Nancy Christie's Blog - Posts Tagged "persistence"
What We Do When We Don’t Want to Write
So I am writing this post as a way to avoid what I am supposed to be doing, which is work on my current novel-in-progress.
Even before I started writing this, I engaged in some other “Author Avoidance Activities” (aka “AAA”), namely, feed the cats, put in a load of laundry, read Sunday’s New York Times (yeah, I’m a little behind) and watch CNN.The way my schedule is set is that I come into my office sometime between 5 and 6 AM, after my first cup of coffee has jolted my brain awake, and spend 30 minutes on my fiction.
Not on reading emails, although I may start my email program which immediately is flooded with spam offering to make me “rock hard”—the sender apparently under the misapprehension that I posses a gender-specific body part that should be “rock hard” when called upon.
Not going online via Google Chrome or Firefox, although I do click the internet button in case I need to look up a word or a fact or some obscure statistic.
Not updating my datebook, moving items from yesterday or last week or last month to today in a vain attempt to change items on my To-Do list to “Have-Done” status.
No, those 30 minutes are spent working on the aforementioned work-in-progress (currently at more than 57,000 words) or writing a new short story, or editing a short story that needs some tweaking, or submitting a short story to a lit mag (I try to keep 12 in play at any point in time—tough to do on days like yesterday when I got two rejections, one after another), or searching for and/or submitting a query to a literary agent. (My first novel is ready, willing and eager for representation.)
But today I just can’t face the fiction. Not the novel, not the shorter works, not the endless round of short story submissions-rejections-submissions, with only an occasional “okay, okay, we’ll take it” breaks in the routine, not the “please please please represent me” begging letters that go into that vast void known as agent-land.
The current novel, in particular, is giving me a hard time. I have a fairly good idea of how I want the novel to end, what is the conflict the character has to resolve and the role the supporting characters play in getting her from Point A to Point Z.
It’s just that things keep getting in the way. Issues like:
I keep forgetting when certain events had taken place, causing me to slog back through the ms. in search of dates and other specifics. (I started doing an outline, finally, but it’s tough going.)
I lack important information, particularly about physical therapy after a bad ankle sprain. I have PT pal who has agreed to meet with me to share the bounty of his knowledge but we haven’t done that yet so I keep putting “TK” (for “to come”) in key places.
I realize as I work on the outline that some things don’t make sense, other things need to be explained, and the character of the mother isn’t as clearly delineated as she should be. Is she a complainer? A supportive parent? A little bit of both?
I could, I suppose, shelve the project but I don’t want to because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to get back into it.
I should, I suppose, keep plodding through instead of, oh, painting the block walls in the basement, sorting through several decades-worth of paperwork to set aside those that need to be shredded, or write blog posts—all of which I have been doing all January long.
But what I will do, once this post is done, is go back to DISCOVERING DIANA (the novel in question) and at least write something for the next 30 minutes because if I don’t, it will never get done and regardless of how it turns out or if it ever gets published, it first needs to be written, start to finish.
But to encourage me and make me feel like I am not the only writer out there engaged in “AAA”, tell me what you do when you don’t want to write. Or can’t write. Or are afraid to write.
And, even more importantly, how you stop doing it and get back to writing.
(Read other posts at my Focus on Fiction blog : http://www.nancychristie.com/focusonf...)
Even before I started writing this, I engaged in some other “Author Avoidance Activities” (aka “AAA”), namely, feed the cats, put in a load of laundry, read Sunday’s New York Times (yeah, I’m a little behind) and watch CNN.The way my schedule is set is that I come into my office sometime between 5 and 6 AM, after my first cup of coffee has jolted my brain awake, and spend 30 minutes on my fiction.
Not on reading emails, although I may start my email program which immediately is flooded with spam offering to make me “rock hard”—the sender apparently under the misapprehension that I posses a gender-specific body part that should be “rock hard” when called upon.
Not going online via Google Chrome or Firefox, although I do click the internet button in case I need to look up a word or a fact or some obscure statistic.
Not updating my datebook, moving items from yesterday or last week or last month to today in a vain attempt to change items on my To-Do list to “Have-Done” status.
No, those 30 minutes are spent working on the aforementioned work-in-progress (currently at more than 57,000 words) or writing a new short story, or editing a short story that needs some tweaking, or submitting a short story to a lit mag (I try to keep 12 in play at any point in time—tough to do on days like yesterday when I got two rejections, one after another), or searching for and/or submitting a query to a literary agent. (My first novel is ready, willing and eager for representation.)
But today I just can’t face the fiction. Not the novel, not the shorter works, not the endless round of short story submissions-rejections-submissions, with only an occasional “okay, okay, we’ll take it” breaks in the routine, not the “please please please represent me” begging letters that go into that vast void known as agent-land.
The current novel, in particular, is giving me a hard time. I have a fairly good idea of how I want the novel to end, what is the conflict the character has to resolve and the role the supporting characters play in getting her from Point A to Point Z.
It’s just that things keep getting in the way. Issues like:
I keep forgetting when certain events had taken place, causing me to slog back through the ms. in search of dates and other specifics. (I started doing an outline, finally, but it’s tough going.)
I lack important information, particularly about physical therapy after a bad ankle sprain. I have PT pal who has agreed to meet with me to share the bounty of his knowledge but we haven’t done that yet so I keep putting “TK” (for “to come”) in key places.
I realize as I work on the outline that some things don’t make sense, other things need to be explained, and the character of the mother isn’t as clearly delineated as she should be. Is she a complainer? A supportive parent? A little bit of both?
I could, I suppose, shelve the project but I don’t want to because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to get back into it.
I should, I suppose, keep plodding through instead of, oh, painting the block walls in the basement, sorting through several decades-worth of paperwork to set aside those that need to be shredded, or write blog posts—all of which I have been doing all January long.
But what I will do, once this post is done, is go back to DISCOVERING DIANA (the novel in question) and at least write something for the next 30 minutes because if I don’t, it will never get done and regardless of how it turns out or if it ever gets published, it first needs to be written, start to finish.
But to encourage me and make me feel like I am not the only writer out there engaged in “AAA”, tell me what you do when you don’t want to write. Or can’t write. Or are afraid to write.
And, even more importantly, how you stop doing it and get back to writing.
(Read other posts at my Focus on Fiction blog : http://www.nancychristie.com/focusonf...)
