Of Daily Desperation (and Doing Diddly-Squat) August 13, 2007
Posted by Jen in : Journal, Novel , trackbackOh my Good Lord. I’m having what could be referred to as One Of Them There Bad Days.
I got up at 5.30 to write. But the words were stuck. Completely and utterly stuck. I tried squirting them with WD40 but that didn’t help at all. That crescendo of agony is building, that feeling of having the answer on the tip of your tongue.
“Yes, yes, I know who you mean. Yes, the one with the freckle and one arm shorter than the other who bonked the piano teacher who lived in the house with the wonky chimney. Yes, I know, oh God, what-the-buggering-hell-is their-name?”
Erm, yeah, that kind of feeling. But, when words are stuck on one’s tongue, they tend to fall out eventually through a process of either logical convolution or alcoholic jollity. “Mark, Matthew, yes it definitely begins with an ‘M’… um… Martin… GOT IT! Captain Putridini.” Thank God. The torture is over.
But it doesn’t quite work that way with writing words. My fingers are paralysed. I sit here, for hours, trying to force the words out. They’re all in there, crammed in tightly up to my elbows. I can feel them, I know what they will look like when they finally burst out. But, really, tearing my own toenails out with a pair of rusty pliers would be easier today.
The new Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is running a blog competition ‘for anyone who blogs, or who would like to blog, about their writing experiences…’ I somehow doubt that these are the experiences they were hoping for. Oh dear. Where did I put the WD40?
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Awww, bless.
I ate getting stuck.
No, I mean I hate getting stuck.
I ate a huge ice-cream with half a pound of grapes (but that’s a different story).
My tools for freeing words (and we’ve all got our own tools for this) are a couple of descriptive exercises.
Write a book review; make it pithy, pointed and professional (ah, alliteration be my friend).
Write a short story based on the lyrics of the next pop song you hear using lots of descriptive narrative.
These tools might not work for you but I bring them to your doorstep and leave them there, as if I’m a stray cat bringing you the liver and spleen of a mouse I wrestled in to submission - as a sign of empathy - because I know where you’re coming from.
oh honey.
And if it happens again, I suggest you do a headstand/handstand against the wall. It really works.
We all have them … although I was unaware that every day had a 5:30am …
Tomorrow is a new day. A new writing experience
It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.
We so love to be writers.
x
Yikes, that sounds sore! I get the whole stuck words thing, of course, I’m not writing a book and I’ve got a 4 year old happy enough to finish my sentences for me …
… you can borrow him if you like!!?!
oh! I’ve been lurking for a wee while, nice blog
I’ve been having one of those weeks - pass the WD40! Does it work? If not, perhaps I’ll try that wine or a g&t. Gah! Good luck finding the words, I know mine are hiding somewhere…
I think I may try alcohol this time. It seems to be doing the trick for you.
I’ve never ‘tried to find the word’ since the last time I did it: “It’s two syllables, and starts with an M” I say to my friend The Archivist. He starts to search through his CD drawers at M, calling out names, to which I reply “No. no. no.” “Okay”, he says,”we have to start at A”. “No, it definitely starts with an M, and it’s one word, two syllables.”
What was it? Counting Crows.
Ignore it and it usually comes in the end.
Brennig, you are quite right. Or write. Something. Anyway, yes, I should have just got on and written something else. It was just so much easier to bang my Bic on the table, pronounce myself utterly useless and give up altogether. Thanks for the mouse guts.
Caroline, I have some sort of dodgy Pavlov’s dog thing going on - as soon as I open my eyes, I have to trundle downstairs to write. Sigh. Will try the headstand but, I must tell you, I will be keeping your comment in case the men in white coats happen to appear during headstanding sessions. ‘It was Caroline who told me to do it, the other voices in my are quiet now, honest…’
Alasdair: Your 4 year old could probably do a better job than I was yesterday. I have an 11 year old who only talks about football and making money and teen who grunts. Fancy swapping? (Oh, I’ve lurked on your blog too, frequently!! We are like shy teenagers at our first school disco!!)
Angie: Wine and/or G&T usually does the trick, I must confess. Sadly, however, I’m on a boring diet. All this sitting about not-writing is rather arse-enlarging. Sigh.
Hey ho. As Caroline says, today is another day…
Hmmm, JJ, boozing is all well and good if one writes at a decent hour rather than 5.30am! Not quite sure what my darlings will think when they discover me standing on my head at 6am clutching a large brandy!! The brain’s a bugger, isn’t it? Let’s hope we both have better days today xxx
Hand on heart, I’ve never had block. I think this might be because when I’m feeling a bit stymied I put a marker in the text to indicate where I started feeling like that, and then I proceed to write absolute crap and not worry about it until the feeling passes. The following day, I read over the crap, delete it, and start over - usually there was something worth saving.
Freewriting does it for me. Ten minutes on something relevant to the novel - at the moment I’m using it for descriptions of minor characters, something I’m not good at otherwise, and I have LOADS of minor characters so that’ll keep me going for a while. But it can be about getting to know a character, their history, their hang-ups, whatever, or about a setting, or the relationship between two characters, or… anything you can think of. The deal is that you don’t censor or edit and you don’t stop writing. You start with the character’s name and go on from there, if you get stuck you just write about being stuck for a bit but try to keep it on the character as much as possible. When I do this I find that (a) it sorts out my writer’s stuckness and (b) I end up with a couple of useful sentences for the novel, which may not seem like a lot for 10 mins work but it’s more than I get by staring out of the window, surfing the net, playing Solitaire etc etc etc. Might be worth a try?
Hedgewizard: I don’t think I really have writer’s block either, it’s just that grotty ‘eurgh’ feeling. I’m the same when contemplating most things that need to be done - practising for a concert, writing an essay. I am an incurable putter-offer and it must cease forthwith! I’ve also adopted the Jane Wenham-Jones recommended method of just writing in very big caps AND THEN SOMETHING ELSE VERY INTERESTING WILL HAPPEN HERE before moving on to the next bit without worrying.
Zinnia: You’re right… sometimes writing something else, whether related or not, oils the creative cogs enough to push on. I like your idea of doing novel-connected freewriting, I hadn’t thought of that! Staring out of the window? Surfing? Oh, you must have a secret camera trained on my naughtiness
Thanks for the tip, I am going to take the morning off (dentist and M&S foodie rewards) before starting afresh this afternoon.
Thanks for all the tips and empathy X
Hey Jen, hope it is going better for you today? I’ve just written an article and sent it off, my first one - eek. Now I need to start something else but seem to be procrastinating… I love Zinnia’s tips about freewriting. I’m going to try that next time I’m staring morosely at the computer screen (like now!)
Wow, that’s brilliant Helen, well done! I’m really quite proud of you!! I’m just about to get stuck in - having a glass of wine to take the ‘I can’t do it’ pressure off and plan to just write. I think I’ve been too hung up on increasing the word count rather than writing whatever needs to be written. I really should take a leaf out of your book and write the articles and short stories that are nagging at me.
I don’t know what has happened to me lately but I seem to be in a postive frame of mind. Whether it is because of the Trashionista review that has bolstered my confidence, I don’t know - but I am really enjoying it. Don’t put lots of pressure on yourself, just because you have given up work to do this. I put pressure on myself as I needed to write to justify putting my son in nursery 3 mornings a week. But now I’ve taken this pressure off the writing is coming out. Now whether it is good writing, is of course, a different matter!
…am no longer positive. Article been rejected. Just like that. Gutted….
Still, onwards and upwards I guess. Bah!
Oh, what? Bloody Nora. And other swear words far too vile to type on here.
Jen try a walk or the lovely twenty minute timer…….