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Writing Process: Writer’s Block

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Writer’s block sucks.

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More organized than my words lately.

I’ve been suffering from it for well over a week. While many are participating in NaNoWriMo (yes, auto correct, that’s the word I want), I’ve been trying to plod along at my 1,000 words a day. This will result in a first draft completed by the end of November.

As is my usual M.O., I was ahead on my word count. I hate waiting until the last minute for deadlines, and it’s no different with my writing.

Then came family birthdays. Halloween. My never-ending kitchen which probably won’t be done by Christmas.

That is before you take into consideration this is the busiest time of year at work. I’m going in early and working through lunch, and I still have to bring things home at night.

I am literally writing this post as I wait outside my daughter’s dance class.

So, yeah, time is tight.

But it’s more than that.

Normally the characters are dancing in my brain. Invading my commute. Singing to me in the shower.

They’ve gone silent.

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Maybe because I wasn’t listening to them. Who wants to shout at a wall?

Or maybe there is something wrong with the story. Maybe I backed my characters into a corner and I’m playing Barbies with them rather than writing a coherent novel.

Or perhaps it’s this pesky plotting business, and my characters just don’t want to do what’s supposed to happen next. Always possible probable.

It’s possible figuring out the underlying cause of my writer’s block will help me beat it, but it might not won’t.

I need to work through it. Close my eyes, give up my pre-conceived ideas of what was going to happen next, and let the characters talk to me. Let them lead me on their journey.

Looks like I’m a pantser no matter how hard I try to be otherwise.

 

NaNoWriMo 2018

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I will not be doing NaNoWriMo. I know. Blaspheme.

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And any love from your family.

For those who may not be familiar with this, November in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). As part of the celebration, authors join together and attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

No, 50,000 words is not a full novel. Romance novels tend to be around 70,000-85,000 words.

But 50,000 words is A LOT for one month. A LOT. It’s almost 1,700 words a day.

Yeah, a lot.

Many people will tell authors that they *must* participate. That it shows them the pace of a true writer.

Yeah, no. Every writer is different. Every writer’s process is different.

For me, rough drafts are a tiny fraction of the work of creating a finished novel.

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To Love a Prince took me fourteen drafts. Yeah, Fourteen. After I discarded two different false starts.

Seducing the Ice Queen was ten drafts. Better, but still a lot more revising that drafting.

And while I still need to figure out how to shrink those number of drafts further and still have a product I am proud of, participating in NaNoWriMo will not get me there.

What it will do is make me stress even more, steal some of the joy of writing from me, and make my family hate my writing.

The after NaNoWriMo, I am still dealing with the unpleasant side effects while trying to get from 50,000 words to the 75,000+ words of a finished romance novel.

It also does nothing to conquer the editing process.

I’m going to posit that following NaNoWriMo might actually make my editing process more intense as I struggle to get the 1,700 words on the page rather than 1,700 words that make some sort of sense.

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Yes, most first drafts are dumpster fires. But there’s dumpster fires and then there’s industrial dumpster fires.

None of this means NaNoWriMo doesn’t work for other authors.

Whatever works for each writer is a valid form of writing, even if it means typing while standing on their head, or whatever else they may do.

Some authors swear by working at cafes. Or libraries. Or rainbow fields surrounded by unicorns.

I prefer sitting at my old computer desk or curled up in the recliner with my laptop. I like music but I don’t need it. I prefer my lap to be cat-free, but that isn’t always possible.

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Yeah, he’s cute. Until you want him to move.

I like to write when the kids aren’t awake, but again, not always possible. Sometimes I write on my lunch hour. Sometimes while my daughter is in dance class. I have toyed with the idea of dictation software so I can write in the car.

This is what works for me.

That new story I told you about? I’m over 40k words into it. I am hoping to have this first draft completed by the end of November. Then, it’s back to edits for Knight for Valor.

Writing Process: Seducing the Ice Queen

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Many of you said you were interested in learning more about my writing process, so I thought I’d share a little bit about my journey for writing Seducing the Ice Queen. If you’ve read To Love a Prince,  you’ve heard about Lady Daniella Spencer, Prince Eli’s jilted fiancée.

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I had originally started writing To Love a Prince as Daniella’s story, and Prince Eli was supposed to be the villain in it.

Then he started developing as a character. He revealed some of the events in his life that shaped him into the person he was. And how hard that person would fight to be king. Not for the power, but because he wouldn’t see the kingdom his mother died for torn apart by civil war.

Yeah, he still wasn’t entirely good, but he was interesting. And that led to me writing To Love a Prince as it is today.

But Daniella was not treated well in that book. She still needed her story, even if it was a different story than the one I’d originally planned. You’ve read about some of my issues with this story, but in the end, I feel like I’ve been true to characters.

I allowed myself to go where the characters took me. And yes, it was messy. Yes, it took nine revisions before I finally accepted I had to let go and release it into the world. Yes an editor and I had differences of opinion on the story.

