I feel like I'm always trying to reach a standard that I don't have the capability to reach yet.
Hey bakacchis! I feel you - that's me through and through. I just can't start/finish stuff because I don't think it's 'good enough'. I'm trying to give a bit of advice, but mind, I'm totally stuck in this murderous mindset right now and decided a week ago that I'm going to post a topic in Vic Ed Discussion asking for help dealing with this sort of thing. So I'm not the best to help.
I suppose the first step is
figuring out exactly what's slowing you down. What part of the process do you get stuck on? Do you spend hours chewing your pen trying to come up with decent ideas? Then you've got to focus on brainstorming, thinking more deeply/analytically, and coming up with ideas. Do you have an idea, but can't think of the words to express it in a sentence? Write a 'stop-gap' rubbishy sentence, change the font to red so you can later rethink/Thesaurus it
(lovely verb, that). Also ponder
why you couldn't think of the sentence - did you have one, it just wasn't a 'brilliant' sentence so you couldn't bring yourself to write it? Or do you need to develop stronger vocab or general expression skills? Or is the idea too vague so you can't quite articulate it, and the IDEA itself needs clarifying? etc.
Basically, try to pinpoint a specific weakness that's getting you down, then focus on fixing that issue. Ask AN, your teacher, or that awesome English girl in your class for help with any very specific issues you have.
If you really struggle to write ANYTHING because it doesn't feel good enough, try to break it into three steps. Unfortunately this probably won't cut out your time; but it might make you less stressed, and more able to cope next time.
1. Brainstorm (ideas)
This involves asking questions about the prompt: questions, questions and more questions. See
here for a bit more on this. There's no point starting your essay until you have a backbone of ideas/examples. Just keep asking those questions and writing down any ideas that come into your head.
2. Dot-point your essay (structure)
Organise everything into a brief plan – expand the plan until you have one dot-point per final sentence you'll have in your essay. It can be something like 'x character => bad => we don't like him', like really basic and low-level; the point is your flow of ideas, what you're trying to communicate, and your structure.
Doing this (separating your ideas and argument structure from your vocab/expression/sentence-level structure) makes it easier, because:
a. It really really feels like a 'draft' so you might not feel so stressed about making it perfect.
b. It's less overwhelming; you don't have to be juggling your ideas, structure, argument flow, vocab, expression and syntax all at once.
3. Turn it into a essay (expression and vocab)
Here, you take each dot-point one by one and turn it into a flowing, nice piece of prose – you've got all your ideas and structure down so there's less pressure. Obviously this involves putting in all the filler/joiner words, constructing proper sentences, finding nicer synonyms, etc.; but it also involves questioning and clarifying your meaning: my dot point says the word 'bad', in what way is the character bad? Selfish? Weak and passive? Morally evil? Works for his own gain regardless of how he does it and the consequences? This way you clarify your point and may find you're hitting on new ideas!
I suppose it ultimately comes down to, once you've come up with some vaguely decent ideas, you've just got to start and write something anyway. Dive into putting it down as fast as you can. No matter what level.
sounds easy, why can't I do it?!?
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