From Edie: Struggling to return to fiction after a long writing dry spell? Discover practical encouragement and simple steps to restart your novel, rebuild momentum, and create a writing routine that fits real life. This hopeful guide helps writers find motivation, clarity, and joy on the writing journey again.
How Writers Can Restart Their Fiction After a Long Dry Spell: Finding Momentum, Motivation, and a New Writing Routine
by Tim Suddeth @TimSuddeth
I have to admit, I’m going through a dry spell with my writing—specifically my fiction writing. Recently, it seems I can focus only on articles. I love sharing here what I’m learning on my learning journey. On this blog, we have a great group of accomplished and award-winning writers contributing wisdom on the craft and business of writing.
I’m not one of them. I can’t look down from a peak and shout directions to us climbers below about how to traverse the writing mountain. Yet.
It’s important to have people who are ahead of you. It’s also important to have friends dealing with the same struggles, decisions, and hurdles that you are encountering.
I enjoy hearing from best-selling authors talk about how they’re finishing this year’s block-buster, New York Times bestseller. But many of us are having to deal with feeling like all the agents have blocked our emails. Or feeling stuck in the muddled middle without a rope. Or wishing you could get back to your YA dystopian rom-com, but your boss, two toddlers, and an arthritic pug don’t leave you any free time.
I’ve been aching to get back to my storytelling. I try not to look at the calendar, but the pages keep flipping over. (Talk about depressing.) I’ve discovered that the last draft I finished was before COVID. (My wife has said I’m developing a twitch.)
So, I’ve decided something has to change. Some writer named John Grisham has a routine where he starts a new novel on January 1. It seems to work pretty well for him. I’ve set that as my goal for this year. An interesting idea with appealing characters has leaked into my mind, and it’s gotten me excited about facing 300 blank pages again. I have December to flesh out the characters, figure out the plot, and determine a routine I can keep to. Easy peasy, right?
Yes, you read that right. This pantser is taking on developing a plot before he starts. This is going to be one in a long list of firsts for me. But I realize that each of the three drafts I’ve finished has taken a different course. Maybe part of writing is realizing that each work takes its own way.
Since the last two works I’ve tried to write without a plan all crashed without hitting the finish line, this time I plan to use a map.
I also have a goal that is at least as important as writing a great book, although that is my hope. The most important thing is to bring my story to an end. Just getting it finished.
For many of us, whether or not we seek to be published, writing is a long journey, and it’s easy to lose enthusiasm. Life happens. My family has dealt with a lot of sickness and growing old in the last few years. Some of us are dealing with issues in their careers or families. It’s tough to keep writing when so many demands pull at us.
We are wisely told not to quit, but sometimes writing needs to be put on hold. This delay can be frustrating, but few of us are called just to be writers. We are also moms, dads, sons, daughters, mentors, ministers, students, etc.
But often, if you’ve been off that trail for a while, there comes a chance when you can take up your writing again. We writers are wired differently than normal people. Writing is how we learn and grow, how we experience life more deeply, and how we find ways to share this life with others. It goes beyond being a hobby or fun pastime. It’s often an obsession or a pull that we can’t deny.
If you find it difficult to travel alone, reach out to someone to join you. There are several online groups and conferences you can visit to connect with someone to join in on the journey.
I live at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And one thing that drives through the mountains has taught me, after you’ve driven over the top of one mountain, there’s usually another one. Writing is a journey with peaks and valleys you have to go through if you continue. There is always something new to learn and that challenges you.
Isn’t that part of the thrill of this writing journey?
TWEETABLE
No comments:
Post a Comment