Evolving

My Writing

Writing has always been a passion of mine. I've always considered myself to be a talented writer. If nothing else, I have always been maniacal in my need to be grammatically correct and eloquent to a T. It's gotten me through most of my high school papers. It's even gotten me through several of my college papers. But for fun - now that's a different story altogether.
I have always thought that writing for fun has come easy to me, but in a way, it's harder than writing for a grade. When I'm in class and I'm given an assignment, it's easy to write, because I'm given a deadline and a rubric, and I'm expected to stay within a loose group of topics. It's easy as hell to bust out a few pages overnight. When I'm on my own, in my room on my laptop, trying to write a story I dreamed up, it's nearly impossible. I sit and twiddle my thumbs until I figure out a way to basically throw up the words onto paper (or onto a screen).
One thing that has always helped me is to read other work. If I'm having a block and can't think of anything, I read something else. It's a much needed break, because I don't have to think about my own story, and I still get the enjoyable feeling of reading, which is one of my favorite things to do. My other options are usually taking a nap or doing some other activity. I eventually come back to my writing, fresh and relaxed and ready to go.
Sometimes it's hard to come back to my writing, however. Sometimes I'll start a story and I'll be so excited about it and I'll write it all out, and it'll be messy and unedited, but once it's finished I just leave it because I hate editing. Other times I'll write a story and won't even have the next chapter thought up yet. I think the worst feeling is when I'm trying to write and I feel like I have to force myself to sit down and write. Writing should be fun, it should come when you're inspired. You should want to do it. Lately, when I've been writing, I've been torn between moments of inspiration and moments where I feel like I'm literally forcing myself to write something just because I need to. I never want to write because I need to; I want to write because I want to.
I've gone months without writing. I put TFIB on hold for the better half of a year due to the writers block I had. I don't think anyone should feel pressured into writing. I've seen plenty of stories on Wattpad be run into the ground because the readers force the author into updating before the writer is ready, and they're pressured into writing another and another and another chapter even if they're raw and unedited and messy and don't make a lick of sense. I think that it's wonderful that people can contribute their opinions and critiques to stories; I also think it's such a terrible thing for people to be able to complain so easily about update not coming quick enough. A couple times, I considered just not finishing TFIB because I kept receiving messages telling me I needed to update, and I never wanted to update when I was told to. I'm terrible at sticking to a schedule, and I'm even worse at doing what's asked of me.
I would love to be able to just spit out novels at the drop of a hat. In fact, I have so many ideas written down on Notepad notes on my phone. I just don't have the guts to post half of them, because I'm so terrified of the reception they'll get; either the negative comments, or simply them getting ignored. I am kind of terrified that I'll post a story that I love and that I think is worth a million bucks and I check back on it to find that it has less than ten reads and that it has comments telling me how terrible it is and other stuff like that. I think everyone thinks that way, though. We are all a bit nervous of what will happen once our stories are out of our own heads.
I need to get out of my head, though. I think that if I do, if I go ahead and post the three stories I have in my head right now, some great things could happen. Who knows, maybe you guys will love them.
I should probably finish TFIB, first.