Write just one sentence

This is really good when I’m having trouble getting started for the day or when I don’t know what’s next or when resistance has set in hard and I’ll do anything as long as it isn’t writing.

I promise myself “You just have to write one sentence. That’s it. You don’t have to stick with it, you don’t have to wrack your brains over this, just write one sentence and you’ve done your writing for the day, and you’re done, without feeling guilty about not writing.”
And then one of two things will happen.

I will write one sentence and I have done something. I have accomplished writing. I have one more sentence than I did when I woke up. I promise myself I will write one more sentence tomorrow and that’s it.

Or, I will write a lot more than one sentence because once I’m in front of the computer and I’ve broken the resistance by convincing myself I’m not going to do very much at all, it’s not worth resisting because I’m not really going to write, I’m just going to write one tiny little sentence, the inertia of writing takes over and I write. Because that one sentence spawns another sentence and another and before I know it I’ve written five sentences or one hundred sentences.

It’s a win-win situation because the writing advances one way or another.

Having a nemesis

Or

Comparisonitis

And Writer’s block

I don’t have a nemesis. I do have writer’s block regularly and I have a whole introductory post about why I want to post regularly about getting out of writer’s block, but I had a bad case of it this week and didn’t actually finish that introductory post. But here I am, writing, so I’m out of it again (tentatively), and I need to write about having a nemesis.

There’s this person. Let’s call them Pollyanna (why I don’t agree with Pollyanna’s bad reputation is another post, completely outside the scope of this one, and let’s stick with her reputation as someone who is unwarrantedly optimistic). Pollyanna is in one of the online author groups I’m in. They post a lot (I never post). They ask for advice (I’m so bad at asking for advice in public. One on one is ok.). They are very determined, or at least appear so (my determination wavers like my short-lived experiments with playing the violin).

Today, Pollyanna posted that they had found the answer. I had already answered this question, several months ago, and read Pollyanna’s book, which was available to purchase. I gave Pollyanna some additional unsolicited feedback (sometimes I can’t help myself. I don’t know if this is righteousness or an overdeveloped need to help other people.) to the effect that the question they were asking wasn’t their problem. Their problem was they needed to work on the craft of writing. (The writing was very bad. I know I’m a snob about writing, but really, it was. Very. Bad.)

Pollyanna did not listen to my advice. That’s ok, advice is like birdseed. Some actually gets eaten by birds and that’s great. Some gets eaten by squirrels and hey, that’s ok. Some dies (sorry, birdseed) and some grows into weeds (I don’t actually know if that’s true, don’t yell at me if birdseed doesn’t become weeds, I like the idea and I like weeds. No, I don’t have a lawn, but if I did it would be weeds so insects and butterflies could live in it.). Anyway, never mind about the birdseed. Back to today.

Lots of people were helpful and supportive in the online group. It’s a great group. Pollyanna answered some follow-up questions. I read them (masochism isn’t pretty). I learned that Pollyanna had published several more books (I haven’t) and was advertising them (I’m scared of advertising and have talked myself out of it until I have more books) and SELLING 1-5 of these terribly written books per day (I am not selling that many books a day). And I realized something. The difference between me and Pollyanna was that they were still going, full steam ahead, and I had gotten stuck. I hate being stuck.

I also kind of hate Pollyanna and their unwarranted optimism and confidence all out of proportion to their ability. And competitiveness (I am very competitive) and jealousy (I swear I’m not really a terrible person but being a writer means wearing your insides as your outsides and that’s why it’s so damn hard sometimes) and comparisonitis (I CAN do what Pollyanna is doing, I’m just not doing it and that’s why more people are reading their terrible books than are reading my wonderful books, I just have to write them) kicked me in the competition organ (I think mine is at the base of my throat), so, kicked me in the throat and here I am. Writing. Thank god and Pollyanna. My nemesis. Today.

 

I’m giving myself until Tuesday to write fiction because post-novel funk is a real thing and I’m going to Hong Kong this weekend for Melon 2019, Aliens on the Galactic Silk Road, and how COOL is that!? It’s also my first real writer’s event since I moved to Bangkok almost four years ago.

Because accountability is also important in fighting writer’s block, here are the other things that got me to this point today and that I will write about: morning pages, cognitive behavioral therapy tools, community, whining, acknowledging post-novel funk and inspirational index cards.

Writer’s Block or a Belated Road Trip Wednesday via YA Highway

I know I’m a little late to the party for YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday. The topic was How do you beat writer’s block? I scanned a lot of the responses, and then I had to think for a long time about why I disagreed with most of the posts.

So here goes:

Most of the bloggers weren’t, in my opinion, talking about writer’s block. When they responded that they go for a walk, listen to music, brainstorm with a writer friend or hope for inspiration in the shower, they were talking about the creative process. Specifically, the normal ups and downs of the creative process. For some reason (cultural, based on movies, dunno) we believe that writing (and the creative process in general) is this forward moving, smooth upward arc of progress. That’s progress, not process; process is full of fits and starts and backtracking and cutting 50,000 words because they went in the wrong direction or trashing the outline because it’s just not going to work.

But I got to tell you — that’s normal. That’s what the writing process is. Sometimes writing involves staring at a blank screen or a blank page for five hours and not writing a single thing. That’s still writing, not writer’s block. Sometimes writing involves staring into the air at nothing your friends and family can see. Sometimes it involves walking around the block. That’s all writing process, not writer’s block.

Writer’s block is like grief. It’s a dull heavy blanket over all your thoughts. It’s the feeling of dust in your soul, dry, powdery dust that doesn’t remember the touch of moisture, much less what it’s like to have green things grow in it.

Writer’s block is knowing that you once wrote, but you can’t now. It’s knowing that the words you wrote used to sparkle for you, maybe like a rough chunk of ore, but with a little nugget of something, that, once hacked at, cut and polished, will sparkle.

Writer’s block is wanting to write and having nothing. NOTHING. There’s no connection to the secret garden, fairyland, the place where dreams come from, or the girls in the basement, whatever you call that place that the words and ideas usually well out of. Writer’s block is wanting to write, knowing it will make you feel better and you still can’t.

Writer’s block, like grief, can only be healed by time and the persistent, coaxing hope that you will heal. The hope, no, the faith, that somewhere there is a trickle of water, of blessing, of dreams with your name on it and that someday it will come back to you.

There are things you can do to help time, but none of them on their own will help: taking care of yourself, however that translates for you; exercise; filling your cup with experiences that will one day feed your writing again; reading, if you can, or seeking out other forms of entertainment.

So if you’re in the midst of creative process, and need to brainstorm or sit back for a few minutes or days, that’s great! That’s normal and stuff is happening.

But if you’re in that other place, I’m sorry. It sucks like hell.