Sometimes there are easy writing days. Sure, I still have to overcome my basic inertia and the lure of easy entertainment and online dabbling and frittering. But I have a core belief in the project. I want to know what happens next. I want to see how my characters and my world will surprise me. I have faith I am going in generally the right direction.
Then there are the hard days. When the universe seems to shift overnight and suddenly I’ve lost that faith. My characters are distant. I’m fumbling around in the dark and I don’t even know if there’s anything to find. The plot has turned into this many-headed monster that my brain can’t contain. I still have faith in the story, but it’s blind and tenuous and I worry I am going to lose it completely.
I’ve had a stretch of hard days lately. I know, intellectually, that I will get through it. It’s happened before. It will happen again. I tell myself that especially with this book, where I’m trying to push myself, it is even expected. I am striving to do something new, and it isn’t going to be easy. It shouldn’t be easy!
Even when I want it to be easy.
Some days, when it’s hard, I just need to write it down. Then, next time I have a hard day I can look back and remember that it is all part of the process. Or maybe one of you is having a hard day (week, month) too, and we can commiserate, and it will be a tiny bit better for both of us because we will know we aren’t alone.
It’s spring now, and I have seen crocuses blooming down the street. There are short green stubs in my own front yard. I have my window open just a crack even though it is dark and cold, because the birds are in full chaotic symphony. If the birds and the crocuses can make it through winter, I can make it through these hard days (weeks, months), right?
Tags: writing
I strongly dislike this phase of writing. But it happens. It's part of the writing process. Hope it ends soon for you!
Thanks, Laura! Yes, the only thing that makes it tolerable is that I know it is part of the process and it will end. Eventually!
I'm just coming out of a two week dry phase, and I mean DRY – I hadn't even opened the file in two weeks. That's bad!! This does happen to all of us and it sucks royally every single time. Unfortunately, as Linda pointed out, it's part of the writing process.
We are all creating something new and there are times when we don't know where it's going because it hasn't happened yet – it's not like someone else already wrote the thing and we can just look up a reference book. "Ah yes, page 143, X tells Y his mother is too fat for the stoop and Y stomps on X's face." If only, eh?
Of course, this is exactly why we do it. We want to bring something new to the fore, making tracks in the snow. Trailbreakers have a tough time. It's just the way it is.
Eep! I'm glad you are coming OUT of the dry phase! And you are exactly right about trailbreaking.
Like you I am in the messy phase of a difficult book. Very painful. But the more times I pass through these times, the more faith I have in surviving the next.
Ouch! Good luck! And yes, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?