On surly characters and reluctant writing

[katiefoolery]

Writing’s not always fun.

I know that sounds like a horrible thing to say, but it’s true.  Actually, it’s not that surprising.  When the term ‘glamorous occupations’ is brought up, one’s mind doesn’t automatically think ‘writer’.  You don’t suddenly picture a writer getting up early and sitting in front of their computer in rumpled pyjamas and bed-hair and think: yes!  I’d like that to be me!

I do dream about it, though.  Well, not the bit with the pyjamas and especially not the bit about getting up early.  The idea of just being a writer, though - that appeals to me.  In my ideal world, I’d rise at a reasonable time, shower, then somehow manage to make my hair look absolutely perfect through force of will alone.  Next would come a lovely breakfast (cooked by my Timothy). After lingering over this, I’d glide to my desk, wearing a stylish outfit that just shouted ‘I write for a living!’, and sit down to tap away at my computer in an incredibly elegant, not to mention efficient, manner.

There’d probably be a cat there, too.

And a window with a lovely view over some fields.

And a cuppa.  Definitely a cuppa.

I’m sorry to say, the reality is more like this: get home from work, make a hot milo, sit down at the computer with my top half decked out in work clothes and my bottom half enclosed in tracky-dacks... procrastinate... write.

Sometimes it’s great.  The words flow, the characters come to life and the story unfolds itself like unto a cat stretching after a long, restful nap.

And then there are the other times.  The times where I write about one word every ten minutes.  The times when the characters are surly and won’t say what I want them to say.  The times when I lose faith in the story altogether.

Those are the times when writing’s hard.

What I’d like to know is, how does everyone else keep up the momentum?  How do you remind yourself why you’re writing this story in the first place?

In short, when your writing’s down in the dumps, how do you cheer it up?

Comments

[lisabel.livejournal.com]

I have really good support. I talk to my editor/beta. Just rant about stuff in my head and when it's out, I usually can think more clearly and can actually be productive. This may or may not be helpful though and I should disclaim that I write stuff that's not intended for publication...just stories written for a few people who are close to me.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. I often find that discussing my stories with my Timothy helps me to see them more clearly. And he frequently comes up with great ideas that I can steal!

[flippyfrog.livejournal.com]

If you find the answer to that question, please tell me.

My writing is curled up on the couch, laptop on my lap, future back problems in the distance, and i stare. Or being up at all hours of the night, so tired my eyes are half closed, and typing because i can't sleep because one scene is going round and round in my head and just won't shut the hell up.
But i just can't imagine doing anything else, really. I see it like you do, but obviously my own fantasy about writing. And that's living out on a farm, a dog curled up at my feet, a cuppa, a laptop, and cows in the distance. (because i can't imagine a farm without cows, i miss having them, but sadly they wouldn't fit in our backyard) When i can't write in moments like this, it's horribly depressing and i convince myself i can't write and i have the wrong idea. Then there are days when i'm writing so much and i'm in love with my characters and i can't help telling everyone about it. I suppose it all works in a balance. We're lucky enough to have such wonderful characters, that occaisionally we have to feel like everyone else with the added sense of loss when they're not there. I suppose it's meant to make us feel how lucky we are.
Well,it's a theory.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Oh, cows! I hadn't thought of those. Yes, I think I'd like a few cows in a distant paddock. That'd be nice. I do like a paddock full of cows.

It's a good theory, that one of yours. And it makes sense. If everything goes right one day, you feel full of confidence and success. When it fails the next, you naturally feel useless. Well, I do. Sometimes.

[rhianon76.livejournal.com]

I worked with racehorses for a number of years. They're athletes, much like their human counterparts. I learned a great deal about the frailty of the psyche across the boundaries of species, about endurance, and various other things.

And when it comes to writing, I consider myself, in many regards, an athlete. I flex my mind much like any muscle a sprinter uses. Being healthy is imperative for optimum performance. When you're in a bad mood, it's not likely you'll perform well. You have to find that mindset, that place where everything else ceases to matter and the only thing that exists is you and the characters, the story, that fictitious world you create.
And just like any athlete, you can't perform at your peak level indefinitely. You'll burn out, if you try to. It's more like a roller coaster that never ends. You hit those peaks, where everything just flows so fast that your fingers can't keep up with your brain, the characters are all clamouring for attention at once, each trying to tell you some snippet of their story and be heard over each other. It can be like trying to go shopping on Christmas Eve.
And then there are, inevitably, the lulls. When you enter your world, and all is still as death. Sometimes it feels like you're standing in the heart of Hiroshima in the aftermath of the bomb. There's nothing. Except, perhaps, the eerie and disturbing caress of an unnatural wind on your face. They've all deserted you.
Making yourself follow a writing routine does help. Routine flexing of the creative muscle makes warming it up for productive use on a regular basis an easier thing to achieve. There are days, though, that a runner can't make it once around the track when just the week before they ran five miles and didn't feel the least bit winded.
I've learned that you have to ride out the dry spells. Having multiple projects available to work on can help getting through to the other side successfully and still feeling like you accomplished something. It might be shit, full of cliches and inanities that make it worthless trash in your opinion, but all the same you manage to get past the writer's block and through the dry spell. There's no telling how long they'll last. I have had blocks that lasted for 18 months. Reading helps, especially authors that you find inspiring or favorite novels that you love. It helps reawaken the muses, when they've drifted off to sleep.

