Sometimes Writing is Like Trudging in Snow Shoes Over the La Brea Tar Pits

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles

I can’t explain it.

Here I was, almost a year ago, excited and ready to write my next Mike Romeo thriller. My outline was prepped, my fingers itching.

I wrote the first chapter—which was amusingly unlike other first chapters in these books. I had fun with it. It was my opening disturbance, but in an unanticipated form.

I printed my outline and had my trusted adviser, Mrs. B, take a look. She gave me a few suggestions and a thumbs up.

The plot proper took off with the killing of a meth head and the arrest of another, who becomes the client of Mike’s employer and conscience, lawyer Ira Rosen.

Sometimes writing is a fast joyride, like sliding down a snowy slope in a toboggan. That was this book. I was about 20k into it when I had to set it aside for a couple of weeks, due to some personal matters. Nothing major, just a series of events that sometimes happen. It’s called life. I plunked out words on some shorter projects.

When I came back to it, I found it hard to pick up the flow. Part of that I understood as the normal inertia that happens when you leave a story for a length of time. Day–to-day momentum is lost.

That’s happened to me in the past, and I’ve always managed to get the energy back in a day or two.

Not so this time.

It was weird. How weird? I’m glad you asked.

I draft in Scrivener, and set my total word goal and daily word goal. I click on the target icon and see just how many words I’ve written that day, and how far along I am toward my ultimate goal.

This time, I swear, it felt like I couldn’t get out of the 30k’s. My toboggan was on the junk pile. Now it was like trudging in snow shoes over the La Brea Tar Pits.

And it wasn’t as if the story was fighting me. I knew where it was going.

When I finally cracked 40k I thought, wait, what? Six months and this is all I have? My usual first drafting is three to four months.

I slogged on.

But then, as I looked at Act 3 rising from the muck, I made a snap decision to change the villain and the ending. Dedicated pantsers out there will say this is where you just go with your gut. Your gut’s always right.

Except when it isn’t. When I finally finished the draft I gave it to Mrs. B to read, and started planning my next book.

Her reaction was subdued. She liked most of it, but asked, “Why did you change the ending?”

“My gut told me to.”

“To be honest, I thought the other one was much better.”

Crud! Maybe my original gut was righter than my later gut.

I moped around for a day, then concluded (as is usually the case) that Mrs. B was right.

Now what? I had to scrap the last 30k and write the original ending, then tweak all the places in the book I had tweaked to accommodate the new ending.

So what was up with all that?

Every novel is a new experience, with fresh challenges. Sometimes those challenges push hard. Your brow wrinkles. Your word output may be about the same, but you feel like Sisyphus and that big rock. In that case you ought to pause and ask yourself why this is happening. The more experience you have and the more craft you know, the better you’ll be abled to answer.

Another possible reason for Tar Pit Trudge: The more we write, the higher our standards are (or should be). That sometimes means the writing goes slower because we’ve set a higher bar.

The alternative is “phoning it in,” which has happened with some highly successful authors. If you get to the sipping-Piña-Coladas-aboard-a-yacht level, it may not matter to you. For other writers, it does.

Know this: there is relief at the other end of the Tar Pits. When the final draft hits the mark, there’s a special kind of satisfaction that the phone-it-inners never feel. It’s the gratification of hard work paying off, the matchless pleasure of a job well done.

The book to which I refer is my ninth Mike Romeo thriller, Romeo’s Fire. It’s on sale today at the intro price of $2.99. I do feel a lovely satisfaction in getting it done, and further elation publishing it three weeks after the beta-edited and proofed draft came in. (In my trad pub days it would be a year or more before I saw a book in the store.) So sweet after the long journey.

And I’ve jumped on my toboggan again! I wrote the first 3k words of Romeo #10 this week. There’s a lot to be done, of course, and some trees to avoid, but there’s fresh snow on the slope and it’s a beautiful day.

Do you get different feel for each novel you write? Do you ever feel like it’s a slog? Or are you part of the “writing should always be effortless” crowd?

23 thoughts on “Sometimes Writing is Like Trudging in Snow Shoes Over the La Brea Tar Pits

  1. Your post comes at a time when I’m gaining a different perspective about writing. Of the 30+ novel concepts on my list to write, reality is I’ve only drafted 2 solo projects in the last several years (neither yet final polished/published). In both cases, the first draft took (I’m going on memory) about 6 months to draft–one I outlined in a fairly detailed manner, one with a bare bones outline. Am I second guessing myself on aspects about each of the stories? Yep. A bit of perfectionism. A bit of imposter syndrome.

    “Do you ever feel like it’s a slog?” If you had asked me before the last couple of months, I would’ve said an emphatic yes. But in the last couple of months, having to force myself to start learning about the business side of writing (i.e. preparing to publish and the 9 trillion details associated with that), writing is no slog at all compared to the utter tedium of learning how to publish! UGH! I’d far rather deal with temporary road blocks in the writing process then deal with the business side, hands down.

    As to “writing should always be effortless” —honestly, maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but if I found writing to always be effortless, I doubt I would bother to do it, thinking it was an unworthy endeavor. The fact that it demands so much of me is a great part of the appeal. Bizarre I suppose, but true nevertheless.

    I’ll take the trials of actual writing over the writing peripherals any day. My goal is to submit to a short story contest whose entry deadline is Dec. 1. I better get my behind in gear! And if I make the goal I’m going to eat the biggest hunk of chocolate I can find despite the health hazards! 😎 😎 😎

    • “The fact that it demands so much of me is a great part of the appeal.”

      Well put, BK. It is so with any enterprise of value.

      And dark chocolate is good for us, so eat away!

