Hi Sharley

I agree with what has been said about putting your first novel to one side and maybe reviewing it later.

About a year ago I posted what I thought were polished chapters on here in the chicklit group. I put that novel on one side to write number 2 and when I went back to it about 6 months later alomst cringed at what I could now see were glaring problems. I was able to review it and revise it and it's coming along nicely now, completely different but better for it!

I found this a experience a positive, wonderful eye-opener as it was a baseline for how much I had learned in the meantime just from the WW writing community.


Good luck with your work.

Yes, I agree with all above - I think you should take inpiration from your ideas and just write, write, write. At the same time, read the sort of books you aspire to write - the best in the genre. You can learn so much that way.

Of course you can't write Mills and Boon if you can't even bear to read one. You would not enjoy yourself and the most important thing is to love your writing - otherwise what's the point? Practice makes perfect and as time goes by you'll know exactly what you want to do and how to do it - please don't worry for now.

Sarah

Hi Sharley -
Just to say, the members of the Beginners Group are excellent at reading each other's work and giving constructive feedback; saying what they love and also spotting flaws that you might have missed (in a very helpful way!) It's a happy place! Look forward to reading your posts when you post them!
Love Jane x

Hi Sharley,
It's so awful when you lose passion for your work. I think we all go through it at some stage. The good thing is that it means you are growing as a writer. Growth always means pain. You will get through this and you will emerge from it a better writer, more self-aware and capable of producing better books. So don't despair!
Leila x

I hope this doesn't add to your confusion, but is it possible you've taken on intensive tutoring too soon? It's one thing to love writing and join a group - get bits of feedback from peers and tutor every fortnight whilst listebning to and learning form the work of others - their success and failures. But one to one is like a master class, and to get the most form that one needs a sense of where one's going in the first place - a degree of confidence.

I think this might hit the nail on the head - I've been doing a little bit of teaching recently, and I can say from experience on both sides of the table that to get the best out of a one on one relationship, the writer needs to have developed the confidence in what they want to say - sometimes part of hearing criticism is knowing when to ignore the parts of it that aren't useful and relevant to you. It takes a lot of experience to get to that point. Is this something that it useful for you to consider?

to get the best out of a one on one relationship, the writer needs to have developed the confidence in what they want to say - sometimes part of hearing criticism is knowing when to ignore the parts of it that aren't useful and relevant to you.

I think this is very true, as is Cherys original point. one-to-one works best when you have a very sure sense of what the book is, which is hard to develop as a beginner writer, because you may have a clear sense of what you want to do, but not whether you've done it, or whether it's worth doing...