when you're just not feeling it?

[laura]

What do you do when you're just not feeling it?

I'm not under any real deadlines here. That is the luxury of being a not-yet-published author. But I try to take my work seriously. You know, put yourself in a professional mindset, and professional results will come of it.

This week, I had some goals I wanted to accomplish. 1.) Finish a chapter of my novel. 2.) Update for LH. 3.) A blog entry on LSB for my blog.

Monday and Tuesday I was fine, and actually got a crapload of work done. Then Wednesday, I kind of took a break. Maybe I shouldn't have broken the flow, because it's only been downhill from there. Thursday hubby stayed home from work, and that was not productive, lol! And now it's Friday, and my brain is asleep. My brain is not showing up to the party! This morning, D asked me how to spell "tortoise" to write on a picture he drew, and I drew a blank. T-O-R-T... Yes, that was me, blank on "T". I feel SO very unwriterly right now that I don't even feel like writing the filler for a picspam update on Bella's new house. Yes, it's that bad.

But it's not the work in itself. My chapter is both charming and full of humor, rich with vivid images. My LH update is intense and important, and I actually can't wait to share it! This LSB review for my blog is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. Even Bella's picspam update - it's a cute house! I have a lot of good bulk to work with, and most of it just needs a polish. But I just don't have polish in me right now. Not this morning. I'm not exactly worried it won't come back again - sure it will! But when? Saturday? Sunday? Maybe next Tuesday?

I'm just worrying ahead, and my fear is this - my hope is that some day, I will have real and actual deadlines. What do I do then if I'm just not feeling it? What do I do then if I have pages due to my editor or agent by Friday and my brain is just not showing up to the party?

I'm trying to remember what I would do back in uni when I had an assignment due. I'd probably just toss something passable together and submit it anyway. Is that what I should do here? Stick to my deadlines even if the work is just passable?

Should I indulge the break? Do some laundry or dishes? Read a book? Go for a walk? Do some grocery shopping? Take some pictures of my Sims, and make some WALLPAPERS???

I'm thinking that indulging my whims here, for the third day in a row, is probably not the answer. Real people who do real work cannot just skip a deadline because they're not feeling it. So how do you put your brain back together and slug through?

[celebkiriedhel]

I can't tell you how I make my brain behave... because it doesn't.



I can tell you how my Creative Writer told us to get our brains to behave. Feel free to use it or ignore it!

When you need to do some work, but you're just not feeling it.

---

Write for 10 minutes whatever comes into your head, whatever the flow and however negative it is. Just write it. Even if it is 'I can't think of anything I want to write, and this is just stupid'.

To quote the handbook: Begin writing. Keep the pen moving, capture first thoughts and let yourself write junk. Do three pages or write for 10 minutes.

Our teacher usually started us off with a quote about writing, and then off we went. I wrote some truly atrocious trash and often pure gibberish. But to be fair, after that set of writing, my mind was in a better place for writing something more solid and real.

I think the question to write about for 10 minutes is 'Why don't you feel it?' or 'what is stopping you from writing?'

Some writing quotes:

'Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognise them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there."
--Henry Miller

'It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.'
-- Gerald Brennan

'The power and resources of our intuition, imagination and unconscious are greater than the rational mind can imagine.'
-- Robert Burns

'To make you see, to make you feel; that is all and that is everything.'
-- Joseph Conrad

'Writing, like life, is a journey.'
-- Henry Miller

'The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. Each one has crossed a border that I have circumvented... beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about.'
-- Milan Kundera

---

[Stacy]

I've been meaning to get started on 10.08 for a while now, but I keep having epiphanies and writing blog and forum posts instead. But that's cool, and I know that when I do get to 10.08 (hopefully starting tonight) it'll be the better for it.

I do think that breaks are good and cool, and while you're doing something else your story is percolating in your subconscious. If You Want to Write is becoming my bible now, lol - and in it Brenda Ueland makes the point that you have to be idle for a while for the ideas to come, and then you work.

But there is a balance, and she makes that distinction - between idleness that is productive and imaginative and non-productive idleness that never leads to activity and work.

But that's just general break not feeling it type stuff and doesn't have to do with deadlines.

I think, with deadlines - in high school I'd generally write an assignment the night before it was due. Or on the bus in the morning. Or if it was for third or fourth period, during first or second period. LOL.

