You Sit Down to Write… and “Got Nothing.”

Today I was given a gift. My husband took my son to the beach and my daughter just wanted to chill out and watch Netflix all morning. I was given hours to simply write and work on my latest WIP, Book #3 in the Kelsey Porter series.

Well, I sat in my favorite writing spot (on my bed with the laptop on a mini desk on my lap) and opened the story to the latest part, put my fingers on the keyboard and…. nothing. I stared at the screen in shock. Nothing? I couldn’t have nothing – I had three hours to write and I couldn’t come up with anything. I couldn’t waste this precious time!

But waste it I was starting to do. I wrote a line, deleted it and then was so bummed I clicked on Twitter to complain about my ridiculous first world problems.

My tweet: My family just gave me a full hour to write – it’s quiet, in my favorite spot, been staring at the screen for 10 minutes. I got nothing!

And then I sat there waiting for responses, because I still had nothing and what better way to waste time then stare at twitter and wait for some of my 29K followers to respond. True to form, my lovely twitter peeps didn’t disappoint. Some of the best replies?

@elysesalpeter Just keep your butt in the chair & stay off twitter! It’ll come.

@elysesalpeter i usually watch the documentary channel for a book inspiration?

@elysesalpeter Blow something up. Start a fire. Give your characters a different mind set. Always works for me.

So what did I do? I listened to my tweeps. I got off twitter, I opened the WIP and I simply started writing an argument between two main characters, then someone went missing and then I added a scene about how two characters felt about each other… I don’t know if they are any good, but after having nothing all morning, I cranked out over 2,500 words after that.

We all go through moments when we “got nothing.” I think the trick is to “find something out of nothing” and just muddle through. To be honest, that’s what a first draft is all about. We shouldn’t stress about first drafts. They’re supposed to be rough, garbage, stepped on, ripped apart. The trick is to just get the story down and the framework laid.

So this post goes out to my twitter peeps who chimed in and gave me some cool advice. You guys rock!

So what do you do when “you got nothing?”