Wow all this time I never knew there was a whole forum for this?

What should you do? You have 49 K words already?

Keep writing.

Also, just pick a scene that is vivid and fresh in your mind and start writing it. No need to proceed in scene order or whatever. Just pull out the scene that you want to write and go to town on it. Giving yourself permission to write crap is a huge gift to yourself as well. I have turned some pretty terrible crap into some acceptable mediocre garbage!

I never knew there was a forum for this too. Or maybe I did, but just never paid attention to the title.

If you're aiming for 80k words, then you're more than halfway there. Can you skip to another scene and write that? Or step away from it for a week or so, then go back and reread what you already have.

I was also surprised and relieved to find this forum when I did. It lets you know that beginners and old pros alike can still get hit with a bummer case of writer's block.

As for advice, I like the idea of just putting anything and everything on the page while you still have the motivation to write and worry about it later. After all, no one will see anything until you want them to!

Yes, keep going. One scene at a time. Stop thinking about it.

Try skipping around. Don't worry about writing your scenes/chapters sequentially. And yes, first and foremost, don't be afraid to write utter crap. Just let go.

Maybe try letting go of the plan and just write. "Big and fabulous" plans can intimidate us right out of writing. Reread what you've already written to get a sense of where the story needs to go next, and then let it take you there, even if it doesn't agree with your preconceived ideas.

gingerwoman said:

I want to write all the other books that are in the back of my head instead of continue with this one, but I won't let myself although Tymber Dalton said in her writing book that she stops and writes other books when she has writer's block on one, but i just don't know if I can do that. I feel like I have to force myself to push on and finish what I start.

Click to expand...

I also vote to always finish what you start. Taking a break for a few short stories to relieve the pressure of the other topics is OK, but finishing the long project is very important.

You mention being intimidated with grandiose scenes, Ginger, I too twisted plots into knots in my early books, in order to evade writing scenes I did not feel I could handle. I was freed from this, for some reason, by Graham Masterton's Wells of Hell and Night Warriors. You too, I suggest, should go over a pile of books dealing with vaguely similar scenes or events, until you find the writer who shows you how exactly it is doable. What scenes are these, anyway?

KerriFF said:

Try skipping around. Don't worry about writing your scenes/chapters sequentially.

Click to expand...

I've always been skeptical of this advice. How will your characters grow if you're writing their lives in random order?


btw, I'm glad this forum has been promoted one level. People were always missing it.

Quinn_Inuit said:

I've always been skeptical of this advice. How will your characters grow if you're writing their lives in random order?

Click to expand...

They won't grow at all if you can't finish the book - so you do what you need to do to finish it. Then you edit it.

onesecondglance said:

They won't grow at all if you can't finish the book - so you do what you need to do to finish it. Then you edit it.

Click to expand...

This. Once the skeleton is in place, you can add the flesh and mold it to suit your purposes. Character growth is largely a question of nuances of behavior, and the way you manipulate them to fit the existing scenes is the way they shape up. If you're an outlines writer. If you write without an outline: I have no idea.

Quinn_Inuit said:

I've always been skeptical of this advice. How will your characters grow if you're writing their lives in random order?

Click to expand...

onesecondglance said:

They won't grow at all if you can't finish the book - so you do what you need to do to finish it. Then you edit it.

Click to expand...

dondomat said:

This. Once the skeleton is in place, you can add the flesh and mold it to suit your purposes. Character growth is largely a question of nuances of behavior, and the way you manipulate them to fit the existing scenes is the way they shape up. If you're an outlines writer. If you write without an outline: I have no idea.

Click to expand...

I suspect this largely depends on what type of writer you are. As you say, outline or not.

I don't use an outline and I rather let the plot and characters develop as I write them. The few times I tried the writing-out-of-order technique, I ended up deleting more than half my out-of-order scenes because the story had gone in a completely different direction. And that was after months of trying to force the scenes into some sort of coherent story. By the time I was done my graveyard was larger than the actual WIP. And the story is still crap.

So sure, try skipping scenes and see if it works for you. But it's only one method and it doesn't work for everyone.

Drink a Red Bull. It'll give you wings.

No seriously. I'm completely serious. I don't typically drink the stuff, but if it's the weekend and I really want to get work done, I'll drink one. JUST ONE. No need to drink anymore. In fact, half will do. Then write. It's a last ditch solution to procrastination which is typically the true cause of most writer's block.

If you find it very hard and very slow, then you're actually doing it. Congratulate yourself.

I like what Maryn wrote. Give yourself permission to write some really bad stuff. There is no law -- federal, state, local, or natural -- against rewriting or throwing the crap out later.

John McPhee had an article in the New Yorker recently about writing and rewriting. I was very cheered by it, considering how good he is. Essentially, it boils down to this: the first draft takes forever and more pain than root canal surgery. He finds the second, third, and fourth drafts all much easier, and they go much faster.

Amen. Based on my own experience (well over six thousand paid published news articles, speeches, a couple of print reference books, four e-books, and also quite a bit of very difficult writing -- direct mail solicitations getting people to send money (it makes fiction seem easy) -- I have this thought about rewriting: either like it enough to do two or three or more rewrites, or find other work.

gingerwoman said:

I am progressing at a snail's pace, I have everything plotted out, the characters pretty well developed, I know all the scenes that are supposed to happen, but in my mind it's so big and fabulous, but making it happen on the page is another thing entirely. I feel intimidated by my ideas, and how to make them manifest. I have 49,000 words so far.
What should I do?

Click to expand...

Don't feel bad, it happens to me all the time. I have these really great ideas in my head and they just don't come out on paper right. It always takes me forever to get a scene done. But I am obsessed with quality. I won't let something go unless it sounds good.

Little Ming said:

So sure, try skipping scenes and see if it works for you. But it's only one method and it doesn't work for everyone.

Click to expand...

Agreed, but the important thing is to try. It's all to easy to get blocked, and to feel like it's impossible to get going again because alternative techniques sound like they won't work for you. And they might not - but simply trying something different might be what it takes to get unblocked.

There is no one method that is the absolute way. You do what it takes to finish the story.