The Great Transfer - Healthy Contempt

I'm finding it difficult to get any serious writing done. Not that I class this blog as silly writing in some way, though others may accuse me of that; I just mean that I'm finding that I can't get any writing done on my other, side projects.

I almost feel like I'm cheating on the novel which I finished the first draft of about three weeks ago; that pouring efforts into another piece is tantamount to literary infidelity. Fuck knows why I feel like this; I wasn't the same during the cooldown period of my last novel - I was writing short stories as though the world depended on each touch of the keyboard, each carefully picked word.

Then again, I'm fully aware that my previous novel was an abomination; it jumped all over the place, didn't have strong enough characterization, was inconsistent and amateurish. Even after two solid edits, in which the novel improved massively, it was still a misshapen swarm of clichés and swollen, bulbous metaphors marshaled by an incomplete and unaccomplished plot.

As you can tell, I have a healthy contempt for that novel, despite it easily representing 200+ hours of my life. My reasons for doing so are that I know I can now do a much better job than I did back then and I resent my younger self for saddling me with such a confidence burden.

I feel completely different about the novel I just drafted - I have some high hopes for it - but I already know that it's going to need a serious mauling in order to get it readable.

Maybe I'm having a kind of holiday from writing; I've found myself reading more voraciously, I'm spewing my thoughts onto this blog, to the presumable detriment to you, poor reader, and my appetite for games has increased somewhat. Maybe I'm trying to distance myself from my novel, from my writing, so that the eyes I use to judge my novel at the beginning of September, when I start work on the second draft, are fresh and honest.

That makes sense, but it's left me grumpy, snappy and lost. I feel like I have no real sense of self, of purpose, without a novel to be working on. Writing has become such a part of my identity that, when it's removed, I don't know who I am any longer and I feel I've been taking this out on those around me.

Hmmm, it seems I have some apologizing to do. Thanks, Internet, you've been of great help to me.