Repeat after me: There is no such thing as writer’s block.
You with me there? Good.
Now, let’s talk about that (translation: I will now write about that, feel free to comment below)
writing block
All posts tagged writing block
Hey folks!
I’m feeling lazy and slightly sleep deprived this Friday morning, so I thought I’d serve up a post filled with neat links I’ve found around the ol’ net. They are writing related of course.
I hope you enjoy,
To the interwebs!
I have a great idea for a short story. Really, I do. In my head, it sounds great. When I explain it, it sounds cool.
As we quickly learn when we write, ideas are a dime a dozen and an idea alone is not what makes a good story.
It’s the 31st. It’s a brand new day. I’m flush with a second back to back NaNoWriMo win.
The manuscript is not done however and I’ve put in another 500 words this morning and more are coming. I know that if I stop and take a break because I’ve made the word count, there’s a chance I won’t finish the book. It would be a shame. A finished first draft is easily moved up on deck when you decide to revise it. An aborted draft is just, well, unfinished and it’s hard to put a decent ending on something when you let it sit too long.
Whereas, you should let a manuscript stew a while before going back for revision.
So how did August go in general? Impressions and thoughts below:
Well I’m still about 8K behind, but catching up. It’s only 8K because I haven’t made a dent on today’s word count yet. Once I’m done writing for the day, I’ll be a lot further.
I’m not falling behind so that’s a win. I’ll be stepping up from my daily 2K quota a little, just to be safe. I plowed ahead yesterday even if I still did not have a clear plan.
A friend suggested writing a scene where my characters talk. Talk to each other or just talking, either way sounded good to me. It inspired me. I ended up writing 2500 words with my two main characters trapped in a room together. I figured I could use it somewhere later in the book. Even if the scene ended up being cut during editing, my friend’s suggestion was that it would allow my characters to speak and let me get a handle on them and perhaps that would help.
It was enough to get me writing again.
Something interesting happened.
I haven’t posted in a good long while since I’ve had my story issues. It’s been a crazy week. Sorry about that.
Sadly, last week was almost a write off for word count and I’ve fallen behind. I am currently 7k behind where I should be to succeed. I hit a bit of a slump that wasn’t completely story related. The interesting thing is that I had the same kind of slump with Revenant. I had a really lousy 2nd and 3rd week too and rallied to pull it out of the fire.
The good news is that 7K is not a catastrophic amount. The great news is that I’m back on track in my writing routine. I gave the WIP a good kick in the teeth yesterday and the words being typed felt good. Adding parts from Beth’s point of view is really illuminating to me and adding word count as well. I will be able to catch up and be on track in due course.
I’m still a little lost, I’m not out of the woods yet. I still have issues but I’m working through them. The even more great news is that I’m confident that I can work them out as I continue writing this week.
This weekend I have a meeting with my new writing group (the first of what I hope will be many). They are awesome people whose writing ability I respect and admire, beyond being tremendous and very supportive friends. I look forward to hashing these issues out with them and hopefully helping them out as well and just getting generally inspired to write. It’s exciting!
As I’ve said before. I cannot lose. This story will be written.
As I stated earlier, I’m zooming towards a road block. In previous years, this caught me off guard and the block led to a failure.
This year, I’m going to punch write through it! (See what I did there? See it? Ok. I’ll stop now.)
Here’s what’s going on in my head with the novel, what it is so far, what I’m trying to figure and what I’m thinking about. Writing about it here will help things move around and gel in my head and help me get past this week and on track for 100K.
There’s no such thing as writer’s block if you don’t let these things block you.
(Warning: This is a very long post. Read it at your peril)
