I’m still feeling emotional. I’m still walking around a gooey mess, and this seems to have put a real halt to my creative abilities. I’ve only written five pages on my new story so far. That’s one page more than I had last week. And so I want to talk about this block.
This is what I am up against 
I sit at the blank page day after day. I write a sentence, I erase it. I write a paragraph & go over it twenty times, changing the order, changing verbs. I’ve looked through craft books & thought about doing some of the exercises, but can’t bring myself to make the effort. I’ve written in a journal about the character. I know about the character. But action? The story seems as incapable as I am of making a move.
I know, I know. Kill the inner critic and just write something, anything. But I can’t. I type another sentence and spend an hour polishing it. I’m waiting for the dam to crack. I’m
anticipating a flood any day now. Bound to happen.
But while it isn’t happening, while I’m sitting here contemplating why I can’t manage to write anymore, I put forth the idea that there is a certain amount of stimulus that we are comfortable working with. We want small dramas, or if we have big dramas, we need distance before we can write about them. Small dramas because we need material, but we as writers cannot afford to be overwhelmed emotionally. Anything larger requires too much energy—energy that should be put into the writing.
Well, see, I’ve managed to at least put this down on paper. Maybe I’m on my way.
Oh, bug, thanks for the shout-out for the Thinking Blogger meme, but I think I'm gonna pass today, especially as most of my blog buddies have been tagged already from one person or the other. Just look to the left- all of the links listed are smarty-pants (to use Gili's terminology).
5 comments:
Repeater, before I met you and I was reading your draft chapters for the novel, I thought you were the Action Queen! So no doubt you are just in a rough phase at the moment, possibly, just possibly, preoccupied by other things. But it's part of the process--I was just telling R that I am in that scary place where I am completely groping in the dark with the new writing. Just going on faith, really, since it is aimless and meandering. Hang in there; the shift will occur when you least expect it.
I agree with what TI said. I also find that it sometimes helps to walk away from the PC--to actually impose a "time-out" period...don't look at it for 24 hours. Don't check e-mail or blogs. Shut it down. Let it cool off and let the symbolism of it cooling down and resting infuse you.
Do something else that inspires you--walk the beach, go to a movie (that's what does it for me for some reason), go to a book store and browse, whatever it is that always gets your juices going.
And I DO think that this blog post "counts" as writing. It's thoughtful and well written. You've done your words for today. Let your mind and soul take a breather.
Love,
DR. FC :)
Thanks again to both of you. You're pulling me through right now. Great advice, FC. It is funny how panicky I can get, forgetting that these phases do come, and they do go. But it always feels like it is never going to end. Going on faith is a good idea, ti. (yes, that story was action-packed!)
i don't want to try to give you any advice because i have a feeling you're more seasoned at this than i am. So i'll just say, be patient and keep pushing.
The dam will break soon enough and then we'll never see (read) you because you'll be too busy writing.
I miss you already.
I'm late to the party here. Hope the shift has already occured. And yes, I do agree that some times life is just too emotionally overwhelming to write. Writing brings up so many emotions, that doing so during a crazy time is difficult to say the least.
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