Tag Archives: writers block

State of mind

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I’m thirsty.

I’m thirsty, and there are weeds in my garden that I can see from the study window.

I’m thirsty; there are weeds in my garden that I can see from the study window; and the protagonist of my novel has a major character-development problem that will be devilishly hard to fix. I’ll probably have to rewrite the first four chapters. Again.

I think I’ll go get a bottle of cold water out of the fridge.

I think I’ll do that and then put on my gardening shoes and go out and pull some weeds while the ground is still soft.

Who knows–maybe by then it will be time for dinner.

Writers Block

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Writers block. It’s in the air. Last Wednesday my friend Jagi Lamplighter Wright wrote a blog entry about it. And for the last few weeks I’ve been struggling with it.

Since breaking through the block that barricaded the final scene in The Last Lord of Eden (as described in my blog post of September 13th and that of October 4th), I’ve gotten all tangled up in rewriting An Appointed Time. And so I’ve managed to do just about everything else, some of it high on my avoidance list, while An Appointed Time is opened up like a patient on the operating table. But I can’t bring myself to put An Appointed Time back together again in the new way. Even though it’s going to be ever so much better, honest.

Here’s how it happened.

About 66,000 words into The Last Lord of Eden, my protagonist rather forcefully let me know that he didn’t want to be a married man. And more to the point, his wife agreed. The problem is that I married the two of them off toward the end of An Appointed Time in a chapter that one of my friendly reviewers long ago suggested was just a little bit boring. The book will be better off without it.

However, as now written, An Appointed Time leads to this marriage as surely as the Yellow Brick Road leads to Oz. In order to have the option not to marry the two of them, I have to make changes that reverberate all the way back to the beginning of the book.

This has turned out to be a Good Thing, because the extent of the required rewrite also enabled me to scrap major parts of the first two chapters and begin the action where it should begin instead of way back in the back story where I tend to begin things.

And now that I have the patient opened up on the table, I see that I can consolidate two separate minor characters into one character, who will therefore become an interesting character in his own right. And this, in turn, gives our heroine a more believable motive for something she does that gets her into a lot of trouble.

So An Appointed Time is getting a revamp from start to finish. But it’s bloody hard work, all this throwing out of the good stuff I’ve written in order to make room for the even better stuff that will replace it. No wonder I’ve been avoiding it. This makes submitting the flex account receipts, rebalancing the retirement investments, following up on medical bills, making airline reservations, and preparing the documentation for 2009 taxes all look like enjoyable tasks.

I think I’m in trouble.

Avoidance, Part 2

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About three weeks ago, I wrote a blog post on avoidance, perhaps otherwise known as writers block. The scene I was working on describes what is, perhaps, the climax of the entire tale, in which Our Hero brings himself to perform a difficult act, the very last thing he ever wanted to do. And moves on. I knew what was in the scene. I had gone over it a dozen times in my head. But it seemed like everything in my life, even the time spent actually at my computer, conspired to take precedence over actually writing the scene down.

I have to confess that I’d half hoped that writing that blog post might open whatever gate was closed and allow me to write the darned scene already.

But it didn’t happen quite that way. What actually happened was that I managed to continue to avoid writing the scene for another week. And then one night while lying in bed not quite sleeping, I went through the scene again. A new character showed up this time–not new to the story, but new to the scene. And when this character showed up, the nature of the scene changed. It got more complicated and interesting, and a lot less dismal.

The next day I started writing. I wrote the pivotal moment in the scene.

Over the last two weeks I have also completed half a dozen scenes leading up to that final scene, detailing Our Hero’s struggle to avoid the act he has been cornered into. And I completed the scene itself, tying the pivotal moment into all that leads up to it. And I even wrote the one small scene needed afterwards. In all, I’ve written well over 7,000 words in two weeks, more than a tenth of the entire novel so far—not exactly fast enough for National Novel Writing month, but probably about as much as I’ve ever succeeded in writing in any two-week period. And hey, you know what? It’s pretty good stuff!

So maybe, just maybe, the scene was resisting me all this time because it wasn’t the right scene yet.

Avoidance

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There is no work avoidance like that of a writer faced with writing a scene that compels her.

This scene has chased me for two weeks now. It’s there in my mind when I wake up in the morning. I play it and embellish it and feel my way into it when I’m working around the house or eating my meals. When I’m talking with someone, the scene steals away part of my attention. It follows me to bed at night. It shapes my dreams.

It’s a brutal, compelling, climactic scene. I love it. The emotions in it are raw. Here the protagonist finally faces the last thing he ever wanted to face, and he grows beyond his limitations. I know what the scene must do and how it must do it.

I could, I tell myself, sit down and write at least a first draft of this scene in a couple of hours.

Except that, apparently, I can’t.

In the last couple of weeks or so, I have cleaned and weeded the garden. I’ve hosted six house guests and done at least that many loads of laundry after the guests left. Heck, I even ironed some shirts! I’ve been to the Farmer’s Market, the supermarket, the Whole Foods market, the liquor-store-cum-gourmet market, and the produce market. And it’s not like I haven’t had time at my computer. On the contrary: I’ve sat at my computer for hours. I’ve edited another book I’m working on until it’s ever so much better than it was last month. I have proofread an entire book as a consultant. I’ve written a couple of blog posts, maintained an active presence on facebook, and kept up with all my email. I’ve taken, edited, organized, and posted numerous photographs. I’ve found and ordered cabinet parts, refrigerator parts, and books online. Let’s face it; I’ve done just about everything… except… write that one scene.

Really, I must sit down and do this.

Maybe right now.