The past week or so has not been anywhere near my most productive writing-wise. By far the biggest problem has been a lack of mental energy/focus. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I spent Memorial Day weekend simultaneously trying to help run a medium-size convention (classic film, not science fiction) and trying to help an elderly relative deal with issues which temporarily forced this relative out of their home.
Combine that with the fact that I had post-convention duties which became more urgent than usual this year and our oldest child was in the midst of graduating from high school... Well, most nights recently when it's been "writing time" the clock has already rolled over past midnight and I've been feeling fried.
Nevertheless, I've been able to keep up my Daily Writing Chain and make bits of progress here and there. Some of those days it's been a bit challenging to get those 500 words. I've managed, though, through a combination of tactics.
For one thing, I've been willing to work with some story fragments. I have a work that was in progress before hitting this crunch time but rather than trying to get back into the proper frame of mind to keep it going I've gotten introductory portions written on two other stories. Has this been a good decision overall? I think so, because one of these is a story I'd been wanting to get started on and the other is one that I'm particularly excited about after coming up with the concept over Memorial Day weekend. But there's another side to this -- I don't really like having a lot of unfinished work around and I now sort of have three short story WIPs to deal with. It's going to require that I put a bit of extra focus into getting things back in order once I get to the point where I do have that mental focus back.
Another thing I've done is focus on doing some blog-post writing. Again, this lets me not have to try to get back into the mindset of an incomplete work and it also will have a future benefit since there will be days when I can simply pop in and make a post go live on the website and, for that day, have more time to work on my fiction writing.
It hasn't been easy and I may have some extra revising work ahead of me, but I'm glad that I've kept moving forward, getting some new fiction words down and buying myself some time in the future by having blog posts ready to go.
From talking with people on Twitter and other places, it seems like a lot of writers go through rough patches from time to time. How do you deal with them? Do you take a break? Or do you keeping pushing through? If so, what tactics do you use to keep from getting stuck in the rough patch?
Congratulations on making your Write1Sub1 goal for May. I have found that having this deadline really helps me get at least one story done and sub'ed each month.
ReplyDeleteWrite, edit, repeat.
Dave K
That's a lot to juggle! I usually try to write through the "rough patches" until life tells me pretty plainly that it wants me to take a break. Not that that's the best approach... ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by with comments, Dave and Nicole!
ReplyDeleteOnward and upward, sir -- and way to go on meeting your May W1S1 goals! Sometimes those "tactics" are the only things that keep fresh words flowing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Milo! I really am hopeful that things might hit an even-keel stride (to mix a couple of metaphors) here before long.
DeleteI like to write a little something every day, even through the chaos. If I don't write my brain gets itchy. So it's not a hardship, it's a necessity for me. If the work's scanty and/or feeble, I just celebrate the fact that it's better than nothing.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds about right. There's some days when I was tempted to let it slide but I think it would have bugged me afterwards. And maybe that's not 100% healthy, I dunno... But I've certainly done a lot of writing in the last nine months.
DeleteNice work, Michael--keep at it! And congrats on your May W1S1 goals. 8-)
ReplyDeleteMade your goal again. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Devin and L!
ReplyDeleteYou know I struggle with maintain a consistent writing schedule. What's been helping me is not being afraid to switch gears. I know myself well enough to know I finish the projects I start. It may take me a while, but I do finish. Still, if something's not flowing one day, jumping to a different (or new) project has kept the words flowing. And it's had the added benefit of preventing that "blocked" feeling. Onward!
ReplyDeleteKnowing yourself is a REALLY key part of so much of this. I seem to have a bit of a "hitch" in my performance where I can switch between things in the short term but if I let something sit too long it gets hard to want to go back to it. Granted, "too long" for me by definition so far is under a year. But I think I need to make a conscious effort to try and get back to some of those "old words" that might still be valuable.
DeleteGlad to hear that you're finding techniques that work for you!