"If It's There, Use It": Pushing Through Writer's Block

During NaNoWriMo’s “In Your Pocket” Summer Drive, we’ll be posting “ My First NaNo ” stories from you, our amazing participants, and the writing tips you learned from your maiden voyage. Today, valiant intern Michael Adamson, finds himself grappling with severe writer’s block two-thirds of the way through his story: 

There was a dark moment for me around day 21 of my first NaNoWriMo experience. I was faced with a word-count debt fast approaching 12,000 words, and any realistic chance of winning was evaporating.

I had only myself to blame. Doubt and lack of motivation had impeded my progress during the first three weeks; sometimes I would go five days without writing so much as a single word.

It got to the point where I was compromising with myself and preparing to claim a moral victory in the absence of a word-count victory. I explained my poor discipline with lame excuses like an inability to write during my ideal creative hours, that I was spread thin working two jobs (I work less than 30 hours a week), and a lack of sleep (because I was staying up late procrastinating).

Finally, after an honest moment in front of the mirror, or what I’ve heard referred to as “the dark moment of the soul,” I realized I was perched on the edge of a precipice. Since I wrote my first NaNo-novel during Camp NaNoWriMo, perhaps a wilderness analogy is appropriate. You come to a lake after a long day’s hike and the crisp, clean water promises total refreshment. The only problem is that you know that it will be cold. You will gasp and shiver and suffer before you earn your promised refreshment.

So it was with my first NaNo-novel. I wanted that refreshment, but I had spent the first twenty-one days doing the equivalent of dipping my toes into the shallows and making uncomfortable faces. If I kept it up I’d eventually chicken out.

The only solution was to cease thinking and jump in. In the eleventh hour of day thirty I wrote my 52,146th word, hit Ctrl-S, and shut my laptop. 

While I was basically grasping at straws while writing, in retrospect I discovered a few things that did work for me and should hopefully work for others, especially when faced with serious word deficits:

If it’s there, use it.

Don’t feel like you have to dig too deep for inspiration. I based a scene on a song that was stuck in my head, one I didn’t even like, really. Similarly, don’t wait around for your “writing” mood. Instead, write about your mood.

Pass the torch to your characters.

Eventually, my characters took control of the story. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but towards the end they said “we’ll take it from here.” It was great, because rather than grope for plot points, it was all I could do to keep up with what they wanted me to do.

In this wood, there are no roads.

There is no one true path when it comes to novel writing. The woods of your novel are an unexplored wilderness, and you are the sole navigator. In other words, there is no “right way” to write a novel. Don’t be afraid to experiment, to abandon bad ideas, or, especially, take some crazy risks to hit your word count.

My novel’s plot did not pan out the way I had envisioned. The characters did things I didn’t expect. And, the novel was not yet a work of art. But it was there. It was real, and it had a life of its own beyond that of an amorphous thought that I would one day forget. That’s the real reward.

— Mike

Photo by Flickr user Drew Coffman.