What do you hate about writing?

[Couture]

For me, it is the really simple things.

I hate coming up with character names. I usually just name them the first thing that comes to mind. If someone has sent feedback, then I'll likely use thier name.

I hate coming up with a description for my stories. For a lot of my stories, I have twists and turns and different things happen. How can I come up with a short summary sentence?

I hate story codes. I know readers like them so they can tell in advance what is going to happen, but as an author, I hate them. How can you surprise someone when you tell them in advance what is going to happen?

Stories that need a lot of editing. Luckily, I've had to do less editing on my own stories. Okay-okay, maybe some of you think I should do more, but I'm maxed out for time as it is.

What are your pet-peeves?

 

[TheEarl]

I hate it when I have a really good idea for a story, but I get stuck halfway through. I find it impossible to start again with the same premise, but if I continue with what I've got, I'll end up with a really bad story. So I've wasted a precious idea.

Does anyone else do that, or is it just me?

The Earl

 

[Ray Dario]

I hate stories that refuse to end. You know, you've been writing it for two weeks, it's already 100,000 words and yet it has never reached a good ending.

I usually scrap these kinds of stories, then go back and re-write them to about 3,000 - 4,000 words.

That really makes me mad that I wasted all that time, because I got off track and got into some kind of wild never ending loop.

Ray

 

[naudiz]

I hate rewrites and revisions. I also hate the feeling of exposure after I present, but that's kind of a love-hate thrill-panic situation.

 

[karmadog]

I hate...

the moment right before submission. The horrible moment when you ask yourself if you've done enough editing, whether you've left some egregious spelling error, whether it was worth writing it at all. If you have anything to say. Oh God, I'm gonna go curl up in the corner.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I hate the fact that I require perfect solitude and a lead in time of about an hour of it before I can relax enough to write. I place every last ounce of the blame on the StudMuffin.

I hate waiting in between revisions. I have only two pieces out of 51 that I have edited before submitting.

I hate my insecurity. I'm terrified that my writing is crap.

 

[Velius]

I hate actually writing, because I'm left handed and it always smears and shit. I type much faster than I can write though, so it isn't that much of a problem.

 

[Chicklet]

Titles. I hate coming up with titles.

 

[Couture]

I know it has nothing to do with writing, but I hate avatars of dicks. To anyone who is considering making an avatar of your dickybird, why not a picture of your balls or even a single nut for subtility? Then, at least you'll have the hole irony thing going.

"Hey dude, why the strange avatar?"

"Cause, I'm a nut."

 

[Velius]

LOL
Apparently it was a better choice than the av I originally picked. Ah well.

 

[darkness_d]

Late Hours

The thing I hate most about writing is that I am unable to get started until I have shut the world out for a while. I used to write early in the morning, before the world had yet distracted me for the day, but now I have to take care of my son if I get up first. So, I now rarely write anything before midnight, and that means if I get rolling I'm up until 4 AM or so.

I work regular hours during the week, so obviously, this pretty much makes me a weekend-only writer.

---darkness_descending---

 

[Sabledrake]

Getting started. I love writing, love the process of it and the way the time flies when the story really comes alive, but I have developed an awful tendency to procrastinate.

Titles are sometimes a problem. Rejection letters are a bummer. Writing myself into a corner and stalling out, I dread that too.

But the worst? The absolute one thing I hate above all others? The frickin'-ding-blast synopsis. I DETEST writing a synopsis or an outline. I hardly ever outline my work. Even as a schoolkid, I would write the paper first and then go back and cobble together an outline.

Synopsis. Chapter-by-chapter. Ugh.

Sabledrake

 

[damppanties]

Titles. I hate coming up with titles.

Yeah, me too. I spend a week writing a story, editing it, getting it absolutely ready to post - and then about 2 weeks thinking of a title.

-DP.

 

[jon.hayworth]

I have just described my whole writing process in a strange question for erotic writers.

Basically I love my ideas, but the process of crafting a story gets me to a, "what am I doing?" stage - where even suicide can be an option.

However if I try not to write I get really moody - the ideas are charging around in my head bursting to get out. So like it or not I have to write.

I have a friend who is an artist - she hates the blank canvas stage. Then a middle stage when a painting looks all muddy then the colours brighten and she loves what she is doing.

I think the love hate - compulsion thing is part of the creative process.

And yes Ray I agree with you stories are terrible when they develop a life of their own that you cannot stop.

jon

 

[Alex De Kok]

Getting started is my problem, that and a tendency to procrastinate. No, on second thoughts say instead that I have this deep-seated urge to keep on putting off doing anything until I absolutely have to.

I can't remember who it was, but some well-known writer when asked if he enjoyed writing replied "no, but I enjoy having written".

I can relate to that.

