-times-outta-10 you'll find your 'rubbish idea' actually grows into something wonderful. And on that disappointing 10? Well... all practice helps in making that one diamond, y'know?

Dave

I know how you feel. I became completely emotionally detached from writing for well over a year. I continued posting in forums and chatting with people, but I wasn't writing fiction. There were things going on in life that just had me utterly distracted, and locked my emotions out of my creativity. Sometimes life intrudes on us in that way. Sometimes it was completely my internal critic, scolding that my writing will never be good enough, "They're all gonna laugh at you..." syndrome I call it...(original Carrie movie reference.)

Good ideas aren't pouring out of people's ears constantly, so get that out of your head. You can't compare people's creative steps to producing work, it is different for everyone. Some people come up with 10 ideas a day, but never get one of them written to fruition. Others might get an idea every few years, and churn out novels.

I realized I was doing that too, until I realized that many people's brilliant ideas are actually crap.

During my dry spell, ironically wasn't the only one going on at the time, I did a lot of reading. I bought like 10 new books from a range of genre, of course pre-screened for entertainment value at the store, and proceeded to read my way through all of them in a summer. By the end of the summer I had many ideas floating around but little to put on paper.

I had finished a novel recently, but lost inspiration to edit it, but had nothing else to do. Reading filled in the gaps. Making out with someone wildly inappropriate also can have an impact on creative juices flowing...at least from what I found.

Don't despair, just do some reading, watch some movies, hang out with people, chat on forums, live some life and relax. You can't relieve idea constipation by trying to force it. Ideas just flow better when you are more fluid.

Writers at every level struggle with these feelings of inadequacy. This quote really brought that home for me:

"I think it's totally rational to go right down in confidence to almost zero when you sit down to start something. Why Not? Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you."

John McPhee
winner of the Pulitzer Prize

I am a newbie, but my dad was a writer (nonfiction). He would go through the same thing. I think it's pretty common right after finishing a project to need time to decompress.

I saw an interview of Graham Linehan once in which he said that when he writes scripts he has long dry spells. During this time his mind is soaking up all kinds of things and processing them subconsciously until he comes out with an idea. (the lovely Screenwipe S5E3P1 on youtube, if anyone's interested).
In the same way your ideas are there, they just haven't finished coalescing. You have the same mind you had before, nothing is broken. You'll become aware of the story your subconscious is ruminating on sooner or later.

When I'm stressed, I find a nice cup of hot chocolate makes the world almost alright. Curl up, have some chocolate, and get a good long night's sleep. And a big hug from over here.

I was in a similar position and didn't touch my WIP for about a month in fear of destroying my idea via bad writing, but when I looked at it after that amount of time I actually loved everything I'd written! I was amazed with how much my writing had improved. I just couldn't see through the cloud of self doubt.

You might like to look for some good history books--narrative non-fiction for times and places you know little or nothing about. I find a lot of potential plots and characters this way--even researching periods and places I thought I knew, often there's something new and fascinating.

Seriously, everyone here has good ideas. If you find you're short on ideas, it's because that internal critic needs to be bound and gagged and you just need to go with whatever comes to you. Spend some time out in the world and write about what you see. Ask questions how something got there--who the object belongs to, and what was done with it. You'll start getting ideas that will help you write.

Every writer goes through self-doubt. Some of us beat ourselves with it constantly. Don't do that. It's very self destructive. It's better to tell yourself you'll get to writing soon. Eventually, you'll start writing again.