Have you ever lost your writing mojo? Have you been blocked, overwhelmed by self-doubt, or felt your motivation to write vanish?
If so, today’s Words of Wisdom has you covered with advice from Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Boyd Morrison, and James Scott Bell. While the first two posts are included in their entirety, it’s well worth visiting the original posts to read the comments, and of course, JSB’s post is also worth reading in full.
I’ve been feeling like a bit of a loser of late – perhaps it’s the summer (or the week off from preschool which placed me in writing limbo) – but my writing mojo feels a little dented so I’ve had to claw my way back from depression-dom to start the week off. The only way I know how to beat the writing blues – not a writing block mind you – but that plague of self-doubt that hits you at midnight and which follows you through the day – is to resort to an old-fashioned tried and true method. Bum Glue.
This means that I sit down and, no matter how crappy or disillusioned I feel, I write. What gets typed may be absolute drivel (and it often is at first) but I persevere. I sit down, keep my bum glued to the seat, and write.
Tonight, as I compose this blog, I am preparing myself for the challenge of a week of bum glue ahead of me. I am trying to shaking off the panic and the angst, trying to shove back the “I’m a loser” thoughts and getting ready to face my fears. As Jim so aptly wrote in his post yesterday, I just have to move up the pyramid and the only way to do that is to keep writing.
So does anyone have any pearls of wisdom for me as I take a deep breath, wriggle my behind, and prepare? How do you restore your spirits or reclaim your writing mojo? Or am I the only one who suddenly finds themselves in that deep pit looking up and wondering how to escape?
Any tips on getting the bum glue to stick?
Clare Langley-Hawthorne—August 31, 2009
It only occurred to me recently how apt the word brainstorm truly is. Perhaps it was prompted by watching the terrible effects of Hurricane Sandy, but I’m sure it was also related to my own story problems lately.
I’m working on my fourth Tyler Locke book right now, and I’ve been having a hell of a time wrapping my head around why the plot just wasn’t working. I had a synopsis and basic outline, but the elements weren’t gelling into a cohesive story. No matter what I did with the plot I had, it wouldn’t work. It was as if I were trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from three different boxes. The individual elements were all great, but for some reason they didn’t fit together.
It was the dreaded writer’s block. But I’ve written five novels already, so how could that be possible? Shouldn’t I have the process figured out by now? If I were a golfer, I’d curse my case of the yips. The stuff that should be an easy putt by now was suddenly impossible. The mojo was gone, and I didn’t know if it was a permanent condition or more specific to this story.
Then my wife reminded me that this happens with every book. I always reach a point where I want to chuck the whole thing and move on to something else because I can’t figure out what’s wrong with the story. She recited my familiar lamentations back to me: “This is never going to work.” “I’ll never finish the book.” “Why did I start writing this stupid thing in the first place?”
As Christopher Vogler describes in The Writer’s Journey, I had reached the deepest chamber of the Inmost Cave to face the Ordeal. And the defining element of the Ordeal is the hero’s death and rebirth.
So I had to throw out all the assumptions I had about the story up to that point. I had to look at each and every part of it and decide whether to keep it, toss it, change it, or put it somewhere else. It was time to brainstorm.
As with the most violent storms, like hurricanes and tornadoes, everything in the story was at risk: characters, scenes, settings, action, even premise. Then I unleashed the gale. Some parts were ripped away, while others right next to them remained virtually untouched. Whole swaths of the story were decimated, while others were picked up gently and set down intact in an entirely different place.
When the storm was over, many of the individual pieces were still identifiable, but the overall rearrangement gave the story a completely new life. While real storms bring tragedy, my brainstorming was as beneficial as it was difficult. Yes, there’s a lot of cleanup still to do, but I can build something long-lasting from the wreckage.
So my question for the writers out there is, how do you get out of writer’s block? Do you unleash the brainstorm, or is there a less turbulent method to dislodge the block?
Boyd Morrison—November 5, 2012
I love the NaNo vibe. Writers writing. Newbies trying. Keyboards clacking. Coffee brewing. Possibilities awakening. It’s a major accomplishment to finish a novel. To do it in one month is astounding.
Of course, it’ll only be a first and very rough draft. But it will exist. You can let it sit for a month and then figure out what to do with it. One likely outcome is that you’ll use it as a “discovery draft” that now allows you to structure a re-write. Another is that the novel never sees the light of day. That’s fine, so long as you get some writing lessons out of it. Analyze the draft. Judge your craft. Make a plan to strengthen your skills.
At the very least you will have proved something to yourself. Unless you’re a full-time writer, averaging 1667 words a day is hard. Doing so for a month stretches you. When you get back to your normal rate of production, try to up it by 10% now that you’ve gone through NaNo.
Here are three other NaNo tips:
Plan
NaNoWriMo is catnip for pantsers. But a little planning (starting today) can make all the difference in your final product.
First, take a day to do some free-form journaling on your idea. Who it’s about, why it matters, why anybody should care. Jot down scene ideas that come to mind, in random order.
Second, take one day to define your concept with a three sentence “elevator pitch.” This will be your plumb line, what keeps you from getting too far away from the essence of your story. Even if you go down rabbit trails, you can use this to get yourself back on the main track. (On the form of an elevator pitch, see my TKZ post here.)
Finally, brainstorm a tentative “mirror moment” for your main character. This beacon of light will help you find your way if you get stuck in the dark.
Write
Check out my 10 tips for powering through NaNoWriMo.
Try to get a “nifty 350” words done the very first thing in the morning (or second, after you get the coffee going … hey, maybe invest in a coffee maker with a timer!)
Don’t edit your work except for a quick review of your daily pages. If you can do that review right before hitting the sack, so much the better. Your “boys in the basement” will work through the night and you can dive into writing the next morning.
James Scott Bell—October 15, 2017
***
Additional resources: BICHOK Words of Wisdom
***
Along with the questions asked above, have you ever lost your own writing mojo? If so, what helped you reclaim it?