Writing a novel is so very hard, daunting, and lonely

[smokedragon]

Damn, I don't know how people do this for a living. I'm stuck on 70,000 words. I'm nearing the end, but, what I find myself doing is reading what I've written over, and over again, which depresses the hell out of me because it's so fucking badly written. The story itself may be alright, but, my feeble mind just can't come up with the words to convey a particular emotion, or scene.
And, it's lonely, so very lonely. Not one of my family or friends has even asked to read any of it. Hell, they haven't even asked what it's about. Oh, your writing a book? Yay, that's great!
Depressed. Very fucking depressed.
But, I'm gonna finish the goddamn thing. If it's the last thing I do in this miserable shit filled life of mine.
Sorry, had to rant, and whine. Might help me.
To those of you who write for a living, whether it's novels, short stories, articles, reviews, God bless you, you are giants, and, yes, I am jealous.

[bugen]

With the first draft of a novel you are nearing the summit of a mountain very few can access. I'd guess this has something to do with any observed lack of interest from family and friends. If a good friend told me he was constructing a fusion reactor I probably wouldn't ask for the science of it, and if he tried to explain it to me there's a good chance I'd glaze over unintentionally.

A helluva climb. Be proud!

[TerryE]

Plow through to the end, and worry about the rewrite later. I know your struggles. I've never done anything nearly like novel length. My current project is a novella at about 21,000 words now, with maybe 3000-4000 more to go. I've got a great support system in a local writing group that is run by the teacher of the short story class I took a couple years ago. See if you can find some local writers to hang out with every few weeks and critique each other's work. I've also worked online with a couple of the writers on this forum editing and critiquing each other's work.

Good luck, and keep working.

[mhatchett]

I have to be honest, I rarely finding writing hard. I enjoy that whole process. it's the what now, once a story's done that I find baffling, infuriating and frustrating lol!!! That's why I've put off jumping into the writing thing until I retire. In the mean time, I'm churning out lots of "stuff" LOL!!!

[smokedragon]

I've decided to take a step back from the book, take a breather. I started a blog (for the umpteenth time), and have started to write wee stories. Short, in-exhausting, painless, and not as depressing.
Thing is, the other reason I'm vacationing from the book is that I know what's coming up for one of the characters. And, I don't want to go there. I'm trying to rewrite it in my head, but it always comes back to the scene. I really like the character, and in my head it's a fully functional, emotional, wonderful human being. Not that it translates unto the written page as I envision the character, more's the pity. It will greatly sadden me if I write it, so, I guess I'm putting it off.
As for blogging, Jesus, when did it get more complicated? Used to be you'd start a blog, hope someone visits it, and keep it up. Now you need the knowledge of a computer hacker to keep up with all the PC language. SEO's, and, SQL, and algorithms. I have as much knowledge of setting up a webpage as I do on how to make a woman, hell, any species, scream my name in ecstasy. I know how to make someone scream my name in anger, though.

[markgunnells]

Each story is different. Sometimes I get stuck, sometimes I just sail through, but I always find it worth the effort. The roughest time I ever had was about 3 years back, took me an entire year to write a short novel. What I usually do when it gets particularly rough is take a break and write a bunch of flash fiction. Stories I can write in a single sitting, boosts my confidence and gives me a sense of accomplishment. Then I can usually go back to the novel with a fresher mind.