What are the most frustrating things about writing?

[EbonyFire77]

For me, it's when you can't fully express what you'd like to in the written words. I have these thoughts in my head, but sometimes I get writer's block when it comes to getting them out.

I also get frustrated with life getting in the way, the husband expressing his huge disapproval (but doesn't bar me from it) of my writing, and losing the creative edge.

 

[Handley_Page]

A chronic innability to go from one bit to another and have/know some sort of ending.

 

[EbonyFire77]

Right on, I've been having that issue for a couple years now.

 

[sr71plt]

Not having enough time in the day to do as much as is begging to get done.

 

[PennLady]

Yep -- my main complaint about writing is not having time to do it.

 

[lovecraft68]

I have time, but its when the time is. I wake up early and the mind is fertile, I'm bursting with ideas and plot bunnies and rearing to go.

But then I have to go to work. By the time i get home it can take awhile to try to recapture that feeling and it never seems as strong as it does in the morning.

 

[EbonyFire77]

Yes the time factor is there too. I tend to lose my creative juices with time constraints, and it's difficult for me to get back into that mode, too.

 

[topace]

The lack of the ability to fully write down the scenes I've seen in my imagination, especially when it's a fight or confrontation.

Also my chronic case of being lazy and not wanting to write when I have the time to do so. Yeah, I have other stuff to do as well, but I always know I can get them done with time to spare for my writing.

 

[sr71plt]

The lack of the ability to fully write down the scenes I've seen in my imagination, especially when it's a fight or confrontation.

Strangely, it's sort of the opposite with me. I have very little in the conscious mind when I start writing up a story or a book. On very little, I can sit down and just not get in the way of the composing, and I'll find that my mind had most of it worked out and tucked back there and what my conscious had was only the nub of the idea to coax me to sit down and write. What it does is make me scared about not sitting down to write--usually because I'm already in the middle of writing something else--when my mind delivers a nub of an idea. It makes me feel like I'm tossing away a whole manuscript that was already formed in the back of my mind.

 

[Bramblethorn]

For me, it's when you can't fully express what you'd like to in the written words. I have these thoughts in my head, but sometimes I get writer's block when it comes to getting them out.

I also get frustrated with life getting in the way, the husband expressing his huge disapproval (but doesn't bar me from it) of my writing, and losing the creative edge.

The delay between when I write something and when other people read it - I'm an instant-gratification sort of person, and since I write slowly, I have to wait more than a month for feedback. Makes it easy to get distracted by things with a more immediate payoff, which then slows down my writing, getting us back to where we came in...

My own compulsive re-editing - I will usually rewrite most passages several times before I'm done.

Having to 'kill my darlings': sometimes I start with a line that seems great, but the rest of the story evolves in a different direction.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

Where to start... probably not being able to articulate what I want to say the way I see it in my head.

Being too picky and wanting everything to be perfect first time around.

Not having the right descriptive words!

Worrying that I'm breaking rules by having too many -ly words in my work.

 

[LynetteLovett]

Feeling like your writing isn't going to well received.

 

[lovecraft68]

The lack of the ability to fully write down the scenes I've seen in my imagination, especially when it's a fight or confrontation.

Also my chronic case of being lazy and not wanting to write when I have the time to do so. Yeah, I have other stuff to do as well, but I always know I can get them done with time to spare for my writing.

I have no issue with fight scenes. I choreograph them with a sparring partner. The only issue I've had with that is getting too "in character" and going for a move that was no issue a few years back, but these days....

so a few months ago I ended up with my knee in a brace for a ten days.

 

[loquere]

It's hard finding time. I agree with the op getting the rods out is tough as well.

 

[EbonyFire77]

Feeling like your writing isn't going to well received.

Yup, I have found I need to let go of this a bit more. I am open to constructive feedback and how to tweak where the stories are going. It's still a buzzkill to have someone say, "Dude, this was terrible writing. Sorry."

 

[TE999]

Having Deidre (my fickle muse), decamp for parts unknown whilst I stare at a blank sheet of MSWord, blink in time with the cursor and decide to websurf instead.

 

[TxRad]

Not having the time to finish the over 200 half finished stories I already have started.

 

[HeyAll]

Laziness sometimes.

Editing a story is also a real pain in the ass. You spend all that time writing a story, just to have to comb over every word of stuff you recently wrote.

 

[sr71plt]

Not having the time to finish the over 200 half finished stories I already have started.

I don't think I leave anything unfinished that I've actually started writing on, but I certainly have regrets sometimes of story ideas that were there and then departed when I didn't/couldn't take the time to write them up. Last year or so, I've at least written down the nub of the idea on the project list I keep going on the status of works so that I have a prayer of getting back to the idea.

 

[TxRad]

I don't think I leave anything unfinished that I've actually started writing on, but I certainly have regrets sometimes of story ideas that were there and then departed when I didn't/couldn't take the time to write them up. Last year or so, I've at least written down the nub of the idea on the project list I keep going on the status of works so that I have a prayer of getting back to the idea.

Oh don't worry, I have a file with several hundred ideas listed.

The problem is those plot bunnies that just won't go away until I at least write something. Sometimes it's just a page or two and then at other times it flows like water for six to even ten pages.

 

[lovecraft68]

I've finished everything I've started and written ideas that have popped up during a story in a notebook.

I always say I'll get to said notebook, but then something else pops up and its off and running again.

I also keep a journal of my wife and I's weekly role plays and any of them could be a plot bunny as well.

 

[JackLuis]

A chronic innability to go from one bit to another and have/know some sort of ending.

I found a quote today that complains about the same thing:

"

Petraeus who saw the morass that was Iraq even as it began, who famously turned to a journalist on the march into Baghdad with the 101st Airborne and declared openly: "I know how this begins, but explain to me how this ends?"

You are not alone, Handley.

 

[jomar]

Forgetting to backup.

 

[heather_baby]

For me, it would be writing too fast. The thoughts and words just fly through my head and I write as fast as they come. Then when I go back and read the finished product, a lot of things don't add up such as the setting and the little bitty things that tie a story together. Because I am so ADHD, I want to change the setting a million different times and then I have to go through and change the whole story it seems. If I was able to sit down and think it out, I'd be a lot better off. But they just come to me and I have to take advantage of the ideas as they come or I won't even have a starting place.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

For me, it's having a good premise and getting lost in it. I'm starting to get complaints that I'm wimping out on the sex part of things. That bothers me.

I just submitted a story tonight that reached novella length over three tellings of it. I think the last version is the strongest, but I'm still pissed with it. When did a short story person develop a problem telling short stories? FRUSTRATING!