As a dude that used to weigh 300 plus pounds, I think I can safely say that sometimes I bite off more than what is necessary or smart. I do this both literally and in my creative life. Although in the last couple of years, less in both.

Part of what kept me from writing for the longest time was that I was always overambitious in what I wanted to accomplish with a story. My problem, if you could call it one, is that I love grand stories, stories so big you can’t even wrap your head around them. The problem is, trying to tell stories that big is like trying to wrestle a python or trying to capture smoke in your hands. Stories that big are big enough to eat you. Which I guess is part of the appeal.

I recently read an article about this by debut author Alma Katsu, and the mistake that many first time writers make – having a reach that exceeds their grasp. It totally resonated with my experience from last year, when I finally sat down to write Seven Sons – a story I had been cooking up for quite some time – and it was far more than I could chew. The process took about 9 months and now I have no desire to pick up the second draft anytime soon because of how much I tried to take on. I don’t consider it a failure in the slightest, but the story is almost going to need a complete rewrite. All 175,000 words of it.

The nice thing about In the Blood is that I focused on a smaller, simpler story. The results were much better. And while I have a crap-ton of work to do on the second draft, it’s not nearly as unruly as the first draft of Seven Sons is. I think what I ultimately need to do with Seven Sons is wait until it’s something I have the writing chops to tackle again in that scope, or drastically lower the scope of it.

Do any of you creatives run into this problem? Am I the only one with eyes bigger than my stomach?

Source – WriterUnboxed

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