Confidence, confidence, bloody confidence.

I made the mistake of reading some of my oldest writing before working on my sixth chapter of Lost Lamb.  I consider this a mistake because the failed fantasy novel was truly bad.  Very discouraging to look that over.  Not sure what I was thinking.  I have been sort of evaluating my older writing at this point, looking over some things that I used to think sucked ass and going, "Hey, that's not so bad." This was not that experience.

Something I've always struggled with in my writing is feeling like I create these alien abstract concepts, images even, and then try to connect them with thin strands of logic.  Ultimately what usually breaks a piece that I'm working on is my head, I roll the idea over and over until those thin strands break and I realize it's another smoldering pile of hard-to-follow nonsense.  Which was why I'd stopped writing this medieval fantasy novel.  On some level, I just couldn't make it make sense.  It was actually embarrassing to look over this piece that, at one time, I thought was quite good.  I found so many pretentious little screw ups.  Filtering was everywhere.  The narrative was telly (trying to tell you exactly what they were thinking or feeling).  The dialogue was so wooden I could have used it to start a campfire.  I didn't use a single contraction in the space of like, five pages.  What the hell was I thinking?  Yes, I wrote the piece in 2009.  Yes, maybe I've learned something since then.  Maybe not.

I feel like I need a Yoda.  Some more experienced writing sensei who would show me the proverbial ropes and steer me clear of the pitfalls.  But I don't have a Yoda.  That's fine.  I can fix this myself.

Okay, here I go.  To fix my brain from seeing this shitty-ass dreck that I once called fiction, I need to accept that it was mine and that I made it.  Yes, I made that steaming pile of crap and no one has to see it.  It can remain in it's hidden pocket of cyberspace forever.  Did I learn something from it?  Sure, why not?  I learned some basic concepts about fiction, and yes, the more I wrote it, the better it got.  By the end, it still wasn't very good, but maybe it was better than before.  That's what counts.  The more I write, the better I'll get at writing.

I've been such a damn perfectionist.  If I can't do something perfect, I won't do it.  I will try over and over on the same video game until I get it perfect.  I have to accept that writing is something that grows and changes and can be revised. My novella was a good example of that.  It got a lot better after I revised it.  That's what'll help me here too.  The more I put it down, the better it gets.  Back to work.