I've got an approximately 30 year writing plan for a 10 generation book series, hoping to finish a book every 3 years. The reason it will take so long is because I have a full-time delivery job and am a husband and dad, so I only write about 100 words before I fall asleep. Thankfully driving around 8 hours a day gives me time to "listen research" for my story through TH-cam, and when I come to stops I can quickly jot down new notes. I'm mostly content with what I have so far, (I'm only 7 months and 21,000 words into this 30 year plan), and I'll keep turtling ahead. Good luck to all other authors in this comment section and thank you Kate for your writing videos!
You're the best -- I love that you are so candid and transparent about your process. It really helps to know that I'm not alone in my own insecurities. And, btw, totally not on topic, but you lowkey look really pretty in this vid 😊💜
As I've gotten older, my insecurities have lessened a great deal. I used to be scared of how my writing sounded. Time and practice fixed that. I used to be scared of letting others read my work. Fanfiction fixed that lol. I used to be scared of receiving hate. The internet fixed that, because no matter what you do or how you present something, there will always be someone wanting to spit in your corn flakes (as my mama would say). I suppose my insecurity would simply be not being able to create my stories as I imagine them. Some have been with me for so long, I want to do them justice.😭 Great video as always, Kate!❤️❤️❤️❤️
IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, please take my questionnaire on "what is bad writing??" There are 12 questions, some you can skip, some asking for recommendations, some where you rate yourself. It's fun! I've received nearly 400 responses so far, but would love more! 🔮 forms.gle/yo7LYYe8hgzDqY2c8
Oh kate, lol. When you mentioned being with someone who is very technically inclined, I felt that so hard. I'm the same. My partner is doing programming stuff and he keeps up with all the new technologies and such. So he's perfect to talk to when I have any questions or issues regarding anything like that in my projects. He's super helpful. And about the part on your writing not being the best or the books you put out not being the best work. This is something I'm running into now that I'm getting my debut ready for publication. I can keep fixing and fixing, but it's never going to be as perfect as I'm hoping it will be. Because that comes with experience. I could edit it forever and it still wouldn't be where I want it to be. You just have to find a point where you're okay with it. Where you're okay with people paying money for it and reading it. And know that in the future you'll get better at these things. But you won't get better if you don't let go and start over again with something new right?
I love the message that insecurities and problems just get washed away over time. Really hope that works, cause I sure have my fair share of insecurities to wash away :P My current main insecurity is related to writing the second book in a series and being scared that I can't do the first book justice. Because somehow I simultaneous believe that the first book isn't good enough and needs a ton of work *and* that it was a complete fluke and the peak of my writing ability and I will never be able to write anything that good again.
I would love a whole video where you talk about your CP Jessica. Like, how does having a CP work? Do you guys send each other things daily? Weekly? Randomly? Does she give you actual advice on the story level, or just encouragement? I'm really curious about what that process looks like.
Oooh, we talk about this in our AuthortubeChat livestreams, but I don't think I've ever made a video about it! We'll be exchanging our drafts again soon, so maybe I can break out a separate video with a timeline, history, and what we discuss each time. :)
My main insecurity is that some of my stories might not be eligible for publishing because of their disturbing genre. I also have a sci-fi book that is expected to be around 200k words, and as a “new” writer, I’m not sure what the publishers would say about that. But again, I write what I love, not what I think others would XD. In terms of my writing, I do believe it has improved tremendously, especially after reading a lot and experimenting with different writing styles.
I'm insecure about my world-building because I don’t know how much to explain. It felt like my last writing group would jump on even the briefest explanation as a mistake that had to be deleted immediately, but then they also wouldn’t understand/notice important aspects of the world-building and would get confused. I could never get the balance right.
I think one thing to keep in mind is - who is your target audience? Were the other writers in that group people who read the kind of books you write? What I do is I read books that my target audience read and enjoy and that I have also enjoyed. I look at how the world building was done in those books. And try to experiment with different styles before I find my own. I'm still working on it, can't say I've cracked it just yet. It's something I hope to fix in subsequent drafts. Best wishes, Erin. :)
I recently started copy editing my work and found my crutch words 😬 I already knew one or two crutches/habits I had, but seeing more of them in plain view was fun
I was just innocently listening along while drinking my tea and the pop sound with my name at the same time made me jump lol!😄 I am so glad the video resonated with you as well. I am sure many creative souls struggle with counting each part of the journey as worthy even if it doesn't end in a finished project. I am still constantly reminding myself of it too. I enjoyed hearing your perspective on your own projects and how your views have changed over the years!