Alex

 

[curious2c]

What I hate the most about writing is the actual physical aspect! You know, your mind is racing with all of these great ideas and you are 'flowing' with the story, but your hands are not cooperating! Typo's, lag time between idea and getting it on paper or into the computer! If only I could write it as fast as I think it! H-m-m-m!!

 

[Wm_Sexspear]

I hate the hard parts.

 

[Charlotte Blanchard]

Exactly what The Earl said. *sigh*

I get 50% done and cannot finish. The first half is going great but the rest is coming along like a ten year old wrote it. A great idea...wasted.

 

[Quasimodem]

The Part Of Writing That I Hate!

I HATE EDITING!

No, that's wrong. I really love editing when I am catching those &@^!* Spelling Mistakes and resetting the broken limbs of flawed sentences. I actually love seeing a sentence scamper away after I have repaired its halting limp.

I HATE SUBMITTING!

No, that's wrong, too. I like the feeling when I am sending off a finished story. I love it that I am capable of sending off a finished story. In fact, I love that fuzzy warm feeling when I have a "finished" story to send away.

I HATE REJECTIONS!

Very true!

Of course, I don't mean Litertoica rejections. Thank you. That has not happened to me, YET!

I mean, I hate those miserable letters, check-off sheets, mimeographed multi-coloured non-informational notes from editors ... damn their eyes! At least I away do, until about five years later. Then I come across that story amongst my other literary flotsam and jetsam. I seldom need to scan more than a bit of the deathless prose, before I must sit down. I bow my head in thanks for the humiliation that wonderful person spared me.

I HATE PUBLISHING!

I mean, I love that thrill as I open a magazine, or click on a web page, to find my story or article going off to face the world. But then I find that my gentle story of the love that dares not speak its name nearly crowded off the page by a Preparation H ad! Or that someone has improved my story by exchanging a character's exclamation of "shit!" to the more believablely acceptable exclamation of "manure!"

Or on line, be it ASSM, ESC, or now Literotica, checking out the copy of my story where everyone can see. Sometimes - too often, unfortunately - I just have to read it again, in its public format. That's how I encounter the "Aarrgh! Factor". Four complete revisions, fifteen passes with the spell checker, at least five human (well, barely) proof readings, and the dang "hte" waits till NOW to jump out and bite me on my vanity!



I GUESS WHAT I MEAN, IS:

There is nothing about writing that I do not - at some times - love. There is also nothing about writing that I do not - at some times - hate! All too often, these are the same thing. Thank God they are not simultaneous. I couldn't take the mood swings!


Quasi.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I would like to amend my original post to include:

TRANSITION!



AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

I'm leaving now. I'm going away from my computer and I'm going to do something mindnumbingly interesting.

Before I hurt something.

 

[JUDO]

Transitions? But transitions are easy. Why do you hate them?

Sound to sound-
a car honking to an alarm going ogg
Picture to picture-
a waterfall to a shower
Effect to effect-
a dynamite fuse to a sparkler
Composition to composition-
foreground river and shoreline trees to foreground desk shelf of books
word to word -
"But what I really think she wants is..."
"...a good pipecleaning. That ought to do it!"


- Judo

 

[Whispersecret]

I think KM might have meant transitions of location and/or time. I know I have trouble with those all the time. You don't always want to go with extra space to separate scenes. Sometimes, you just need your character to get from home to work without saying, "James left his apartment and went to his car. After starting the engine, he pulled out of the garage and drove..." BLAH BLAH BLAH. Obviously that's an extreme example of what not to do, but what SHOULD be done is usually tricky for me.

Thinking about this, I'm probably working too hard on it. It's probably as easy as saying it in the simplest terms possible:

"James went to work." Right?

Then why do I always have trouble with those things?

 

[KillerMuffin]

Those are the transitions I mean and they're a bitch.

I've got to get my character from the outside of a building and into a group of people touring the building. The space between those is dead transition. I mean that literally. It's deadly dull.

Transition in writing-- for the one who already knows-- is to move from one scene to the next. AND IT SUCKS.

 

[Lolita30]

What I loathe about writing.

I hate the fact that when I have a thought on how the story should be, I lose interest after a while. I also have difficulty describing a certain environment in which the characters of my stories are in. I'm not very good with detailed descriptions so any suggestions on how to perfect that would be fine. Also I hate it when I get writer's block.

For instance, I'm working on the sequel to my first story that I've posted and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed with it! Makes me mad!!!!!

 

[Couture]

I feel your pain KM.

Transitions . . .I hate them too. I really didn't know how much until my last couple of stories. With Harriet Hotter the story starts out with certain characters and then moves to the Frogwart's witches academy.

Silly, I know, but it was harder than I thought. You start out with certain characters and they begin to interact. Then, you pull the plug and have to work with entirely different characters. It wasn't fun. And to keep from publishing a novel, I've been condensing it down as much as possible. Lots of those bastard transitions.