I'm Not Super Interested in My Writing Process Feeling Like a Slog, Are You?
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How's your writing going, lionhearts?
I've been back to my novel-in-progress in a big way over the last week. Words! Paragraphs! Chapters! It's been grand.
Plus, thanks to Monday's pep talk, I'm embracing the fact that it's gonna sound like a crappy first draft. No worries about quality.
So I thought that I'd keep chugging along, giving 90 percent of my energy to the words, bearing with the sloppiness of the drafting process—
And then my word-making engine started making funny sounds. And acting weird.
Spluttering, coughing, jerking around. It kept stalling and puttering and cutting out.
I couldn't figure out what was wrong at first.
These chapters have been outlined—enough and not too much—so I knew what I was writing.
It's an exciting part of the story, too: the aunt and the niece are bickering, the baby has gone missing, and they've fallen into another world.
Lots of tension! Intriguing settings! Plenty to do!
But I kept wearing out. I had the ideas, but my brain felt like taffy. Stretched too thin—shredding to wisps. The ideas weren't turning into real images, real moments, real words.
What's a writer with a mega-steep deadline to do?
Thrash about? Fight it out? Get all the words down with blood and sweat and tears?
Ha! If you've been around here for five minutes, you know by now: that's not how I roll. Not anymore.
So what, then? The deadline is tight and certain. How do I get these words moving again?
It took an evening of soul-searching, but I realized the answer was staring me in the face.
I've come back to this draft after a ton of chaos. My brain has been full of problems to solve, of logistics and nurturing other people and getting plenty of vitamin C.
And I haven't done the oh-so-necessary spelunking in the wonderful dark caves of the imagination.
I haven't been feeding my story-making side at all.
Whoops.
So today's quote comes from Elizabeth Berg. It's marvelously straightforward, and precisely what I need:
"Find out what works as a literary stimulant for you, and use it shamelessly."
Obviously, this isn't shocking news. One of the words most often on our writerly lips is inspiration after all.
So the reason I love this quote is that it gives permission.
Use it shamelessly.
No guilt when you're off inspiration-seeking! No mixed feelings about nurturing the imagination!
I need to hear this.
Because sometimes, I misdiagnose.
I feel like I must be procrastinating when I'm off seeking inspiration. Like I'm putting off the real work of the words on the page—which of course is important! Super important!
But we have to remember that our stories come from a dance between the two: we refuel the place that comes up with the words. And then we write what bubbles up.
Refuel, write, repeat.
And yes, if you're chewing on that idea of putting 90 percent of your energy to the words on the page, this active refueling can make up part of that. Especially if you keep running dry, like I was.
When we're operating from a place of rich, deep fuel, it's easier to fall into our story and stay there.
It is, dare I say it, easy to write.
And that's what I want to get back to.
So I'm making a list of all my tricks. All of 'em! It's shocking, actually, how I had totally forgotten them.
(Terrifying to be out of that habit!)
I grabbed a book of poems and stuck it by my bed to read just before drifting off to sleep.
And then, that most potent strategy of all, I'm actively dropping my mind straight into my book. Swapping realities.
Whew! I'm so out of practice!
But this is what saves my writerly bacon.
This is what gets the book written, without all that anguish.
This is what even makes the writing fun. It turns the work into an adventure—instead of another day pushing numbers into a graph. This many words and that many chapters by these dates.
We're not accountants.
(And I love accountants. No offense, number lovers!)
But we are writers. We've got to get a little gooey sometimes. We're supposed to.
We need to know what works for us, what stimulates stories in us, and then we have to give ourselves permission to go after that.
It's the job. (And it's actually a lot of fun!)
Happy spelunking.
Where do your story ideas lurk? What feeds your gooey, story-making side? Please do share in the comments!! We could all use a few more strategies! (And nothing is too weird. I promise.)
