Day 10: What is the most important thing I should know about writing?
I only had to think for a few minutes this time, and then I remembered what happened a week or so ago. That was the terrible day I forced myself to open my "seaspear2.5" document for the first time in a while and sat staring blankly at it for a few moments. Tears came to my eyes as all plot structure and character plans flew my mind. I felt like everything was gone, and everything was terrible.
I minimized my document and fled upstairs, breathing hard (a little melodramatically), fearing I would lose all writing skill and knowing that I had to write something. I remembered some advice from a few favorite authors - when you don't know what to write, say so. I grabbed my notebook and a pen, and started scribbling. When I was finished, I felt a little better, having gotten almost a whole page of ranting out of my system.
Here's a small summary of that rant that I put as my Facebook status.
Ellyn Gibbs
is so mad at her book that she can hardly even manage to spit out its name. Why, why, why can't I WRITE? Why can't I love my characters like other authors do, much less feel somewhat attached to them? Why do I feel incompetent every single time I try to describe something on paper? I am in the DEPTHS OF DESPAIR.
I'm very thankful to my writing friend Sarah, who, after seeing this pitiful status, called me right up and gave me loads of encouragement to write. I promised her I'd work on "seaspear2.5" that night, and I did, even though it was late when after watching Tangled with the family. (Grailyn came out suspiciously like one Flynn Rider). After that, I kept steadily plugging on, day by day, and I think my writer's block is gone.
My point with this - and I'm sorry if you thought it was a pity party - is to tell you that if you want to be a writer, don't expect a walk in the park.
You ain't gonna get one.
During another instance, some old friends we hadn't seen in a while asked me a question about my writing process. I said, "Um....", thought for a moment, and then said, with a passion that I think they found amusing, "Don't ever become a writer. Just don't."
Being a writer is not an easy thing - think of the mood swings a hormonal teenager has and make them five times worse. (Okay, maybe only three times worse.)
When you don't have ideas, you may be frustrated to the point of tears, and when you do have ideas, they'll wake you up in the middle of the night. Your characters will refuse to change, refuse to say what you want them to say, refuse to fall in love with the right people, maybe even refuse to use the name you've chosen for them.
If all you want to do is write, you'll get nothing else done, resulting in bad grades, a messy house, unfinished jobs, et cetera. If all you want to do is avoid writing, your manuscript will suffer and you'll feel guilty all the time because you're ignoring your "baby."
One of my friends hit her computer during Nanowrimo, showing you how exasperating deadlines can be.
And, sometimes even when you have writer friends, you have to bear all these burdens alone.
Here's the bottom line: the most important thing you can know about writing is that writing is extremely hard.
My advice for storms in the writing process? Go do something like this.
Are you sitting there shellshocked? Or can you completely relate? Tell me your experiences with writing.
- Ellyn
