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It’s happy dance time.
“Everybody clap your hands” (Mr. C and the Cha-Cha Slide, my kids love this stupid song). Why is she making me clap my hands, you may be asking. Well, I’m gonna tell ya. I finished my first draft of my manuscript WANTED:DEAD OR UNDEAD, my zombie western romance. And the reason we must all clap our hands and perhaps even participate in the Cha-Cha slide, is because this book just about kicked my butt. I kid you not. I started it with the NANOWRIMO last November. It was supposed to be a writing exercise and nothing more, a way for me to try my hand at third person POV and to try writing part of the book from a male perspective. I was so excited for November. Couldn’t wait. I had just finished writing my contemporary YA novel Desert Rice, finished the edits, and I was ready for a break. I wanted to write something fun. What’s more crazy fun than writing a zombie western romance? Nothing. That’s what. I had a couple of ideas. No real plot to follow. I was simply going to see where the crazy story took me and have a good ol’ time. And boy did I! November was AWESOME. I just wrote and wrote, met my daily goals, stayed on task, and I was having a blast with it. So liberating. I wrote my 50K+ book, reaching the goal before November 30th and I even bought me a shirt (It says I’m a winner. It does. And it counts). Then December hit. At first I was determined to keep my pace, stay in my groove, and finish the manuscript by the first of the year (yeah, that’s possible. It’s not a lofty goal at all. Totally doable). Guess what? It turned out to be a pretty lofty goal after all. December is a hard month as it is—holidays, family, snow. But now try adding a critique member (who shall remain nameless but totally knows I’m talking about her) who INSISTS the western zombie romance MUST be made into a trilogy. WHAT???? I’m at 50K and NOW I’m supposed to make this into a trilogy. Don’t people plan ahead for that? This was supposed to be a writing exercise. How did this get so out of control? Okay, at first I balked at the idea. Too hard. Ain’t gonna do it. Nope. You can’t make me. Besides, I was pretty sure I didn’t have enough material to even make it to 70K (normal novel length) for book number one. But as I started writing again, going much more slowly than I first planned on, I started realizing that though I was sitting on a pretty pile of 50K words or so, there was no way I was going to wrap up the book and all the subplots in 20K. It just wasn’t going to happen. Too much going on. I freaked out. Writer’s block set in as I realized, I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO WRITE A SEQUEL. A sequel! What the heck? And then, as if writer’s block didn’t have a pretty good hold on me before, it decide to come in, sit on my head, and take up residence for months. Yes, months. I struggled. I struggled a lot. Little, if anything, was being written. Then when I’d have a spurt of creativity and write a chapter, I’d send it off to be read by my critique member (I’m an insecure writer and I like to make sure things are working as I go, chapter by chapter). It would come back, the subject title of the email saying: “Don’t hate me, but . . . ” That’s never a good sign. Some of the chapters didn’t work. She was right. It needed to be fixed, only I didn’t know how. I’m not a plotter, but boy, I sure wished I was then. I didn’t know what to do. Over and over I’d think about the story—okay, I’m here at point A. I need to get to point B, but how? Everything I could think of sounded stupid, illogical, and contrived. Bluck! I hate those things. But finally, I got it together. Ever so painfully slow, I finished it. And now, I am the mother of a pretty hefty 84K zombie book! That's one big baby. It’s the month of May. The first draft is done. It’s poopy. But it’s done. First drafts don’t have to be good (just read Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. She says first drafts can be crap. I think I love her). Regardless, I do have something to work with. Something that can be polished from its brown lumpy form (poop) into something less brown (I’m hoping for beige). Editing, here I come! *Okay, I just sent the last and final chapter to my critique partner, the same one mentioned above. Fingers crossed she won’t make me rewrite it. She scares me.
