Now that I write and edit and am going through this whole process with a professional editor....I am having an EXTREMELY hard time reading books and turning off the writer part of me. I see sentences written poorly (or at least I think they are written poorly. I see all the ways that it could be said better, clearer, smoother) or a grammar mistake (I gasp when I see those. Hello??? What is the purpose of a line editor if they don't catch stuff like that before it goes to print????) I see those no no words and adverbs that I spent months deleting and rewording in my own manuscript. Sometimes I get so distracted that I get lost and have a hard time concentrating on the story.
Then I have to tell myself to stop. I tell myself to chill out and just read. Read the story and lose myself in it...enjoy it....read it like a every other Jane out there.
Does anyone else have this problem?? How do you remedy it???
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Yes, I did this when I first started taking a writing course. :( It felt awful, and I was writing for children at the time, so even children's books I read to my kids, I would get frustrated with.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you the solution, except that I think I finally made the conscious decision to allow the mistakes I saw in others books free my writing. I tried to change the attitude from negative to positive. My rough drafts are now a little rougher-but they flow more easily from my imagination. And when I see mistakes in books, it makes me smile instead of cringe. (Unless it's a really bad, blatant grammatical error, those get me!)
I have this same problem! All I can do is say, "this novel made it, so mine can too", and try not to use those same no no's in my own writing.
ReplyDeleteAubie that is so true...I say the same thing to myself!!!!
ReplyDeleteFor a long time I had the same problem. Then, one day, I was somehow able to just read for pleasure again. For me, it really does feel like a switch. I can tell myself to just read and enjoy the book. If I think it's worth it, I'll go back later to analyze it for the writing. I'm not sure how I got to that place, though. It just sort of happened for me.
ReplyDeleteI have to fight against my writer brain, but if it's a good story, I can usually turn it off and just enjoy.
ReplyDeleteThis was a huge problem for me when I was editing.I finally talked to a friend of mine about it...I was worried I'd never be able to read another book for enjoyment again. My thought, "Seriously? Is this the price I pay to be a writer?" Thank heavens it wasn't. The inned editor went away after I was finished editing. Thank Goodness!! I hope yours will too!
ReplyDeleteIt seems once I'm past the begiining..the backstory...the slow parts, etc....I get into and I'm so into the story that I forget to analyze every sentence...every word like I do for my own writing. It's the beginning that's tough.
ReplyDeleteStill looking for the on/off switch to my Edi-dar.
ReplyDeleteIt's stuck ON.
:)