Bernadette Benda

This Monday (writing wise) was a big UGGGHHHHHH and an even longer GAHHHHHH.

*featuring me staring angrily at my laptop with a murderous glare*

I was editing Lily, and it was just one of those days where this happens:

Me: I don’t even know where to start. Ugh this sucks. This all sucks. This can’t be fixed. This is stupid. I hate it. This is garbage. Dumpster fire suckery. 

You get the point. I was just not feeling it that morning. Now, by evening I was feeling it, maybe because I had some dinner (Hobbits need dinner you know) and was watching Once Upon a Time, so that helped. Or maybe it was just the change of scenery. Whatever it is, I got out of the funk and I feel better about it now and don’t hate everything.

*stands under rainbow and ray of sunshine*

HOWEVER, sometimes it’s hard because a funk can last for longer than a day. And then the questions arises, “is it my mood today? Am I in a funk? Or is this story actually bad?”

To be honest, I think if a story is bad, you’ll know it.

I’ve read first drafts (of mine), where I’ve been like, “Ok, this is good. We can work with this.” (Who’s “we”?? When I’m writing notes and stuff I always write we. I write we need to fix this, we could do this. WHY?? Who is this other person? Who is my precious?????)

Then sometimes I read a draft and just sort of stare off into the distance wondering what the heck I just read. THAT’S when I know that I have a problem, and things need to be scrapped.

And I think the SECOND thing is this:

If you’ve been working on something for a while, and have loved it all along, until suddenly you’ve seem to hit a wall and just doubt yourself and hate everything. That probably means that you need a break, or it’s just a bad day.

If you read something for the first time and hate it, it probably is terrible.

Of course there is a third option: if you’ve been working on a project for a while, and feel yourself drawing away, it may be time to step back. Maybe you’ve grown past that story, maybe what it needs won’t come till much later on. And when you step away from a project, you never know if you might come back to it.

Basically, if you hate everything, step away. Or eat dinner. Food helps.