I started my first writing project over 12 years ago and it‘s still not finished. But last nanowrimo, I wrote a completely new story and finished it way faster. Guess I did improve from my first project and there‘s always something to learn from these experiences :)
Ahhh yay, I'm so happy to hear that Toni! Sometimes I feel like our first ideas/projects are the ones that are the most precious and hardest for us to finish. We need to learn our lessons through other projects and then return to them each time with our newfound knowledge. Congrats on finishing your NaNo project!!
Love the "I don't need to be the best" energy. Definitely something I would like to embrace. I would be very interested in seeing your way of outlining murder mysteries as well.
My current writing insecurities are how am I going to stitch it all together? Like, me and a friend started cowriting a story years ago, but they never wrote their part. Last year, I finally convinced them to let me write and publish the whole thing. The story is basically: two young girls who have suffered many terrible misfortunes, run into each other. they stick together, trying to hide from their demons. But soon realize they have to face the man that caused their problems and have to prove his horrendous crimes. Since its been literally years since ive gotten to work with all the characters and could only focus sully on one plot thread, I'm struggling to rain it in and make the two povs mesh together. Also, this is supposed to be a superhero origin story. But besides the MCs having powers, there isn't a hint of superheroing in it. And I dont know how to fix that.
oh, the timing. the timing! As I work on edits (and I've spent a lot of time on Chapter One), all the insecurity mosquitoes have been biting me here and there - and as an allergic, it itches lol I've been thinking a lot about my writing and about it not being "enough"; I know there's a story there, I know there are some great paragraphs, but is any of it enough? One of my favorite songs of all time goes "I wonder what's in store if I don't love it anymore" and I often catch myself thinking that I don't know what I am if I'm not a writer. I can't see any other paths - but what if I'm not enough for this one? (What if, what if, what if - that's another song I love) Anyways, I'm trying to take deep breaths and long walks and enjoy the summer days around here and believe in myself a bit more. And this comment turned out way more vulnerable (?) than I wanted it to be, but well. If anyone out there needs a hug, I'm sending you one - I know I do.
Beyond all else (like how you've grown as a writer and how you're inspiringly facing down the insecurities), I'm such a fan of your portmanteau words - they're very much part the Kate Cavanaugh brand. ("scarecited" - an excellent approach to life in general).
It was nice to hear about your journey! It makes me want to post an insecurities video to look back on later. I would love to hear more about your research process! I feel like it's not something people talk about much on author tube even though it's an important part of writing.
When you were talking about project purple, it reminded me of something my third screenwriting professor said: "sometimes your first screenplay is the piece that proves you can complete a full screenplay. It may never be made, but you wrote it and got it as clean as possible." I think my biggest insecurity is am I different enough from the stories others have written that people will pick my book over the others. Or am I hitting the right emotions with people.
Oooh YES. That's such a fitting quote for the situation. Thank you for sharing it! That really resonates. I worry about being too similar sometimes too! It helps me to think about my own reading, and some stories/tropes/concepts are just my FAVORITES and I will search high and low for anything that's close to them bahaha. That comforts me a little.
I find writing quite humbling. I return to my perfect, self-published work unexpectedly populated with unseen mistakes. Be nice to have a professional team, like many famous authors. My imagined comparison of this problem. A professional F1 team swapping tyres in a pit stop versus me holding a jack and a puzzled expression. The joy of creating keeps me trying.
Ahhhh, I'm a sucker for F1 analogies!! I totally agree with what you're saying. I do like to imagine my "team" of beta readers (friends, family, fellow writers) and critique partners as a little mini crew, even if we're not quite professional!
My insecurities are about not finishing things, as I haven’t finished a full novel yet. And the second is about editing and how I’m bad at it. I’m also always worried that I’ll disappoint people who are reading it.
I just like to remind myself that it can be done in waves and no author had the PERFECT world-building done in one go bahaha. It helps a little but not a lot, especially when I'm in the middle of the insecurity spiral. 😂
This was lovely. When I submitted my first sci-fi novel, I got wonderful news about my ability to plot. They asked to see the book! And then came reality. They rejected the book. Ten years later when I revisited the book I had to laugh! Because my voice had changed so much.
