Rob Kelley here, following Vaughn’s and Gabi’s posts this week and thinking about getting unstuck. I was stuck for the last several days on a book that continues to fight me. But I have a strategy, or at least a realization, that seems to reflect my writing reality more than my writing fantasy.
I’ve written before on the disconnect I have with how I thought this whole writing journey would all go and how it’s actually going. It’s not better, or worse, just different. In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King says that he likes to get 2000 words in a day. That’s the classic “butt in chair” advice that often serves me well. Except on the days it doesn’t.
My partner, Margot Anne Kelley, writes both her nonfiction and (forthcoming!) fiction extremely deliberately. After months and months of research, she pours out words in a steady stream, not fast, but sure. That is so not me.
After a day in which I stare at the screen, or write then delete sentence after sentence, or just freak out and refuse to sit at the computer at all because my head is about to explode, Margot gently reminds me that I do not write like she does or like Stephen King does (though, wouldn’t that be nice?).
I’ve come to think of the way I write as “burst mode.” I have a GoPro camera that I take along when we go on adventuresome travel. It’s hard while snorkeling to line up the perfect shot of a colorful fish below you, so I use the camera’s burst mode feature. It fires off a succession of multiple exposures. So, nothing, then a lot. That also seems to be the way I’ve come to write.
I never go very long without a productive day. Sometimes a few days, sometimes a couple of weeks, before my writing anxiety is overwhelmed by my not-writing anxiety and things start to move.
Today I’m thinking about this because I’ve just been in several days of not writing. Events in the world and things in my own life have been distracting me, and I’m trying to gather up some of that grace that Margot shares with me, and give myself a break.
I’ve dreamed of writing and publishing a novel most of my life, since I was a kid sitting on my bed reading science fiction. Then life kind of got in the way and the creative energy needed to write a book got poured into building a company. But once I’d moved on to other things and my brain opened up some bandwidth for writing, I was raring to go.
But, like many writers, my writer’s self-image was this crazily outsized, overblown, fantastically inaccurate portrayal of what I’d experience. We all have read countless books on writing by writers we respect, looking for tips on how to make it all work better. Some work, some don’t.
The tip that matters for me today? Giving myself the grace to know that the focus will return, the words will come, the broken plotline will get fixed, the problematic character will be resolved.
In other words, today I am writing (and not just a blog entry!).
What works for you when you’re stuck?
We all have to be true to ourself! A dog walk in the woods helps me plan out the next scene. Sometimes, they need lots of walks.
That’s the way of it; you just have to find the thing that shakes your brain loose!
Some days require juggling porcupines to feel motivated.
Love the metaphor. Mind if I borrow it?
Love On Writing, it always gives me energy.
I mentioned my solution on Gabi’s post. Write the scenes you know. They’ll find their story home later. If that doesn’t work, then as you say, give yourself grace. Sometimes not writing (or stressing over not writing) is the exhale we need to get back to work.
It’s great advice, and advice I follow. The particular stuckness I’m working my way out of was a realization that a character’s plotline was insufficient. I’d kept writing the other POV characters’ scenes, but needed finally to stop and let this problem POV come to a boil.
Burst mode – ha! That makes some sense to me . Generally I’m the tortise–slow and steady–but occasionally I become the racing hare, which sounds like a slightly less frenetic version of what you call burst mode.
Your conclusion is a good one – trust that eventually you’ll get unstuck, and be gentle with yourself to allow that to happen.
Trust, grace, that’s the thing that lets us keep going because that mountain is really, really tall!
I subscribed to your blog a while ago, but I read none of the emails. It was the first writing blog I read on this page that caused me to subscribe, and I bet I haven’t read another one until today. My writing has taken a detour also and I am so glad you shared your writing style with us. This was just what I needed to get back to it. I too have read Stephen Kings writing memoir and I loved it. I wish I had his style, but then again, he is a pro. Thank you again for sharing. Have a good day.
It’s the most fundamental truth under Stephen Kings’s 2000 words a day dictum. You just have to keep writing!