Like for the big research paper in AP English senior year - the teacher kept pushing the due date back and back until finally it was due after the semester, and still I did the whole thing the night before. And of course I got a good grade - always did.

Of course, the resulting complete lack of study habits probably had something to do with how I didn't make it at college.

And trying to remember how I did that - I think I just said "Okay, I have to turn this in." and did it. It wasn't always the best possible work I was capable of, but sometimes I'd get inspired.

And I did try to hold myself to a schedule with Valley - for the most part I tried for at least one update a week. And...I'm not sure if that's the best example, because I was "feeling it" the whole eight months there. But that didn't mean that it always came easily and quickly.

I'd say "I'm working on my story now" and sit here and think and read over it and take pics and type stuff until I had something.

I don't know - if your goal is to meet deadlines, then I think it's okay to meet them even if the work is just passable. Passable is good. It gets something out there in the world, and something is better than nothing.

Oh, and everything Kiri said. And OMG, I love that Henry Miller quote!!!

[raquelaroden]

I'm wondering if it's the habit-forming practice that is the important part of preparing yourself to do the "real" work--rather than actually generating lots of work.

I always liked this description of Janet Evanovich's work day:

Janet, what is your work day really like?
I drag myself out of bed around six, shove myself into the clothes laying on the floor and plod down the road after the dog. I eat a boring breakfast of skim milk, orange juice and healthy cereal because when I wake up I always think I'm Christie Brinkley and it seems like something Christie would do. Then I shuffle into the office I share with a really rude parrot. The dog follows after me and flops onto his bed to take a nap. (Next time around I want to be my dog.) I stare at the computer screen for about four hours, sometimes actually typing some sentences. I chew gum and drink green tea to keep myself from falling out of my chair in a catatonic stupor. At noon I'm suddenly filled with energy and rush to the refrigerator, hoping a pineapple upside-down cake with lots of whipped cream has mysteriously appeared. Finding none, I make a tuna or peanut butter and olive sandwich. I go back to my office and visualize myself getting exercise. I play an amazing game of mental tennis. In my mind's eye I look great in the little tennis dress. Very athletic. When I'm done playing tennis I stare at the computer screen some more. When nothing appears on the screen I drive down to the local store and buy a bag of Cheez Doodles. I eat the Cheez Doodles and manage to actually write several pages. When I'm done with the Doodles and pages I wander out of my office looking for someone to whine at because I just made myself fat. (I'm only Christie Brinkley in the morning. In the afternoon I'm Roseanne.) I alternate typing and whining for the rest of the afternoon until about five when I emerge from my office, once again hoping for the pineapple cake.

(Taken from the FAQs section of Janet Evanovich's website.

[laura]

Kiri, oh, yes, good question! What's stopping me? Why don't I feel like it? Is "Because I'm lazy" a good enough answer? lol! But no, really, I'm not lazy. It's like a bad hair day maybe - does my hair really look bad, or is that just in my mind?

Thank you for those quotes!

Stacy, what is my goal? To finish this thing, yes. I finished only three chapters in the whole summer (and that's if you're counting chapters 4 and 4.5 as separate chapters). At that rate, this novel might be finished before I'm 40, lol!

I have it in me to work faster than that. I understand the breaks, and I do often schedule myself breaks. And I totally do agree about the story writing itself even when I'm not sitting down in front of my computer. But this is something different I think. This is avoidance more than being burnt out. This is me, putting off my work because it's not easy, and I do this too much. I like it when things are easy. Laura = pleasure Sim. And because second-drafting is the least fun phase of novel writing! First draft is all fun and discovery, just writing and not worrying about it being crap. Third draft is all play with language and phrasing, and polish, and making things pretty. Second draft is work, chopping and re-writing and filling and slugging through. It's got to be done though. Maybe other people love second-drafting, but I don't - it's the place I'm most likely to procrastinate.

But it has to get done. You can't get to the third draft without slugging through the second. (Unless somebody knows a secret I don't know? Can't we just skip over it? lol!)

I was a lot like you in school too, writing stuff the night before. Deadlines are a great motivator for me, because if I don't have to do it, I likely won't. I'm trying other motivation techniques too, like rewarding myself with a shiny new computer when I finish this draft. And like telling myself I'm not allowed to work on LH until my chapter is done. For the most part, that's kind of working. It's too vague and far off though. I think I need a reward after every chapter, lol!

