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You make teeth juice!
…hm. No, no, that doesn’t sound right.
Let’s see if we can’t find better truth than “teeth juice,” delicious as a fizzy enamel beverage might sound. See, yesterday, my writing day was eaten by bears. Just gobbled right up. Nothing to be done about it — it was the kind of day that started early with an inspector coming over to stick a finger up the house’s bum and check its temperature, and then segued right into a great creative meeting in the afternoon, and so on.
I was able to admittedly get like, 500 words down — but that’s not exactly an impressive haul, not compared to a normal writing day. What to do, then? How to recoup and recover?
One: Lie Back And Think Of England
Suffering frustration over things you can’t change is about as productive as smashing your fingers with a ball peen hammer and then trying to play the piano. Nothing you can do is going to change the reality, not today, so suck it up and move on. Don’t poison your brain with undirected anger: no rage-a-holic behavior is going to save your writing day. As I sometimes say, it’s like yelling at the tides.
“Stupid tides! How dare you come in! And out! And in! And you’re… you’re wet. And stupid!”
*sob*
*punches self in crotch*
*falls over in sand*
*murdered by tiny crabs*
Two: Do Work
Writing isn’t always about writing.
It’s why my agent has noted she prefers the term “author” — writer sounds like you do one thing and one thing only, which as I’ve noted in the past (“Writers Don’t Do That“) is not true.
So, you’re out there like an unanchored boat in a crazy wind and you’re nowhere near your Magical Write-Machine, what do you do? Me, I took some notes on my iPhone on the current book, then had a meeting — and the meeting was all about present and future work, so that filled the space appropriately. What else could you do?
Take some voice notes, maybe.
Or, handle some administrative stuff: deposit checks, buy red pens, send out some contracts in the mail, all that other stuff that can easily get kicked in the teeth.
Make some phone calls.
Write some emails.
Something — anything — related to the work you’re doing is a) going to make you feel productive and b) stuff that probably needs to get done anyway.
Three: Keep Your Head In The Game
If you’re me (and Jeebus help you if you are), it’s easy to get your head tangled, twisted, easy to lose momentum on something by being away from it too long. Ensuring that doesn’t happen is, for me, straightforward enough: all you have to do is devote some brain time to the project at hand. Think about the story. The characters. Play the best game ever: the “What If?” game. Hell, before bed, punt your brain into the wonderland that is your story world. See where it goes, what it comes up with. Get excited and energized about the next day of writing, when you once again duct tape your body to the office chair and perform word voodoo once more.
Yes, that means –
Four: Get Your Non-Writing Ass Back To Writing, Writer
Kind of says it all, doesn’t it? Next day, write. You don’t have to over-write, you don’t have to make up for the day you lost — you just have to write some hot, fresh word count. Yesterday’s sins are forgotten as long as you feed the word beast today.
And that, my little scrumptious scrod-boats, is what I gotta do. I gotta go get a shovel and feed the mighty word beast. Did I miss anything? What do you do when you can’t make it a proper writing day?
About The Author
ChuckWendig
Chuck Wendig is equal parts novelist, screenwriter, and game designer. He is the author of the novels DOUBLE DEAD, BLACKBIRDS, and MOCKINGBIRD. In addition, he's got a metric boatload of writing-related e-books available, including the popular 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER. He currently lives in the wilds of Pennsyltucky with wife, dog, and newborn progeny.
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- AKA, #amwritingmotherfuckers.
- And now, back to my regularly-scheduled coffee-guzzling and manuscript-hammering.
- You are following @saladinahmed, right? (Oh, and if you want an excerpt of THRONE, io9 gotchoo covered: http://t.co/hyu1OnV0 )
- Last night I cracked open @saladinahmed's THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON thinking I'd read a few pages. Holy crap. So good. Go get.
- And we've got fellow Angry Robot author @chrisfholm giving some thoughts on multi-genre writing: http://t.co/JospPP1H
- Transmissions From Baby-Town: “Nine Months” February 22, 2012
- 25 Things I Want To Say To So-Called “Aspiring” Writers February 21, 2012
- Now Available: 500 More Ways To Be A Better Writer February 20, 2012
- Flash Fiction Challenge: Making A Sandwich February 17, 2012
- What’s The Poop, Wendig? February 16, 2012
11 Responses and Counting...
There are many, many days when I’m allotted the time to work with Number Three and ONLY with Number Three.