I'm still at the 'what if my writing is just bad' place of insecurities. I don't have critique partners or beta readers or really anyone to give me feedback, and I don't know where to find them. I'm insecure that because I write in a genre that is less common in Internet writing spaces (more along the lines of literary fiction/contemporary and not fantasy, YA or much genre fiction) that I won't find someone who writes in a similar genre who I can share feedback with. And as a Black African writer, in the past I had negative experiences with receiving genuinely bad feedback from a White writing teacher who was also responsible for grading my work, so I felt forced to write things that made them happy when they were in the wrong. So i'm insecure that my ability to take feedback in a healthy way has been damaged. That experience has made it difficult for me to trust myself or my voice and to trust others as well, so I never know whether i'm being either too defensive or too much of a pushover and compromising on what I want. And I'm insecure that because my mental health issues make both writing and reading literally painful to do, i'm never going to improve as a writer. A lot of these insecurities have been around for years and haven't gone away. I'm not even sure writing is something I want to do anymore, since it's something I find little joy in, but I do really still want to try, because it is something I'm good at. It's just frustrating that so many of these insecurities are because of things that happened to me or that are outside of my control, and effort to improve them has mostly been ineffective. Don't want to be pessimistic, but it's how I feel lol
"What are your writing insecurities? Do you have specific story (or genre!) insecurities?" I'm insecure about writing any genre other than SF/F, and I'm insecure about starting new projects that aren't in the same series. There's just something about not being able to work with the same characters and/or world that gives me the jitters. I also can't write children all that well, because they just come off as tiny adults, and I've got a bit of white room syndrome. "How do you feel your writing has improved in the past five years? Do you have any that have been solved with time or by changing goals?" My voice is better. My writing itself is cleaner. There's far fewer structural issues in my work now, because I've learned how and when to plan versus pants. I've got less white room syndrome than I had five years ago. My writing is better balanced between prose, characterization, dialogue, exposition, introspection, worldbuilding, and description. I've also gotten more confident in my writing over the past five years. All of this took near-constant practicing, and knowing when to quit projects. "Do you have specific aspects of your writing you'd like to say you're better at in the NEXT five years?? What are you doing to make that a reality?" I'd like to be better at writing standalones. I want to be able to improve my setting descriptions and finally cure my white room syndrome. And this isn't much of an insecurity, but I'd like to be better educated about the publishing industry (both indie and trad) so I can make better informed decisions about when and how to publish.
Hey Kate, I've been watching your videos for so long, but this is the first time I comment! I'm finally at a place in my personal life where I can start writing again and after having stopped for so many years I'm scared that I may have lost all the personal progress I had made in the past! 😟
AHHHH! So glad you commented and so glad you're back to writing again!! I really think writing is like riding a bike in this way. It just comes back to you! It might take a few attempts to make sure you're steady and consistent, but there's no progress lost in the long run! :)
My biggest insecurity right now is feeling my concepts themselves are stupid, like nobody will like this, but I have to pause and tell myself right now the important thing is that I like it. And somehow when I share my ideas with my sister she genuinely thinks they're good most of the time, so that gives me hope.
My main insecurity is that I’m starting too late. I’ve always written and actually finished a couple of manuscripts but life got in the way. I will be 54 this year and plan to retire and focus on my writing. But I’m afraid I’ve left it too late. I write a lot for work, so my skills are still there, it’s just the fear of not getting to that one project this late in life that I might have achieved if I had focused more on writing than on my career…60/70 hours a week and constantly running short staffed has an impact on your creativity and the time you have to write.
I don't think it can ever be too late for creativity. The point is to make something now, enjoy it, and tell the stories you've got that want to be told!
I've queried 3 books now. I knew the first one wasn't good enough to be published, so there was no surprise when no one wanted to take up that mantle. But I truly thought the last two would be my ticket. I generally get nice feedback. This isn't quite right, but be sure to query me the next time you have a manuscript ready. Now I'm scared that's all I'll ever get.
Oooh, I actually don't have any specific beats personally! I try to use a blend of Save The Cat and Romancing the Beats to get started and then sort of blend/twist/whip the outline into shape. After I'll go over it a couple times to make sure there's reasonable doubt on each of the potential suspects and that I've foreshadowed the big twist at least once before it actually happens.
