2
Author critique groups are valuable. I have hosted one for years. Hearing what other writers have to say about your writing is useful because writers, in my experience, tend to be able to give a little more explanation of the reasons for their opinions than readers at large can. And certainly don't limit yourself to feedback from other writers. Consider ...
2
The other responses give wonderful advice that alleviate the symptoms. I find the root cause for my own block is perfectionism.
Becoming enveloped in the world I’m trying to portray, writing as many details as possible, mentally watching the characters, describing their inner worlds etc. Over months, it feels as if this is a part of me. When I give it to ...
1
As with anything in life, you just do. If you're not good at it, you'll get where you want to be, with time. Write, write, write. It doesn't matter if what you write is terrifically bad, short, if it has lots of errors in it; because that's the only way you'll learn.
The fastest way to learn is to fail.
I started out writing very, very short stories -300 ...
1
This video of Ira Glass (from This American Life) gets me through that problem every time.
By the time you first begin writing, you've already developed good taste, being able to tell good work from bad. So in your early work you can see clearly how far it falls from the best stuff you've seen. You have to recognize that gap, but also recognize that ...
1
Happens A LOT. To many writers. A writer's opinion of a work when it's being written is very unreliable.
Just write on. In the immortal words of James Thurber, "Don't get it right, get it written."
At the very least, you need practice writing. If it turns out that your book is as bad as you think it is now, nevertheless you will have learned ...
1
By showing it to someone and getting feedback on it. Then you will know answers to at least some of your questions. You can't answer them yourself, someone else has to answer them for you.
Regardless of what the outcome is, it will be liberating, because then you can move on to acting on their feedback. Continuing forward, or fixing things that aren't ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
