I have written more than nineteen thousand words so far this year! And it’s only 19th January. So it would seem that I’m not having too much trouble keeping up with the 100K in 100 days challenge. But have I written nineteen thousand words of value; or nineteen hundred? Or even nineteen? Sometimes it’s hard to answer that questions - or anyway to answer it positively.
I’ll have to wait until after 10th April (the hundredth day of the year) or even longer, before I can tell for sure. I will put the whole thing away for a few weeks and then come back to it afresh to see if any of it is usable. I know there are several pieces of flash fiction in there which might have potential. There are some passages of memoir that I may use in the sequel to Parcels in the Rain (provisional title Soggy Boxes under the Arm). And there’s even a whimsical retelling of a couple of familiar fairy tales that just might turn the pantomime world on its head.
Jodi Picoult in Why We Write tells us to “write even when you don’t feel like writing. There is no muse.” I’m not sure I believe the second part; how else would our characters force their way into our heads and write their own stories, determinedly ignoring our feeble attempts to control their behaviour and direct their actions? But I fully concur with the first part. I've kept writing my thousand words per day by using a different writing trigger from Ryan Kinder’s book 1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts, through exercises set at one of my writing groups, or from the topics posted on the Write Invite site, each time I've sat down at the laptop. I've forced myself to keep going even when the topic didn’t really interest me.
I woke this morning with the dull realisation that it was Monday and I had no idea what would go into this week’s blog. Thanks to a wonderful morning of exercises at Chudleigh Writers Circle, I now have words on the page that I can edit for public consumption.
Readers: what do you do to keep writing when the muse deserts you?
I feel it is hard for one to gauge ones own work objectively. Sometime you need to remove yourself in time from what you've written to realize the potential behind it. For example: I wrote something two years ago that I thought wasn't too grand. I just recently found it again on my hard drive and thought "this was actually pretty good, it can be great with minimal polish." It's just that, in the moment, I didn't put much value on it. It's the self doubt within us all. Writing is and always will be an exercise that we only improve upon by working daily and realizing what flaws we may have.
ReplyDeleteGood blog, by the way and thanks for the mention. :)
Hi Ryan, thanks for dropping by - and I really do love what your book is forcing me to do. Today's trigger has brought a short story onto the page almost fully formed - for a competition that had really stumped me until now. And I agree about the value in older pieces of work. Every so often, I go back to the assignments I wrote for my early college courses. There are some neat bits in there that I'd forgotten about.
DeleteDo you want to borrow some of my muse???!! I have 4 novels stored up in my head waiting to be written and about 10 blog posts...!!! Suppose if I spent more time writing and less time on Twitter and reading other people's blog posts, then I'd be farther on!!!
ReplyDeleteThe thing i find important for my own head is to start one novel before the next one has come out - which is why, now that my new one is out of my hands, I WILL start the new novella today - or maybe tomorrow...!! I think you can sometimes give yourself an unnecessarily hard time, though - you don't HAVE to blog every week, you can always revive an old one for Monday Blogs - so that might be answer for when there is no muse! I sometimes write 0 blog posts for 3 weeks, then 3 in one week - depends if I have anything to say or not.
Doesn't matter what Jodi Picoult or anyone else says, you just need to work out what feels right for YOU, I think. :)
Yes, Terry, I can tell your muse is always around from the speed with which you bring out your books. I also have four novels waiting to be written, but don't think they will come out as quickly as yours do. (Although they're certainly NOT going to take 7 years like Ice Rink did!) And I agree that reposting archived blog posts is acceptable if there's nothing else to say. I would love to be so well organised that I can schedule my posts, FB messages and tweets in advance - but haven't got there yet. Giving oneself a hard time is all part of the fun, isn't it? E x
DeleteHi Elizabeth, It varies - when I'm having a hard time I will put on music and dance it out or I will open up a book and read a sentence or two to inspire me, or I will use prompts. Of course that is if I am writing fiction or non-fiction, but if I am writing poetry I will often open a dictionary, pick a word at random and then write an acrostic. I do believe in my muse, connecting with her or getting out of the way so that I can get the words onto the page can be hard sometimes but oh how good it feels when I am connected.
ReplyDeleteHello Morgan; I have used the 'open a book, pick and sentence at random and write from there' method quite successfully with a couple of short stories. Not tried dancing it out; must give that a go at some point (when there's no-one else around). E x
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