I have a book I finished last year that I never released. It's a contemporary romance, and I don't write contemporary romance. I write fantasy romance. So I trunked it. The story is fine, good even. It just doesn't fit my brand, and I can't be bothered to set up a pen name for one book.
This made me laugh a bit because I also constantly have the fear that my books don't live up to the genere expectations and yet everyone who reads my novels has said that I write tolken levels of world building. In fact several people have said I do too much world building.
I am a bit scared of not being able to tell the story as I want, I have planned over 30 scenes and a friend of mine asked me if those where chapters to which I said not necessarily, it's just a place mark for me to identify time or place where stuff will be happening, for example the first 3 scenes will take place in the same afternoon (probably an hour or 2) but it marks differences in places and sometimes time or mood. But now I find myself gathering all the random notes I've placed all over into one notebook so that I can clearly see the pass of time in my story to see if I now how to get to the next scene I know will exist, and is hard when my brain keeps screaming scenes or ideas for book 2 and 3, books my brain decided to create 😫
I'm at the stage of just looking at my writing and worrying that I can only tell the same story over and over again, and I know objectively that they are different stories but my brain is quite insistent. Also the fear that I'm not ever going to be publishable and can't do this as a real-people job instead of just 'that thing she does all the time'. Hopefully looking back in a decade those two will be sorted out in a positive way...
That's one of my fears in writing series! Like, I *think* these characters are growing, but what if it's just in the same way over and over each book? It's one of my favorite little lies my brain likes to tell me when working on Meridian Maps. I ABSOLUTELY think these two will be sorted out with time! :) I have faith that 10-years-from-now you will definitely be proud of all the work you put in and where you're at!
I personally struggle with knowing if something in my draft is a writing insecurity or a writing intuition. There are parts of my novel that I don't like or feel could be better, but I don't know how. I don't know what is wrong with it. So I wonder if it's just me being insecure. Also, was reading over my whole draft this weekend and I learned I have serious problems with the dialog tag "X pipped" VERY CHARACTER PIPPS! 🤣🤣
It's not neccesarily a insecurity but it has been blocking me in writing recently. I feel like I have too little time so I have this desire to get things done but I want things perfectly the first time. So my answer to that is that I don’t do anything. 2022 was a bad mental health year for me so my writing has been all over the place so I am a little bit rusty. I used to be great at sitting down doing things so no I am getting back to it. I have been rewiring my brain that the only way to get somewhere with my writing is too just do the work.
Oooh, I can relate to this! Definitely when I'm under what feels like months of a "time crunch," the pressure to be perfect SKYROCKETS. It's a really awful cycle where the end conclusion, like you said, is always just to put in what time and work you can and the rest will come. I'm sorry to hear that 2022 was a bad mental health year. :( Hopefully 2023 treats you better.
My biggest insecurity in writing that doesn't have to do with sentimental ideas and character I've had for like 7 years, is my voice. I can't write for very long periods of time (usually only 15 minutes at a time) before all my flow just stops. I start to overthink each sentence and the structure of it and my writing stiffens dramatically as a result. I can't just start writing again after a short break because my flow feels like it needs to recuperate over like half a day lol. It makes my writing feel mismatched and unconnected. Basically, I start editing while I write and I can't write for too long at a time.
Talk a little bit louder kate, your voice is getting slimmer, I don't know if You noticed, that's why I'm telling you. I wish you all the best, watching your videos since a long time
I've got an approximately 30 year writing plan for a 10 generation book series, hoping to finish a book every 3 years. The reason it will take so long is because I have a full-time delivery job and am a husband and dad, so I only write about 100 words before I fall asleep. Thankfully driving around 8 hours a day gives me time to "listen research" for my story through TH-cam, and when I come to stops I can quickly jot down new notes.
