Creative Frustrations

So...I had the whole book planned out and organized. Everything should have been perfect. But it wasn't.

Writing felt like drudgery. Nothing was coming out correctly. I just couldn't think, and I wanted to compulsively refresh my twitter feed or read blogs or feed the cat...anything but write. I had to sit down and really try to analyze what was going on with me.

First, I haven't been exercising or eating right. I've been sitting in a chair all day, eating far too many sweets, and watching television at night. The extent of my exercise was a short, thirty-minute walk with the dogs at night.

Second, I explained my story idea to a friend, and he thought it was weird. I should have known better. I should have kept it a closely guarded secret, but I was just so excited. Now I'm struggling to hold on to the joy of my original vision.

Third, I'm feeling the time crunch. 13 days are gone. Only 47 days left. It's a lot of pressure.

What am I going to do now? Well, I'm going to write. It doesn't matter if I like it. I'm going to make it work because I have to. I won't let frustration or negativity bring me down. Writing is my job.

But I am going to do some things to make the process easier. First, I'm going to stop eating junk and give myself permission to exercise--to take some classes at the gym, or go swimming, or walk around the lake. I'll do something fun every night without fail because it's my responsibility to stay healthy. Second, I'm going to keep my lips zipped about my story. I'm not going to tell anybody else until it's done. Finally, I'm going to relax a little about the time crunch. I have plenty of time. If I let myself relax, I'll write fast, and I'll enjoy it. I just need to "let it be easy."

I wonder if others can relate. How do other people give themselves pep talks?

The Closest I've Ever Come to Writer's Block

I don't know about this whole "Writer's Block" thing. In school, when I had a deadline, I used to procrastinate, feel like I couldn't do it, and finally, with the dreaded deadline looming, produce something. It might not have been my best work ever. I might not have felt jazzed about it. But it was something.

Well, on April 1, I started my 60k in 60Days project (60,000 word novel entirely conceived, created, edited, and self-published in 2 months--see http://www.pushingthepen.com/ for more info). I was so optimistic.

Let me start off by describing my process (a rather high-faluting way of saying what's worked for me so far--and by worked, I mean what's gotten me to the end of a novel that I felt I could pitch to agents or enter into contests). I start off with a premise (and sometimes not even that), panzer my way through the first draft (i.e. write to find out what happens and how my characters get from point a to point b--very sloppy, very messy, very fast), and usually outline somewhere in the middle of my first draft once secondary characters and sub-plots have developed so that I don't forget anything.

Before I write my second draft, I create a pitch (to focus me), a synopsis, a detailed outline, and a story bible with maps, pictures of my characters, detailed bios of my characters, notes about my world, etc. Finally, I create a second draft. I still don't worry about grammar and mechanics. I worry more about character arcs and plotting.

Finally, in the third draft (which takes forever!), I edit for grammar and style and try to use sensory descriptions and make my sentences pretty and have proper grammar. My weakness is the third draft, I think, mainly because my self-editing isn't spectacular. Even when I was an English Major, my advisor said to me, "I gave you an "A" because the writing was good but the grammar--not so much." And the irony is that I don't even see those small details--I really don't.

Anyway, so I broke with my own process for 60k in 60 Days. I felt the pressure of a deadline, and I tried to draft an outline after a small amount of brainstorming. To make a long story short, 15,000 words later, I ended up with about five different versions of the same story that just...weren't...working (insert sound of teeth grinding here). Could I have forged ahead with those earlier stories? Yeah, probably. Would they have been--I hesitate to say "bad"--not good? Yeah, probably.

So after much hand-wringing and self-defeating cognitions, I finally figured out a premise. I brought all the activities of my world to a screeching halt (aside from feeding my animals who don't care whether I'm writing or not), and I pounded out another 11,000 words on a novel I'm feeling pretty good about. Not great, mind you. I'm too supersticious to say great. I have to finish first. It has to be 60,000 words. I have to feel good about it (after the third draft).

In the end, I wrote 26,000 words in 3 days, but I was only able to keep 11,000. I never considered giving up, but I did start to sense this terrible, unscalable psychic wall. The wall has become small, more manageable, but it will stay there until the first draft is done, until I don't have a blank page and endless possibilities to deal with anymore.

Now, I have to join the real world today--run errands, pay bills, etc. But tonight...tonight, I'm going to keep working on scaling that wall.