You know when you look up a word and find the definition and then YOU START TO SEE IT EVERYWHERE. Before, it was just a word, but then you became aware of it, you understood it, and it ruined your life.
I’ve recently discovered it’s a lot worse when you become aware of something about yourself. When I write, I tend to focus too much on balance. I make sure there aren’t too many similar words too close together, or too much drama following too much flatness, or not enough flatness between two dramas. I nitpick, I examine details, I study the inner workings and all the things that aren’t noticed, but would be missed if they were gone. I am not very good at looking at the bigger picture. It’s my biggest character flaw. As you can imagine, this flaw affects my writing quite a bit. It helps it, too, but more recently it’s been more of a hindrance.
Yesterday I reached Chapter 200 of the first draft of a book I’ve been writing for three years. I’m going so slowly with this thing because I write the unimportant details that I know I’ll cut later on, but I write them anyway. Things are not going well at this rate.
Anyway, I’ll elaborate later. Maybe. If I remember.
Precarious Writer 