I'm mostly content with what I have so far, (I'm only 7 months and 21,000 words into this 30 year plan), and I'll keep turtling ahead. Good luck to all other authors in this comment section and thank you Kate for your writing videos!
my writing insecurities are many but my student loans are many more so i grin and bear it :,)
☠️😂☠️😂
You're the best -- I love that you are so candid and transparent about your process. It really helps to know that I'm not alone in my own insecurities. And, btw, totally not on topic, but you lowkey look really pretty in this vid 😊💜
As I've gotten older, my insecurities have lessened a great deal. I used to be scared of how my writing sounded. Time and practice fixed that. I used to be scared of letting others read my work. Fanfiction fixed that lol. I used to be scared of receiving hate. The internet fixed that, because no matter what you do or how you present something, there will always be someone wanting to spit in your corn flakes (as my mama would say). I suppose my insecurity would simply be not being able to create my stories as I imagine them. Some have been with me for so long, I want to do them justice.😭
Great video as always, Kate!❤️❤️❤️❤️
I relate to all of this, especially the fanfiction curing the dread of having others read your work. Lol
IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, please take my questionnaire on "what is bad writing??" There are 12 questions, some you can skip, some asking for recommendations, some where you rate yourself. It's fun! I've received nearly 400 responses so far, but would love more! 🔮
forms.gle/yo7LYYe8hgzDqY2c8
Oh dang, 430 already, I lied!! Bahahah
Oh kate, lol. When you mentioned being with someone who is very technically inclined, I felt that so hard. I'm the same. My partner is doing programming stuff and he keeps up with all the new technologies and such. So he's perfect to talk to when I have any questions or issues regarding anything like that in my projects. He's super helpful.
And about the part on your writing not being the best or the books you put out not being the best work. This is something I'm running into now that I'm getting my debut ready for publication. I can keep fixing and fixing, but it's never going to be as perfect as I'm hoping it will be. Because that comes with experience. I could edit it forever and it still wouldn't be where I want it to be. You just have to find a point where you're okay with it. Where you're okay with people paying money for it and reading it. And know that in the future you'll get better at these things. But you won't get better if you don't let go and start over again with something new right?
I love the message that insecurities and problems just get washed away over time. Really hope that works, cause I sure have my fair share of insecurities to wash away :P
My current main insecurity is related to writing the second book in a series and being scared that I can't do the first book justice. Because somehow I simultaneous believe that the first book isn't good enough and needs a ton of work *and* that it was a complete fluke and the peak of my writing ability and I will never be able to write anything that good again.
I would love a whole video where you talk about your CP Jessica. Like, how does having a CP work? Do you guys send each other things daily? Weekly? Randomly? Does she give you actual advice on the story level, or just encouragement? I'm really curious about what that process looks like.
Oooh, we talk about this in our AuthortubeChat livestreams, but I don't think I've ever made a video about it! We'll be exchanging our drafts again soon, so maybe I can break out a separate video with a timeline, history, and what we discuss each time. :)
@@KateCavanaugh that would be amazing! Thank you!!
My main insecurity is that some of my stories might not be eligible for publishing because of their disturbing genre. I also have a sci-fi book that is expected to be around 200k words, and as a “new” writer, I’m not sure what the publishers would say about that. But again, I write what I love, not what I think others would XD. In terms of my writing, I do believe it has improved tremendously, especially after reading a lot and experimenting with different writing styles.
I'm insecure about my world-building because I don’t know how much to explain. It felt like my last writing group would jump on even the briefest explanation as a mistake that had to be deleted immediately, but then they also wouldn’t understand/notice important aspects of the world-building and would get confused. I could never get the balance right.
I think one thing to keep in mind is - who is your target audience? Were the other writers in that group people who read the kind of books you write? What I do is I read books that my target audience read and enjoy and that I have also enjoyed. I look at how the world building was done in those books. And try to experiment with different styles before I find my own. I'm still working on it, can't say I've cracked it just yet. It's something I hope to fix in subsequent drafts. Best wishes, Erin. :)
I recently started copy editing my work and found my crutch words 😬 I already knew one or two crutches/habits I had, but seeing more of them in plain view was fun
I was just innocently listening along while drinking my tea and the pop sound with my name at the same time made me jump lol!😄 I am so glad the video resonated with you as well. I am sure many creative souls struggle with counting each part of the journey as worthy even if it doesn't end in a finished project. I am still constantly reminding myself of it too. I enjoyed hearing your perspective on your own projects and how your views have changed over the years!
Love this video and the message within it! ❤
Canadians love the Tim’s mug!