  2. Each novel is different for me, too, Jim. My latest is going slower than I’d like—eerily similar to how you description Romeo #9 going. almost four months in and I’m not quite 34K words in. I’ve stopped a couple of times to reoutline, brainstorm and research. I realized today that I needed to reread what I’ve written, in light of revelations I’ve had about the novel not being as peppy and fast-paced as I’d like, and some of the mystery details perhaps being too foregrounded earlier on.

    I was down about it, but much like you wrote above, I realized I’m trying to level up again with this latest book.

    So, I’m going to go through what I’ve written, make some notes, and see if there’s a better way to arrange things, and then dive back in. I’m still in love with this book—I owe it to the story and to future readers to help that story be the most entertaining and surprising it can be.

    Congratulations on the latest Romeo being out in the world!

    • I’m right there with you, Dale. And the key is that you’re still “in love” with it. That’s what will power you through, even though sometimes it’s “tough love” we’re talking about!

  3. Slogging is usually a result of my writing the wrong thing or in the wrong way. I once had to put 6 opening chapters into first person to continue from that point.
    But yes, each novel feels different because it is different–usually a different genre, MC, and/or location. I’ve striven never to write the same book twice. I just finished my first non-fiction work since 1991. Next up will be finishing my mystery-romance-western, currently at 53,000 words, target 60K to 65K.
    Meanwhile, I’ve hired a publicist to advise me where to spend my advertising dollars on my new book.

  4. We all have issues creep into our lives. Writing requires concentrated brain power that you may not have to give when those issues are occupying your mind. Depending on how long those issues go on, you may lose your writing muscle memory. That’s happened to me this past year. I wish this world hadn’t evolved into social media, but that horse is long out of the barn. Between life events and elections, my writing disappeared. I’m now back on task. I switched from being stuck on book 2 of a Urban Fantasy series to book 15 of my tried and true murder series. Then I found a few friends that wanted to do 25 minute sprints. That helped. I compete against my self to get 500-600 words in those 25 minutes. If I find my fingers itching to doom scroll with news or social media, I remind myself that I’m racing against the clock and to stick to the task at hand. When you have to say the number of words out loud when the timer goes off, it’s easier to resist the siren’s call of doing unproductive things.

    • I like the sprint idea. I still have an app called “Write or Die” which forces to write fast, cause if you don’t it emits an obnoxious sound. (I don’t think it’s avaialble anymore, so I have to be obnoxious myself, which isn’t a stretch)

  5. Do you get different feel for each novel you write?

    Absolutely. Some novels pour out of me, where others fight me every step of the way.

    Do you ever feel like it’s a slog?

    Yep. I’m there now, though life is getting in the way more than anything else.

  6. Yes, every book is different, and yes, the standards get higher.
    I’m about 5k into the next book. There have been slog days because of the release of Deadly Intrigue and all that goes with it, travel, holidays, and life, but I think I’m in the “new” tar pits. (Growing up in LA, that was a frequent family outing back before there were fences and a visitor center, and when you could climb on the statues, not that I was old enough to do that, but we could touch them–so thanks for the memories).
    There was some slogging with Deadly Intrigue because it was a bit of a departure from my usual genre. Not really a mystery, not a typical romance, no “life in peril” situations. No dead bodies, no weaponry. Once I gave up trying to fit the story into pigeonholes and just focused on the two protagonists’ conflicts and let them tell the story, the writing flowed again.

  7. Oh yeah, Jim!!! Some books sail, others slog.

    I think you nailed it that we constantly raise the bar. The little voice in the background whispers, “This isn’t as good as your last book. You don’t have it in you anymore. You’re washed up.”

    That happened near the end of my new book Fruit of the Poisonous Tree. Thankfully, a trusted beta reader gently slapped me around when I needed it and shoved me back into the ring. My inner self looked like Rocky Balboa after round 15 but the book finally went the distance.

    It’s reassuring to hear that an author of your accomplishment sometimes feels the same doubts and fears. Thanks!

  8. Do you get different feel for each novel you write? Absolutely. For me, every novel is a new experiment in writing. Fortunately, I love to experiment. Unfortunately, some of the experiments take a lot more effort than I bargained for.

    Do you ever feel like it’s a slog? Yes. Writing is such a pleasure when the toboggan is flying down the slope, and I can hardly wait to hop onto that toboggan and get to work each day. But then I hit a bump, and I know what Sisyphus must have felt like. Slog city.

    Or are you part of the “writing should always be effortless” crowd? As someone once said, “If it wasn’t hard, why do it?”

  9. Just downloaded “Fire”, Jim, and can’t wait to get started. 🙂

    Slogging and bogging sums it up for sure. But, you know what? It’s okay. Because when I slow down, I see and hear things I wouldn’t if I was skimming at high speed down the slope. Sometimes I need that.

    Happy Sunday!

  10. Like the others have said, each book is different, and none have been easy. With my WIP, life got in the way big time and I lost four months of writing time. And getting my footing again was so hard. BUT I keep writing in faith that it will all come together.

    I’m past the middle and can see what I need to get to the end. Thank goodness. It’s due in 6 weeks…
    And I just checked and Romeo’s Fire is in the Kindle…will start on it tonight.

  11. Gosh, yes. I came to the final book of my superhero fantasy series, book 10, and I choked. I had sooooo many character arcs and plot threads to resolve, and such a huge big bad to deal with. I took my best crack at it, and like you, I changed from my original plan and handled the boss fight at the end differently. My husband’s reaction was the same as your wife’s. Why did you change it? Darn it. Maybe my original gut was better than my new gut. So, like you, I tore out about 30k and rewrote it two or three times before I got it right. Unfortunately I usually have to rewrite my climaxes a few times to get them exactly right, so this wasn’t a new process. It’s just encouraging to know that other authors go through this same thing, you know?

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