Britain's Got Talent / Americal Idol

EileenG

Am I the only one who turns into a wobbly mass of self doubt when these come on?

When I see all the deluded idiots who are so convinced they are world beaters, I start being convinced I'm doing it as well, and that I'm really a rubbish writer.

ToasterSparks

If it's any help, just remember that there are thousands of entrants, but these entrants are vetted before they appear on the show. Only the very good and the very bad get to go on stage. So for every completely delusional entrant, there were probably thousands of decent people that weren't brought to the live stages.

You may be a brilliant writer. You might be a decent writer. But it's only the minority that are delusional about their writing ability. Ignore the antics that is artificially-produced reality TV!

EileenG

I try. But I see (and read) a lot of stuff that should be decent buried. Makes it hard to stay positive.

davyjose

Eileen, you've made, I believe, to the quarters of the Amazon.com YA comp. You're defo not one of the bad ones.

I do know what you mean though, lol

pickarooney

I don't see the comparison, really. The 'best' of that shower of ****e is guaranteed to be stomach-churningly awful, so unless you're actually trying to write the piggest pile of cynical, maudlin cack imaginable you're not really at the same game.

EileenG

davyjose wrote: »

Eileen, you've made, I believe, to the quarters of the Amazon.com YA comp. You're defo not one of the bad ones.

Yeah, but then I look at what I put in, and I can see an embarrassing huge pile of mistakes and misused words. I'm editing right now, and the whole thing is one huge mass of red pen.

pickarooney

EileenG wrote: »

Yeah, but then I look at what I put in, and I can see an embarrassing huge pile of mistakes and misused words. I'm editing right now, and the whole thing is one huge mass of red pen.

That answers your question then, no? You look at what you've done and see the mistakes. No delusions there - you're actively looking to improve on something which you know will never be perfect but is a good representation of what you're capable of - and the people who evaluate that have rated it highly enough to get at least to the quarter finals, even with the mistakes you can now see.

If it were one of those shows you'd get to see your playback tape and sing again, but unfortunately you can't resubmit your novel after each round.
There are editors for fixing up the minor stuff and producers for tuning the odd missed note - the core talent is what's being looked for (and you can safely assume they're not just picking your book based on your appearance, in contrast to the X-Factory drones).

EileenG

Today I found a character being untied, who had never been tied up in the first place. Ouch!

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some objective way to judge your own work?

pickarooney

EileenG wrote: »

Today I found a character being untied, who had never been tied up in the first place. Ouch!

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some objective way to judge your own work?

Minor detail. Yesterday I found a character who was a complete twunt who I previously thought was a likable bloke.

EileenG

pickarooney wrote: »

Minor detail. Yesterday I found a character who was a complete twunt who I previously thought was a likable bloke.

I know lots of those. My sister even married one.

ToasterSparks

EileenG wrote: »

I know lots of those. My sister even married one.

Ouch!

Listen, if you were deluded about your skill, you wouldn't be questioning yourself! And going back and editing and finding mistakes and correcting them - that's what good writers are supposed to do! It's the people that think their first draft is 100% perfect that are delusional.

It's easy to see a finished book and think how talented the author must be. It's hard to envisage the months and months of rewrites, edits, long nights and scrapped plot ideas they had to go through to get that far. Unfortunately, writing is hard work!

dawvee

ToasterSparks wrote: »

Ouch!

Listen, if you were deluded about your skill, you wouldn't be questioning yourself! And going back and editing and finding mistakes and correcting them - that's what good writers are supposed to do! It's the people that think their first draft is 100% perfect that are delusional.

It's easy to see a finished book and think how talented the author must be. It's hard to envisage the months and months of rewrites, edits, long nights and scrapped plot ideas they had to go through to get that far. Unfortunately, writing is hard work!

Yeah, don't forget this post of yours from a few weeks ago. Even experienced writers know that first drafts tend to be rubbish. And second drafts, and third drafts...

EileenG

Thanks for the reality check. Now to go back and do more editing.

Memnoch

If it makes you feel any better, I've absolutely zero confidence in my own writing right now, not just the writing but every aspect of it...

My ideas suck and have no originality, the prose is overly complex and flowery, the ideas are thick, like wading through quicksand and worst of all, there isn't really a point to anything I'm writing, it's all been thought/said/read before so why bother.

I haven't written anything original for at least 2-3 months now (apart from the short story contest). But I'm reading a bit more now and hoping to find some inspiration somewhere. I'm not short of ideas, it's just I don't know which one to commit the time to write a new novel with.

dawvee

I hear you, Memnoch. For the last two months I've been working on a first draft of a novel, but in the last two weeks I've kept looking back at what I've written and just thinking "Oh dear god, this is getting stupid." I'm desperately trying to postpone revealing too much of my plot, for fear of the reader just balking at the ridiculousness of it and tossing it across the room, but the result is that nothing bloody happens except mysterious looks and characters interrupting each other before they can explain anything.

djeddy

EileenG wrote: »

Am I the only one who turns into a wobbly mass of self doubt when these come on?

When I see all the deluded idiots who are so convinced they are world beaters, I start being convinced I'm doing it as well, and that I'm really a rubbish writer.

My faves in britains got talent this year, was the guy who played the drums, and the woman with her dog