I started my first writing project over 12 years ago and it‘s still not finished. But last nanowrimo, I wrote a completely new story and finished it way faster. Guess I did improve from my first project and there‘s always something to learn from these experiences :)
Ahhh yay, I'm so happy to hear that Toni! Sometimes I feel like our first ideas/projects are the ones that are the most precious and hardest for us to finish. We need to learn our lessons through other projects and then return to them each time with our newfound knowledge. Congrats on finishing your NaNo project!!
Love the "I don't need to be the best" energy. Definitely something I would like to embrace. I would be very interested in seeing your way of outlining murder mysteries as well.
My current writing insecurities are how am I going to stitch it all together? Like, me and a friend started cowriting a story years ago, but they never wrote their part. Last year, I finally convinced them to let me write and publish the whole thing.
The story is basically: two young girls who have suffered many terrible misfortunes, run into each other. they stick together, trying to hide from their demons. But soon realize they have to face the man that caused their problems and have to prove his horrendous crimes.
Since its been literally years since ive gotten to work with all the characters and could only focus sully on one plot thread, I'm struggling to rain it in and make the two povs mesh together. Also, this is supposed to be a superhero origin story. But besides the MCs having powers, there isn't a hint of superheroing in it. And I dont know how to fix that.
oh, the timing. the timing! As I work on edits (and I've spent a lot of time on Chapter One), all the insecurity mosquitoes have been biting me here and there - and as an allergic, it itches lol I've been thinking a lot about my writing and about it not being "enough"; I know there's a story there, I know there are some great paragraphs, but is any of it enough? One of my favorite songs of all time goes "I wonder what's in store if I don't love it anymore" and I often catch myself thinking that I don't know what I am if I'm not a writer. I can't see any other paths - but what if I'm not enough for this one? (What if, what if, what if - that's another song I love) Anyways, I'm trying to take deep breaths and long walks and enjoy the summer days around here and believe in myself a bit more. And this comment turned out way more vulnerable (?) than I wanted it to be, but well. If anyone out there needs a hug, I'm sending you one - I know I do.
Beyond all else (like how you've grown as a writer and how you're inspiringly facing down the insecurities), I'm such a fan of your portmanteau words - they're very much part the Kate Cavanaugh brand. ("scarecited" - an excellent approach to life in general).
2:07
Just a heads up, you can buy dummy battery's for most camera's which can plug into a usb or wall power
Ooh a new video. About to watch but first I wanna finish watching Howl's Moving Castle, I only have a couple minutes left.
Ooooh I need to watch that soon, it’s been ages.
@@KateCavanaugh Same reason I watched it, and I just finished. Gosh, I forgot how much I love it. Also Calcifer is still my favorite character.
It was nice to hear about your journey! It makes me want to post an insecurities video to look back on later. I would love to hear more about your research process! I feel like it's not something people talk about much on author tube even though it's an important part of writing.
I want to know more about the new write publish repeat mantra!!!
When you were talking about project purple, it reminded me of something my third screenwriting professor said: "sometimes your first screenplay is the piece that proves you can complete a full screenplay. It may never be made, but you wrote it and got it as clean as possible."
I think my biggest insecurity is am I different enough from the stories others have written that people will pick my book over the others. Or am I hitting the right emotions with people.
Oooh YES. That's such a fitting quote for the situation. Thank you for sharing it! That really resonates.
I worry about being too similar sometimes too! It helps me to think about my own reading, and some stories/tropes/concepts are just my FAVORITES and I will search high and low for anything that's close to them bahaha. That comforts me a little.
I find writing quite humbling. I return to my perfect, self-published work unexpectedly populated with unseen mistakes. Be nice to have a professional team, like many famous authors. My imagined comparison of this problem. A professional F1 team swapping tyres in a pit stop versus me holding a jack and a puzzled expression. The joy of creating keeps me trying.
Ahhhh, I'm a sucker for F1 analogies!! I totally agree with what you're saying. I do like to imagine my "team" of beta readers (friends, family, fellow writers) and critique partners as a little mini crew, even if we're not quite professional!
My insecurities are about not finishing things, as I haven’t finished a full novel yet. And the second is about editing and how I’m bad at it. I’m also always worried that I’ll disappoint people who are reading it.
I love fantasy, but the idea of building a world terrifies me so I don’t blame you for being insecure about that!