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 Last week, I shared with everyone my struggles with writer’s block (nasty, nasty stuff). I have two chapters left to write on my WIP and it’s just not happening. The little voices that normally sit on my shoulder and FORCE me to write their story have disappeared. My own fault? Yep. Most definitely. I have allowed myself to become easily distracted by shiny distractible things (twitter, blogging, SQUIRREL, etc…)
Now, the wonderful thing about twitter and blogging has been the online support from people, who I’ve never met, who were quick to offer words of wisdom, support, and encouragement. For the most part, writing is a solitary endeavor. We’re on our own. The people in our lives love us and encourage us to write, but because they’re not writers they simply don’t “get us.” When they say, “Just write it,” they don’t realize how difficult that can be to do. So, yes, twitter and the blogging world has squirreled away my imagination, but to be able to surround myself with HUNDREDS of like-minded people who “get me” is something I’m extremely thankful for. The support is amazing. As a way of paying it forward, I want to share this advice with you. Maybe something someone said will resonate and give you the push you need to just keep writing, or if nothing else, will let you know writer's block will pass. Thanks to everyone who took the time to help me. A great big MUU-AH to you. Now some of the advice was practical, while a few others a little more unconventional, but who's to say what would work and what wouldn't. I posted them all. Katrina Lawrence: step away from the writing and immerse yourself in your favorite book for a few hours, that always helps me! Ryan Louis Schneider: If you paint yourself into a corner, change corners. ie work on a different story. Begin a new tale perhaps. Make it fun. ArrEllEss.com Jason McKinney: I grab a V8 and watch mind-numbing stuff like Spongebob w/the kids. Diverting your mind with nonthinking things works. Jason McKinney Barbara Nordin: How to Write When You'd Rather Set Your Hair on Fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klSM3-xrNgQ All But Dissertation No More Ara Trask: I'm in a similar situation right now. It doesn't help the winter makes me depressed, and of course Twitter distracts me constantly. But I have begun one exercise that has helped me begin writing again. A PAPER journal. Not a blog, but a notebook I carry around with me that I have set up the following rules for: 1. Write something in it every day, no matter if it's 2 pages or 2 sentences. 2. From now on, all notes about my WIP will be entered in said journal, so they will be easier to find and cataloge. 3. Anything going on in my life while I'm writing this WIP is relevant, because later, I will want to know what was distracting me through the writing process. This includes the music I'm listening to, the place I'm currently writing, or if I'm out of town. 4. Any findings from interesting research should be noted in this journal. This keeps my collection in one place, and me always thinking about how I'm going to work on my story. South of Sanity Sarvenaz Tash: I am also in an eerily similar situation (though I'm nowhere near an ending. I wish!). I freaked out for a couple of weeks. And then, this week, I decided NOT to write. I'm taking a writing-free week and I'm spending all my free time reading instead. It's too early to say whether this will ultimately work, but I'm definitely seeing some signs that a creative spark might be on the horizon. It's the best I've felt about the WIP in weeks so I'm hoping it IS the right thing to do. Or do you have something else you can work on? I think the answer may be to just stop focusing on it so much and maybe your subconscious will have had the answer for you all along! Sarvenaz Tash Ashley: I recently just blogged about this very problem myself! Twitter, and blogging, and just plain life get in the way of my writing all the time too. Here's a few things that helped me get to the end of my WIP: - I forced myself to sit down and start writing. I told myself it's a first draft so if it sucks I can go back and fix it. - Music- music definitely gets those creative juices flowing and the voices talking - Taking a walk- getting outside and moving really help me to work out plot points in the WIP. A car ride is always an option too, although gas prices in my neck of the woods are HORRIBLE. Coffee Spoons Nancy Lauzon: It happens to all of us. What a block means for me is there is something off in my WIP, a character, a plot issue, something ... and until I figure that out, I stay blocked. So I walk away, clear my head and think about the story. After a few days the answer usually comes to me, and the block disappears. Maybe this will work for you. Good luck and happy writing! Nancy Lauzon Allison Maynard: I'm with Sarvenaz on this one. I know it goes against the gospel of you must write something every day, but sometimes if it ain't happening, it ain't happening. Don't freak out! I think there's two sorts of writers "block". There's the sort you just have to power through and keep going. The distracted by twitter, sunshine, cute doggies, pretty shoes that you can order online etc. type of block falls into that category, as does the x thousand words in and starting to feel like hard work sort of block. But I think there is another kind, which is when you've forced it as far as you can and you do just need a break. Everyone needs a break now and then - why should writers be any different? I had an experience very similar to what you describe when working on 2nd draft of a script a couple of years ago. It felt, just as you describe, like a wall had dropped down in front of me which was not going to shift. In the end I took a break (not through choice - there just didn't seem to be any other way). About 4 weeks later I was walking home from somewhere and the end of the story popped pretty much fully formed into my head (an ending which was completely different to the first draft version I'd stalled trying to "fix"). So I'd say, if you've proved to your own satisfaction that it's not one you can just write through, then take a break. Don't write at all for a week or two, and then if necessary write something else short to ease you back in. If you've had some writer's block miracle that you'd be willing to share, please leave a comment with your advice and I will include it in the above list. Pay it forward. Who knows? Maybe your suggestion might be the ONE thing a struggling writer needed to hear to push past their own writers block. |
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