I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about my writing process recently, and have come to think of it as a giant puzzle that I need to put together—say, a thousand pieces or so—without benefit of a picture to see what the finished puzzle should look like.
The process is, in short, a frustrating mystery to me, something designed to make me want to occasionally pull my hair out by the roots.
But there is one thing I’ve figured out: I always have a tiny moment of panic when I’m two-thirds of the way through the book. A moment of wondering, what the hell happens now? I think it has something to do with being within striking distance of the end of the book and wondering about all those loose ends that still need to be tied. All those elements that I threw into the book, thinking that they’d lead somewhere and I’d figure it out later, when the lightning bolt of inspiration finally struck me. Only later is now here and I still haven’t figured it out. Two-thirds of the way through is when I start thinking about word count and all the things that still need to be crammed into, say, a hundred pages.
Two-thirds is when I ask myself what I was thinking with this book. Why did I think this book about these people was such a great idea? The synopsis is no help, because of course the synopsis, as I’ve already discussed, is a patchwork of cobbled-together ideas that lead nowhere helpful.
Two-thirds of the way is where I get hopelessly, frustratingly, maddeningly STUCK.
If you’re wondering why I’m whining about this now, I’ll tell you. It’s because I’m two-thirds of the way through my February, 2009 book, A Friendly Love Affair, and I am … wait for it … stuck. Like a saber-tooth tiger in a tar pit. Like a fly in a Venus fly trap. Like a bear with a paw in a trap.
STUCK, I tell you. Stuck, stuck, STUCK.
The good thing is that, having been through this so-called process several times before, I know that being stuck right now is normal for me. I will get myself un-stuck. I’ve done it before and will do it this time, even if I can’t, at this very moment, see HOW.
Somehow, I’ll get it done. But until then I’m … yeah, well, I’m just stuck.
I’ve only ever been truly stuck once. I couldn’t seem to start my August 2008 release, HIS WICKED SINS. Oh, I got the first few chapters done, but then nada. Zip. I couldn’t move forward. Then the amazing Caroline Linden told me to figure out who my hero was. So I did. I figured out exactly who he was. What he wanted. What had shaped him and made him into the man he had become. And suddenly, the writing just flew.
by Eve Silver / Eve Kenin March 5th, 2008 at 12:07 pmMy strategy for getting back a sticking point is to just skip it. Jump ahead and write something that happens somewhere else. If it happens later in the book, sometimes you’ll accidentally hand yourself the answer to your sticking point. If it’s earlier…well, same thing, because you may realize that sticking point is the problem: that scene shouldn’t be there, or should be told from a different point of view, or is in the wrong place, or something.
Hope you get hit by lightening soon!
by Caroline March 5th, 2008 at 12:24 pmEve, don’t tell Caroline I said so, but she periodically has good advice.
Caroline, I think that POV thing is often one of my issues. I switch POV and–boom!–problem solved.
Also, sometimes it helps to just do something else. Driving, washing dishes, showering, any mindless task seems to help. And once the ideas trickle through, things start to flow again.
Sometimes, that is.
by ann March 5th, 2008 at 1:36 pmI can’t believe you thought of washing the dishes. Don’t you have any games on your computer?
by Caroline March 6th, 2008 at 12:39 pmNo way, Caroline. I have enough bad habits already without adding Wasting Time on Computer Games to the list, thank you very much.
by ann March 6th, 2008 at 5:06 pmStuck sucks. Get out of it now!
At least you’ve discovered it’s a part of your pattern. I have yet to figure out what my pattern is exactly. Now that is scary.
Good luck!
by Farrah Rochon March 7th, 2008 at 9:24 amCall it the Two-Thirds process…If I take a week away from writing, I’m like what was I thinking and I sometimes erase the previous things I wrote and start over. I’m trying to get out of that habit.
by Shelia March 7th, 2008 at 10:33 amFarrah, as soon as you figure out your pattern, it’ll change. You know that, don’t you?
Shelia, the key, I think, is not to take so much time off. Like THAT’S possible in the real world, right? *SNORT!*
But seriously, in ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT, Stephen King says don’t stop once you start a book or, at the VERY most, only take weekends off. Otherwise the characters and their little problems and adventures lose all their urgency.
Like Somerset Maugham says: “There are three rules to writing a book, but no one knows what they are.”
by ann March 7th, 2008 at 10:41 am