I just like to remind myself that it can be done in waves and no author had the PERFECT world-building done in one go bahaha. It helps a little but not a lot, especially when I'm in the middle of the insecurity spiral. 😂
This was lovely. When I submitted my first sci-fi novel, I got wonderful news about my ability to plot. They asked to see the book! And then came reality. They rejected the book. Ten years later when I revisited the book I had to laugh! Because my voice had changed so much.
I'm still at the 'what if my writing is just bad' place of insecurities. I don't have critique partners or beta readers or really anyone to give me feedback, and I don't know where to find them. I'm insecure that because I write in a genre that is less common in Internet writing spaces (more along the lines of literary fiction/contemporary and not fantasy, YA or much genre fiction) that I won't find someone who writes in a similar genre who I can share feedback with.
And as a Black African writer, in the past I had negative experiences with receiving genuinely bad feedback from a White writing teacher who was also responsible for grading my work, so I felt forced to write things that made them happy when they were in the wrong. So i'm insecure that my ability to take feedback in a healthy way has been damaged. That experience has made it difficult for me to trust myself or my voice and to trust others as well, so I never know whether i'm being either too defensive or too much of a pushover and compromising on what I want. And I'm insecure that because my mental health issues make both writing and reading literally painful to do, i'm never going to improve as a writer.
A lot of these insecurities have been around for years and haven't gone away. I'm not even sure writing is something I want to do anymore, since it's something I find little joy in, but I do really still want to try, because it is something I'm good at. It's just frustrating that so many of these insecurities are because of things that happened to me or that are outside of my control, and effort to improve them has mostly been ineffective. Don't want to be pessimistic, but it's how I feel lol
I can't wait to read your Meridian Maps! Is that how you spell it? Lol
"What are your writing insecurities? Do you have specific story (or genre!) insecurities?"
I'm insecure about writing any genre other than SF/F, and I'm insecure about starting new projects that aren't in the same series. There's just something about not being able to work with the same characters and/or world that gives me the jitters. I also can't write children all that well, because they just come off as tiny adults, and I've got a bit of white room syndrome.
"How do you feel your writing has improved in the past five years? Do you have any that have been solved with time or by changing goals?"
My voice is better. My writing itself is cleaner. There's far fewer structural issues in my work now, because I've learned how and when to plan versus pants. I've got less white room syndrome than I had five years ago. My writing is better balanced between prose, characterization, dialogue, exposition, introspection, worldbuilding, and description. I've also gotten more confident in my writing over the past five years. All of this took near-constant practicing, and knowing when to quit projects.
"Do you have specific aspects of your writing you'd like to say you're better at in the NEXT five years?? What are you doing to make that a reality?"
I'd like to be better at writing standalones. I want to be able to improve my setting descriptions and finally cure my white room syndrome. And this isn't much of an insecurity, but I'd like to be better educated about the publishing industry (both indie and trad) so I can make better informed decisions about when and how to publish.
Hey Kate, I've been watching your videos for so long, but this is the first time I comment! I'm finally at a place in my personal life where I can start writing again and after having stopped for so many years I'm scared that I may have lost all the personal progress I had made in the past! 😟
AHHHH! So glad you commented and so glad you're back to writing again!! I really think writing is like riding a bike in this way. It just comes back to you! It might take a few attempts to make sure you're steady and consistent, but there's no progress lost in the long run! :)
@@KateCavanaugh Thank you for your answer and your support!
My biggest insecurity right now is feeling my concepts themselves are stupid, like nobody will like this, but I have to pause and tell myself right now the important thing is that I like it. And somehow when I share my ideas with my sister she genuinely thinks they're good most of the time, so that gives me hope.
My main insecurity is that I’m starting too late. I’ve always written and actually finished a couple of manuscripts but life got in the way. I will be 54 this year and plan to retire and focus on my writing. But I’m afraid I’ve left it too late.
I write a lot for work, so my skills are still there, it’s just the fear of not getting to that one project this late in life that I might have achieved if I had focused more on writing than on my career…60/70 hours a week and constantly running short staffed has an impact on your creativity and the time you have to write.
I don't think it can ever be too late for creativity. The point is to make something now, enjoy it, and tell the stories you've got that want to be told!
I've queried 3 books now. I knew the first one wasn't good enough to be published, so there was no surprise when no one wanted to take up that mantle. But I truly thought the last two would be my ticket. I generally get nice feedback. This isn't quite right, but be sure to query me the next time you have a manuscript ready. Now I'm scared that's all I'll ever get.
