Oh god, me too. The phrase "in a bright pain of anticipation" has been haunting me through revisions. I keep googling it trying to figure out where I found it, because I don't think it came from my own brain. I'm paranoid about it.
'Did I just write that?'
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Oh god, me too. The phrase "in a bright pain of anticipation" has been haunting me through revisions. I keep googling it trying to figure out where I found it, because I don't think it came from my own brain. I'm paranoid about it.
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If it helps, it didn't ring a bell with me.
Mine is something I used in a post-apoc piece. 'The cracked pavement was stained with the ghosts of dead leaves'.
I love your turn of phrase; it's lovely.
I don't know why mine rings such loud alarm bells every single time I read it. It's weird.
I don't know why mine rings such loud alarm bells every single time I read it. It's weird.
Heck, I've written things 10 minutes ago that I back at and think "Well, that's complete crap." (sometimes, so do the Mods hereabouts, but that's another topic).
I think every writer has done this every now and then - even the Great Masters (Heinlein, Bova, Clark, MacDonald, et al).
I think every writer has done this every now and then - even the Great Masters (Heinlein, Bova, Clark, MacDonald, et al).
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I wrote my first novel mostly after midnight under the influence of Ambien. I would reread the next morning and have no recollection of writing it. Sometimes I was really impressed and sometimes I was horrified.
It almost makes me laugh at how stupid I was when I was sitting there at the keyboard, feeling like a saintly literary God because I'd just blown 4,000 words in one session...and then the next month, I am humbled. It really chops you down and forces you to ask yourself if improving in your art is really just a way of the universe to make you look at yourself in the mirror.
I wrote my first novel mostly after midnight under the influence of Ambien. I would reread the next morning and have no recollection of writing it. Sometimes I was really impressed and sometimes I was horrified.
As someone who takes Ambien and has also seen a family member 'under the influence'.... OMFG I just laughed so hard! This image is priceless.
As to the OP, yeah, it has happened when I've come back to old stories that I either never finished or finished, set aside, and forgot about. I read them and go "Whaaaaaa? Who wrote this, this is awesome!" Not every time, but enough.
Even better, though, is writing something, knowing it's crap, and then reading it the next day and realizing that it's absolutely fine, I just felt like crap.
Yep. I wrote something in my current WIP a few months ago and was recently reading through it and was like, "How did I write that?" I still don't know where I got the idea to write it and wish I had more moments like that.
I wrote my first novel mostly after midnight under the influence of Ambien. I would reread the next morning and have no recollection of writing it. Sometimes I was really impressed and sometimes I was horrified.
Writing under the influence tends to bring out my ... passionate side haha
Hemingway once said 'write drunk; edit sober'.
This might be a good idea for a new thread haha
There's one editor on Twitter who got really high and mighty about people who write while under the influence a few months back. Basically shut the shit down on any dialogue; wouldn't entertain the fact that some people write drunk or high and that the writing that results could actually be okay.
Not that I write while spaced out, but the attitude put me off ever submitting to them.
Not that I write while spaced out, but the attitude put me off ever submitting to them.
Lewis Carroll and Philip K. Dick wouldn't've become writers without drugs *justsaying* haha
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I have this happen all the time when I write contemporary but not so much when I am writing regency. I love my "voice" in contemporary because I use my own personality (it doesn't matter if the main character is a male or female).
An excerpt of such wittiness (at least in my opinion):
An excerpt of such wittiness (at least in my opinion):
To the OP, there is nothing wrong with being proud of our writing accomplishments, and that extends to passages that we consider to be excellent work. But we shouldn't be so proud of them that we will resist cutting them out in the editing process if that is what will best serve the story. An inability to "cut one's babies" to improve a story is the mark of a writer who extends this pride toward arrogance.
And to some of the other comments...we can come up with examples of extremely successful writers who write under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Unfortunately, there are no lists of people whose creativity has been ruined by these chemicals. I bet the latter list would dwarf the former one.
And to some of the other comments...we can come up with examples of extremely successful writers who write under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Unfortunately, there are no lists of people whose creativity has been ruined by these chemicals. I bet the latter list would dwarf the former one.
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Even most of the extremely successful writers who used alcohol and drugs extensively were ruined by them, so you'll find most of the writers on the first list on the second list, as well.
Drunks have all sorts of excuses and justifications, and so do those who use other chemicals. None are valid.
Wow. Getting buzzed makes you a drunk, eh? Who knew?
Here's a valid excuse: I bloody well feel like it.
Here's a valid excuse: I bloody well feel like it.
Yes. This has been happening to me more and more. I found that some of the stuff I wrote wasn't as bad as I thought it was. I love it when that happens.
For pretty much all of my current novel, I might look at it and think, "Wow. I actually wrote all this down." Not that I'm completely impressed and in awe of my own work, but the sense of having written a 105k book gives me that little sense of accomplishment.
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Methinks this editor would be very interested in learning about Stephen King's writing process for his novel Cujo. So would King, since he has no memory of writing the damn thing.
"Oh man, what did I DO last night?"
"You wrote a bestseller."
If only other former addicts could be as lucky, eh?
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Only once, and this was recently. My biggest enemy is self doubt, so even if I did write somethng good, I might not be able to recognize it.
Sometimes it happens. I think it's more because I have a lot of self doubt, as the above poster has mentioned.
Does anyone else have to FORCE themselves to sit down at the desk and write? I think, deep down, a part of me is scared that I won't be able to write. That everything will be absolute rubbish. Like, I had the ability yesterday, but maybe it's gone today. Or I've just been fooling myself and I'm not really very good at all.
Anyone? Maybe I'm just paranoid...
Does anyone else have to FORCE themselves to sit down at the desk and write? I think, deep down, a part of me is scared that I won't be able to write. That everything will be absolute rubbish. Like, I had the ability yesterday, but maybe it's gone today. Or I've just been fooling myself and I'm not really very good at all.
Anyone? Maybe I'm just paranoid...
Not just you, Erin. Definitely not just you.
Every time I've written something in 2012, I've had to force myself.
Every time I've written something in 2012, I've had to force myself.
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This is really tough because I am sure you have people around you that think you are great but are they just saying that? No one is going to tell you to your face that your writing sucks a d. -ya know? It's tough to have that confidence in you when there is no gauge (if you are not published) for you "talent".
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This is how I feel about much of the work I've written in High School. It just had a certain pizzazz about it.
And in regards to the OP, I do that a lot as well. It may seem great at the moment, but then I realize it was crap all along.
Yup1
I got my novel back from the proofreader and thought S**T she's changed bits and she writes better than me.
Checked my original copy and realised that I had written it myself.
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