Rachel, lol! That's great! Yet somehow, as she "just stares" at her computer screen, she manages to fill dozens of books! She's doing more than staring, I imagine

Thanks for talking me through this guys! My coffee is kicking in now - better take advantage of it! Off to work!

[raquelaroden]

It's the Cheez Doodles! Janet can't write until after the Cheez Doodles.

[celebkiriedhel]

"Is "Because I'm lazy" a good enough answer?"

I really can't believe that of you Laura. You've managed to update LH while writing a book. That takes a lot of determination and work ethic. I think it's more likely like a bad hair day. But only you will know what it is for certain.

[simslia]

Maybe its because I'm blessed with a lot of people around me in the same position, but I find merely holding a conversation about my story and where I'm stuck/the fact that I'm stuck and why I'm stuck is inspirational.

Sometimes switching mediums helps. I'll draw a picture of what I want to portray (and I am not a good drawer.. this is really just stick figures.. sometimes with really big eyes if they are looking intensely at each other... or if its a location in my novel I'll try to describe it to myself and get a friend to draw it out).

You have to have that person in your life though who will just shut up and not offer opinion or critique as you talk it out. My fiancee is not one to shut up and will offer his (usually unwanted at that moment) opinion.

My brothers however are all very supportive and the quiet ones (three of six) usually listen and don't say anything till I'm done. And then, its usually a "You just needed to talk it out Lia... you don't need my help" and they're usually right.

Thats what I do when I'm stuck with anything.

[laura]

Or fake it 'till you make it? lol! Okay, I just finished a scene!

Definitely a bad-hair day kind of thing. I was just staring at it, staring at it, rearranging some words, and blah, blah, blah, and then I wrote: "The light flickered against the far concrete wall, which was covered in graffiti and scattered black mold." And I'm like, oh hey! Black mold! And then it all poured out from there, like opening flood gates, lol!

When in doubt, throw in some black mold!

That's the thing though, I think. Sometimes you just need that one right detail to make a piece come alive. And before you find it, the writing just lays there like a dead lump.

Thanks Kiri, I know I'm probably not entirely lazy... all of the time, lol!

Lia, my husband is the same way, lol! Only good for talking to when I want an opinion back

[Stacy]

Oct 1, 2010 12:24:54 GMT -5 @laura said:

Or fake it 'till you make it? lol! Okay, I just finished a scene!

Definitely a bad-hair day kind of thing. I was just staring at it, staring at it, rearranging some words, and blah, blah, blah, and then I wrote: "The light flickered against the far concrete wall, which was covered in graffiti and scattered black mold." And I'm like, oh hey! Black mold! And then it all poured out from there, like opening flood gates, lol!

When in doubt, throw in some black mold!

That's the thing though, I think. Sometimes you just need that one right detail to make a piece come alive. And before you find it, the writing just lays there like a dead lump.

Thanks Kiri, I know I'm probably not entirely lazy... all of the time, lol!

Lia, my husband is the same way, lol! Only good for talking to when I want an opinion back

Yay! And I like that sentence - sounds like our characters are in similar places at the moment, lol.

Glad you figured it out and got going - I agree with Lia, talking it out can really help.

[celebkiriedhel]

Oh yay! Glad you were able to find the black mold!

Also that is a great sentence, I agree with Stacey

[laura]

LOL, thanks! I already edited it: the light... the far concrete wall. Two times "the" and too close together. Had to lose one, so now it's: "Light flickered against the far concrete wall, which was covered in graffiti and scattered black mold."

Now the "which was covered" is kind of picking at me - passive voice, and awkward at that

Oh hell, it's just the second draft, lol!

The chapter is happily finished now, and I'm moving forward!

[celebkiriedhel]

I love how the iterations of editing turn a sentence into something elegant and full of music.

[heredoncove]

I take a break with exhibit A being the fact that I haven't updated HC since August. It's something hard for me to do believe it or not because I start to feel guilty and like I'm not living up to my full potential which really makes no sense because this whole thing is suppose to be fun.

Sometimes the break is what I need to get my brain screwed back into the creative process. I was really stuck with the next update. I had the same 500 words that I couldn't manage to get past despite knowing what I wanted to say so the break evolved because I knew that if I didn't walk my computer would fly. The break helped a lot. I managed to re order the update in a way that makes it flow much better and plotted out the next 5 updates after that.

I think frivolous days can be beneficial even if it simply gives you more experiences to draw inspiration from.