Could you share your mystery outline beats? Or perhaps make a video about outlining a mystery?
Oooh, I actually don't have any specific beats personally! I try to use a blend of Save The Cat and Romancing the Beats to get started and then sort of blend/twist/whip the outline into shape. After I'll go over it a couple times to make sure there's reasonable doubt on each of the potential suspects and that I've foreshadowed the big twist at least once before it actually happens.
I have a book I finished last year that I never released. It's a contemporary romance, and I don't write contemporary romance. I write fantasy romance. So I trunked it. The story is fine, good even. It just doesn't fit my brand, and I can't be bothered to set up a pen name for one book.
This made me laugh a bit because I also constantly have the fear that my books don't live up to the genere expectations and yet everyone who reads my novels has said that I write tolken levels of world building. In fact several people have said I do too much world building.
Bahaha! Always a great reminder that what we're insecure about might be really far from reality (or other's perceptions of our work!!).
I am a bit scared of not being able to tell the story as I want, I have planned over 30 scenes and a friend of mine asked me if those where chapters to which I said not necessarily, it's just a place mark for me to identify time or place where stuff will be happening, for example the first 3 scenes will take place in the same afternoon (probably an hour or 2) but it marks differences in places and sometimes time or mood. But now I find myself gathering all the random notes I've placed all over into one notebook so that I can clearly see the pass of time in my story to see if I now how to get to the next scene I know will exist, and is hard when my brain keeps screaming scenes or ideas for book 2 and 3, books my brain decided to create 😫
I'm at the stage of just looking at my writing and worrying that I can only tell the same story over and over again, and I know objectively that they are different stories but my brain is quite insistent.
Also the fear that I'm not ever going to be publishable and can't do this as a real-people job instead of just 'that thing she does all the time'. Hopefully looking back in a decade those two will be sorted out in a positive way...
That's one of my fears in writing series! Like, I *think* these characters are growing, but what if it's just in the same way over and over each book? It's one of my favorite little lies my brain likes to tell me when working on Meridian Maps.
I ABSOLUTELY think these two will be sorted out with time! :) I have faith that 10-years-from-now you will definitely be proud of all the work you put in and where you're at!
I personally struggle with knowing if something in my draft is a writing insecurity or a writing intuition. There are parts of my novel that I don't like or feel could be better, but I don't know how. I don't know what is wrong with it. So I wonder if it's just me being insecure.
Also, was reading over my whole draft this weekend and I learned I have serious problems with the dialog tag "X pipped" VERY CHARACTER PIPPS! 🤣🤣
It's not neccesarily a insecurity but it has been blocking me in writing recently. I feel like I have too little time so I have this desire to get things done but I want things perfectly the first time. So my answer to that is that I don’t do anything. 2022 was a bad mental health year for me so my writing has been all over the place so I am a little bit rusty. I used to be great at sitting down doing things so no I am getting back to it. I have been rewiring my brain that the only way to get somewhere with my writing is too just do the work.
Oooh, I can relate to this! Definitely when I'm under what feels like months of a "time crunch," the pressure to be perfect SKYROCKETS. It's a really awful cycle where the end conclusion, like you said, is always just to put in what time and work you can and the rest will come. I'm sorry to hear that 2022 was a bad mental health year. :( Hopefully 2023 treats you better.
My biggest insecurity in writing that doesn't have to do with sentimental ideas and character I've had for like 7 years, is my voice. I can't write for very long periods of time (usually only 15 minutes at a time) before all my flow just stops. I start to overthink each sentence and the structure of it and my writing stiffens dramatically as a result. I can't just start writing again after a short break because my flow feels like it needs to recuperate over like half a day lol. It makes my writing feel mismatched and unconnected. Basically, I start editing while I write and I can't write for too long at a time.
Out of curiosity: how much have you published in those five years?
Hi my name is Stan I like your TH-cam video about write I am writing a character first
Talk a little bit louder kate, your voice is getting slimmer, I don't know if You noticed, that's why I'm telling you. I wish you all the best, watching your videos since a long time
has anyone ever read any stories of kate? I can't find any but she has been writing for 5 years and doing youtube? hm.
Scooby Dooby doo
Where are you 🎶
Why do you laugh at the end of all of your sentences, even the ones that aren't funny?