Okay, so two thousand words per hour is me on a really good day, but I have done it. The hitting the wall thing has really happened. I’m still hard at work on my novel fro NaNoWriMo. I started to get stuck last night, and this morning I’ve no idea how to move forward with my story. I wrote out a bunch of thoughts, and they all seem to dead end into really stupid things. I’m not sure what to do at this point. I was going to write all day today, but I don’t know what to write.
On a happier note, on Monday, 11/24 I am going to be published on Jamie Grove’s blog How Not to Write: The Art of Writing Without Writing. Given that I wrote it on Thursday last week, it should sound much more positive than I feel at this moment.
Here’s hoping that I figure out what to do at some point in the next few hours, at least enough to get another scene written.
Thanks to Olivia and Genevieve for your recent blog comments. It’s nice to hear from other writers working through the process.
As a fellow writer, you are totally intriguing me right now, Tom. I finished my novel in four months (would have been three, but some things in my personal life — what’s that? — prevented me from writing as much as I wanted to, and no, I don’t mean laundry).
Anyway, I hear from so many other writers that they get stuck in the middle and that it’s the hardest part to get through and blah blah blah, so on and so on. I found the complete opposite to be true. I had my most fertile writing period in the middle of my book. I actually wrote (I think) 8 or 9 chapters in one week….that’s almost a third of my book and….about 125 pages or so. Yikes! I couldn’t keep up with my story at that point and everything else in my life was put on hold for that week.
I do remember getting stuck at a few points here and there, but “stuck” for me is really not “stuck”, it’s more like…a moment to breathe. I’m not sure if anyone has suggested this, but it worked for me — I am really big on writing character profiles. It’s information that may or may not ever be in your story at all, but you, as the author, need to know it. There was one day when I wasn’t really stuck, just weary from the avalanche of story writing, so I sat in my favorite chair with a real pencil and paper (again, what’s that?) and picked out one character. In this case, it wasn’t even a main character, but he was still very crucial to the story. I started with his childhood and wrote a timeline of events in his life that were relevant to the story in some way. Ninety percent of it was not ever told in my novel, but in the process of writing it, I realized an intricate part of his friendship with one of the main characters and it sparked a scene for me.
It ended up being one of my favorite scenes in the whole damn book.
Sometimes you need to step away from the laptop, step away from the story, step away from the pressure you put on yourself, and just let your mind relax a little and work a different part of your brain. Hopefully, that helps in some way.
(Oh, and if you’re wondering, it wasn’t all cupcakes and M&M’s for me. The hardest part of my novel was the ending — making sure all the story questions were answered satisfactorily, and all the loose ends tied up, and it wasn’t too corny or predictable and still leaving room for the reader’s imagination to fill in some blanks to his/her liking. I spent as much time writing the final chapters of my book as I did on the other 3/4 of it.)
Happy writing!
Olivia,
Thanks for all the thoughts. I did wind up doing some writing today, but it wasn’t writing the novel itself. I did a little of “writing around the subject,” along the lines of your advice and that of others. I just sort of sat there and wrote about what I was struggling with and why it wasn’t working.
I haven’t figured out all my problems yet, but I may have taken care of one thing. It’s probably a lot better than if I’d stared at the computer all day and just typed crap that wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to make some more headway on the story itself.
Thanks again.
One day at a time! I was hung up myself too but this weekend I cranked 11K words. Can’t believe it!
Thanks again for the great post, Tom!
Jamie,
Those are excellent words to live by. I’ll get through this thing one way or another, I am sure. Not every day is as I’d like it to be, I’m afraid, but it’s my job to just keep showing up and doing the work. The end result will take care of itself.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to guest blog, Jamie!
So tomorrow we can check out your How Not to Write blog? Sweet!
I think Olivia’s advice was great, and it’s even greater that you were doing something along the lines of what she was talking about today. I don’t know if this will make you feel better, but believe it or not you’re doing everything right. I say that I don’t know if that will make you feel better because you must be thinking, “If I’m doing everything right why am I stuck?” But I know people who have finished books and people who haven’t, and you’re doing all the things that it took for them to see it through. And all of those people (including me) all had days like you’re having today when they were burnt and out of ideas. Keep doing what you’re doing, man. From what I can tell you’re a richly creative soul. You’ll be plugging away again soon.
Thanks, Gen. I’ll just keep going and see what happens. Sometimes it’s not always obvious what has to be done, but that doesn’t mean I should quit doing it.
Gen is so right.
While I was at my day job today (day job – retail, night job – writer) I was thinking about this blog (instead of the work I was supposed to be doing) and remembered some of the rough days I had when I was just getting started. I still didn’t have all the steps of the story clear in my head and there were a few times when I felt stuck. Another thing that helped me was, not so much thinking of what needed to happen next, but of where and how I wanted the story to end. When I thought about that, then I had to think about what changes needed to happen in the characters along the way, and then of course, I would think about what events would trigger those changes. One thing leads to another leads to another….
Something else that helped me — taking the advice of those more experienced that told me “You must write something, anything, every day” — so if I thought of something that happened later in the story, I still wrote it, out of order. The writing doesn’t always have to be written chronologically, just rearrange, cut and paste, or whatever you have to do later to get it in the right place. This helped because I was still writing something new every day, and sometimes it sparked a way for me to fill in the blank — the idea (or lack of idea) I was originally stuck on.
As Gen said, keep plugging away, don’t give up. It’s worth it, even if only to prove to yourself that you can do it.
Olivia,
My blog became more important than retail in your head for a moment? Success!!! If I were to retire from blogging today, I think I could be happy with that achievement.
You are right on about “The End vs. The Next Scene.” Yesterday that was some of my writing. I just sat there and wrote, “Well, I want this to happen, but that can’t happen until this does,” or “I can’t make this happen, because it should work out this other way,” and I kept writing about plot stuff that wouldn’t work until I came up with at least a few things that would work. I don’t have every detail ironed out, but I did at least get to the point where I was able to move ahead and write some more.
Today I finished writing two more important scenes, so while the weekend seemed pretty lackluster, and kind of terrible, today made up for it, if not in word count, then in movement forward of the story line.
Many thanks for the thoughts, Olivia!
Glad to hear of your progress, Tom. It feels pretty good, doesn’t it?
(and yes, to be thinking about a blog 4 days before Black Friday is saying something, but I will never encourage you to retire from blogging because that would mean I would have to find another excuse to not do laundry.)
I am always one to assist others in delaying household chores and other ugly necessities. Glad my talents are coming through!
The progress does feel good, if not as progress-y as I’d like it to be. It doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter, although I am slowly eliminating plot points, so yay for that!