I have Post-Its in my brain right now that get shifted around like the little number puzzles.
Ahh, stopping for a day. It’s like the Delilah bitch with a pair of scissors, and the scissors is your self-esteem. If I stop for so much as a day, it could take me a week or two to get back on track. That’s why I am so hardcore about making sure my blog get written everyday now. That way I can take my weekends off and still keep momentum.
I always feel I need to make up for lost time, though. It’s just something about the way my brain is wired, I’ll try to punch out an extra thousand or, if I planned on planning (heh) that day, try to get some words down as well as whatever I was outlining. I’ve always been that way. If I missed a day of work or school, I would always double time it the next day or so until my cosmic balance equaled out again.
Mmmm … sweet number three. Not going to lie, I do that even when I’ve written for the day. Though I can’t write each and every single day. That’s a one way ticket to Burn Out City. Plus, it’s a pain in the ass to get any real work done with company over or the husband home. So I give myself the weekend to noodle around in my brain and give the old fingers a rest. Doesn’t seem to hurt things at all.
But that number three? State of being.
Once again, exactly what I needed to hear today. Last week sucked on the writing front. My time was sucked up by the “work that pays the bills” aka the day job, which also became the night job last week. I tend to get into the cycle of self-loathing when my writing day gets chewed up and swallowed.
Also, I have a stupid writing question I’d like to ask if you can spare a few minutes to answer. I’ll ask via email if you don’t mind. Don’t want my complete ignorance on display any more than necessary.
I try to keep my head in the game. The voice recorder on my iPhone is great. I’ll record some thoughts so that when I do finally sit down to work again I already have direction.
Keeping my head in the game has been tougher lately. I think I’m having nearing-the-end nerves or some bullshit like that. Whenever I’m brainstorming in the car/shower/wherever my thoughts keep wanting to jump to project #2.
I need a mental pimp slap.
@Michelle:
Yeah, the “HOLY CRAP NEW PROJECT” syndrome is an easy one to submit to. I’m better about it now, taking extra mental time to think about how much I want to finish what I have, but still, the mind wanders…
– c.
@Darren:
Ask away. No harm no foul.
– c.
@Kate:
If I didn’t write every day, I’d probably asplode.
– c.
I have to write something every day. A bit of a novel, a short fiction, a blog post, a blurb on a napkin, Warcraft backstory, anything.
I’m mostly a Number Two, though. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about it. I’m jotting notes. I’m reading other stuff that inspires me to write. I’m checking out how girls look in costumes similar to those I’ve got in mind for characters I’m writing.
Stuff like that.
I found that my biggest enemy was the sense of shame/embarrassment over having accomplished nothing. So when I catch myself being unproductive, I get up and do something totally different: wash the dishes, say, or mow the lawn. Then I feel I can sit back down to a clean slate. Not exactly Number Two as written above: I often feel like I’m just procrastinating when I do something related but not actually the task at hand, and it doesn’t help me feel productive.
Also, I try to always leave the working day at a cliffhanger, with one piece of obvious work left to do that I can just pick up the next day. Something easy or fun, something to help me slide into the work when I’m still groggy and hung over.
I can get into spirals of mis-work. Mis-work is when you’re working on the wrong thing. I do that. Right now, I should be working on one thing, but instead I’m doing this. I try to always be making progress on something, though, even if I’m not technically on the right road, at least I’m moving at speed.
But that’s more about self-inflicted non-working-ness. The solution, to me, when stuck out in the world when I should be writing is to outline in my Moleskine, make mental notes on voices and dialogue and environment, and stir up ideas into new story ideas, if I can. Some of my favorite work is the work I can only do away from the desk — the drawing in of material to put out later as writing. Or something.
Also, I like to whine and flail and get right on the verge of crying, and then punch stuff. Then I like to feel bad about not getting enough done. That part of the work, I’m great at. Really great at it.