Flawed Execution

All right, the story isn't done yet. I know, I know. It will be. Don't worry. I'll admit, I wimped out a little bit and dropped the goal from 10,000 words down to 7,000 before they were locked in. But I still haven't even made it to that many words. I will. Eventually.

I just haven't been feeling motivated lately. That's a big part of writing. If you can't muster up the will to write, well, no writing is getting done. "But why?" you might ask. "Aren't you excited about this story?"

Well, that's an interesting question. With a maybe interesting answer.

As with all of my stories, I'm excited about the idea. That's why I choose to write the stories I do. I get an idea, I get excited about that idea, and I sit down to write it. And there's where it all goes awry.

Every plot idea in my head is a gem. It's the best story ever, and it's going to be great and everyone is going to want to read it. But then I start writing. And that all goes to hell. Suddenly my great idea doesn’t seem so great. Something is lost between the idea and the execution.

Have you ever seen a crappy movie? The kind that’s just terrible, with lackluster scripts and bland acting? Quest of the Delta Knights always comes to mind in these cases. There's a secret quest for the lost storehouse of Archimedes. There's swords. There's action. There's a young Leonardo da Vinci. There's such potential. And it's a god damn terrible movie. Somewhere between concept and execution, it all went wrong.

And that's what seems to be happening to me. I get these great ideas, and I describe them to people, and they say, "That's sounds great! I want to read that!" But then… the story is just underwhelming.

The obvious answer is that I'm just a terrible writer. I accept that. But I also want to get better. And I'm not really sure how to do that. I know something in my skillset is lacking, and I'm a little afraid that it's "all of it."

Should I be outlining my plot arcs? Creating in-depth character profiles with descriptions down to the smallest freckle? Crafting better dialogue? Trading violence for romance? Finally learning to describe things?

Probably all of the above. But that's a lot. Where do I even start? It's like any skill, if you learn bad habits, you have to unlearn them in order to do it the right way. So I may have to start completely from the beginning, and relearn how to write from the ground up. That sounds exhausting.

They say it takes 10,000 hours to master something, so I guess I'd better get started.

I'll see you in about 27 years.

Just kidding, I'll see you Tuesday.