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But I still enjoyed Daniella and Callen’s story. They went through a lot, but they earned their happily-ever-after (that’s not a spoiler. It’s my book. You know I always give my readers a happily-ever-after.)

 

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You will never have to worry about this from me!

Interestingly, the character I created to be the villain in their story completely rejected the role. *face palm* No, they didn’t want to do those things, thank you very much. It wasn’t in their nature. Wasn’t who they were.

Yeah, this is why I am so awful at plotting. Characters get in the way of my plots on every book!

So, I let the character be themself and reworked the story around them. The book is better for it, and now the character who was supposed to be the villain wants their own happily-ever-after!

And as it is prone to doing, my brain has been ignoring editing as it starts thinking through this new story.

Writing Process: To Love a Prince

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I am a panster.

 

For those that haven’t heard this term before, it means I write books “by the seat of my pants” rather than plotting out my novels.

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This can be a real issue for a pantser

My prep work involves knowing who the characters are, a little bit about them, and the high-level issues they’re facing. Combined with a huge dose of “I really want to write about them”.

There’s a lot of debate about pantsing versus plotting. Plotting is where you spend a lot more time outlining what’s going to happen and when.

I’ve tried plotting.

Many times.

And I have 4 novels with 10k-20k words in them that I’ll probably never complete. I’m not sure why plotting doesn’t work for me.

Maybe I feel like the story has already been told when I plot. Maybe I get bored writing it. Maybe I rush forward to write all the plot points and ignore the characters.

I’m not sure, but I do know it doesn’t work. For me.

Writing To Love a Prince really taught me this. I started this story three times. I have one 60k work that is not salvageable where Prince Eli was supposed to be the hero. Yeah. 60k. But it was awful.

And it wasn’t Eli.

I couldn’t make him weak. I couldn’t make him indecisive.  He needed to be in control, and if he wasn’t, he was going to fight like an injured bear to get back into control.

He also didn’t care much what society said about him. He was a Prince. Let them fear him. Despise him. But they would respect him or face his wrath.

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The end result of listening.

Yeah. The first story I wrote with him being injured and nursed back to health failed spectacularly. The second story where he was stymied by social pressure made him raise a brow. He almost rolled his eyes at me, but he’s too dignified for that.

Sure, the stories were plotted, but they weren’t his story. So I let him tell his. I was very hesitant at how the story progressed, especially as it involved a slave and royal succession.

I also worried Auburn’s kindness would be perceived as weakness. I tried changing her, but it just didn’t work. She had to be who she was because Eli fell in love with her for that. In a world as conniving as the court he’d grown up in, Auburn was his beacon of light.

I tried plotting once or twice more after To Love a Prince, but those failed, too.

So now I write by the seat of my pants. Yes, it means a lot more revisions. But I love writing that first draft! Seeing the characters revealed, their love grow, and see them overcome whatever I throw at them..

That is why I write.

My Question to You

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I have been blogging for just over two years now. I have taken classes and read books on what authors should blog about, but much of the advice is contradictory.

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Go figure.

So, my question to anyone reading this blog is what would you like to see more or less of?

  • Would you like more on writing processes?
  • Are you interested in reading about any research I am working on?
  • Would you like to see more short stories?
  • Would you like more frequent progress updates?
  • More book reviews for what I’ve been reading?
  • Perhaps you’d like to learn a bit more about characters or see some of their back or side stories?
  • Something else?

And no, there will be nothing involving spiders (you know who you are!).

Mostly, this blog is supposed to be a way to connect, and I figure what better way to connect than giving you more of what you want.

 

3 Reasons We Procrastinate – According to Science

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As I’ve been working on this rewrite, I’ve been spending a lot of time doing everything BUT rewriting my latest romance novel.

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I am not a procrastinator by nature. As a matter-of-fact, I regularly complete projects at work early. Here may be why.

 

3 Reasons Science Says is Why I Procrastinate

You can take a look here and here if you’d like, but the gist of the articles is:

 

1. Avoidance Behavior

If you dread the task ahead of you, you may avoid doing it in the short-term. You know, procrastinate. This can cause a vicious cycle, but it does play into #3 below in that it gives a temporary feel-good emotion while you’re doing something other than what you dread.

 

2. Lack of Motivation

People are known to procrastinate when there’s very little motivation to do a hard task.  I need to think more about this. I was loving this book and on a roll with it until early July. Something derailed me.

 

3. Present Emotions vs Future Emotions

There’s a very real emotional punch you get when you accomplish something. And as humans, we tend to prioritize the moment over the future. And watching a funny cat video? Instant laugh.

 

I need to do some thinking on this. Something changed to make the task less desirable, triggering both my avoidance behavior and my lack of motivation.

How about you? Do you procrastinate? What do you procrastinate doing? What’s your fix for it?