...

Bloody hell, do I ever RAMBLE.
Okay, I'm stopping now, I promise. :)

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love a good ramble. Feel free to ramble as much as you please. :)

I agree wholeheartedly about the reading. Recently, I spent a great deal of time reading for the first time in ages. That's not to say I don't read; I do. But I wasn't doing very much. However, I had this desire to read and I obeyed it. It really has done wonders for my creativity. It's fired up all those bits in my brain that find stories and connections and characters and it's chuntering along nicely now.

You're right about not being able to always perform brilliantly at writing. The problem is, I always want to! :)

[snarkymonkey.livejournal.com]

I play celtic music, usually. Or go read a book in the hopes that some passage will spark a solution to some troublesome bugger of a character. =3

I really like your idea of being a "writer." I'm going to have to work toward that in a far better fashion than I have been. XD

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Mmm... Celtic music. That's always good inspiration for me, especially when I'm working on Black Fiddle. Which does happen. From time to time...

The best bit about being a writer would be the fact that you'd look forward to going to work! Except on the bad days, of course. But the rest of them would be great. :)

[the-kaytinator.livejournal.com]

I have a number of ways of tiding over my writer's block. I get it very regularly, as you know doubt know from my whinging.

I'll go step by step through my solutions in order of drasticness, because that's the kind of anal person I am.

First step, if the characters aren't co-operating and saying what I want them to is to let them say whatever they want. Sometimes characters know better, and while you might end up throwing it away at the end, sometimes you just don't have the energy to beat characters into submission, so I reckon it's better to give them free reign and clean up their mess when you're feeling up to it. Every now and again, you'll be too tired to argue with them, but they'll come up with their own words, which while different to your plan, will turn out to be absolutely gold. Those are precious moments, and make you remember why you love them in the first place.

My second technique, if I can't write anything at all is to work on another scene in the story. I skip way ahead and write something else, something that is a little clearer in my mind. Of course, in a short story you might have trouble with that, because there just isn't a lot of "later" to work with.

Which brings us to option 3. That's why I work on so many projects at once. Sometimes it's better to just give up for a while and admit you have block. You go and work on something else for some time, and when you get back again, maybe days later, you reread and plunge yourself back in with an "Oh! THAT'S why I was writing this!" After that kind of break, and time spent with different characters (I like to vary the genre as much as possible), you're suddenly excited about the contrast and working with something different from what you've been doing for days.

Of course, there are times when I can't write anything at all. The brain just doesn't want to know. It's times like that when I throw myself into the extra stuff. I'm a scary Tolkien type who takes pleasure in her maps and family trees and the like. Sometimes I'll be a good girl and work on the LorF wiki. Or I'll draw characters, just for fun. Or scenes. I take myself to a completely different medium, but I still work on the story I love so much. It re-enthuses you and gives you new love. And if you learn something new about the characters, huzzah!!!

Basically, when I can't write, I find something else to do. Either writing something else, or finding some other kind of inspiration.

And if the worst comes to the worst, I sometimes parody myself.

I'll write a send-up version. I'll make fun of my own characters and plots. I'll write a review of my work, and absolutely harpoon not me so much, but my characters. You'd think that'd be bad for me, but it isn't. I just stop taking the piece so damn seriously, and have a little fun with it. I mock my characters, and then I remember why I love them!

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

They're all very good techniques. I like the way you keep working on your stuff, even when it's being disobedient. I also like these suggestions of doing something silly to your stories. I'm going to have to try that, next time I have trouble with any of my stories.

[pet-hypothesis.livejournal.com]

In short, when your writing’s down in the dumps, how do you cheer it up?

I don't. If it's just a matter of the words not coming, or not coming right, I tell myself fifty words for the day is fine and close the document. If I don't believe in myself as a writer, I go away and study, and wait for the inspiration to come back.

I guess I just don't have any writing guilt at the moment, because I have all this study guilt to deal with instead. I have study guilt about the time I spend writing...

__

I agree about the cuppa. And the cat. And the window. And, actually, the getting up early part. I don't get up early, but in my writer-fantasy I do, and I sit there with my hot tea steam rising in early-morning coils and listen to the birds finishing the dawn chorus, and have the quiet of the house to myself. This isn't a house in Melbourne, obviously... It has a window with a valley :p

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

The worst thing about study guilt is that all of the best ideas seem to hit when we're supposed to be studying. So it feels even worse than normal. Well, it did for me. :)

I like the idea of a still morning, with birds calling and a cuppa warming my hands. But I just can't get over the fact that I hate getting out of bed. It's so warm and cosy in there! Ah well. Something to work on, I suppose.

[minnn.livejournal.com]

How about threatening the character with death? That's what I've done if they've not cooperated in the past :P
Only joking, Kayt's right. Let them say what they want to say.

When I want to write, and it won't happen, I fanfic it. It's easy, brainless, etc. But it's still writing, at least.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

You're the second person I've heard of who writes fanfic for their own stuff! I love the idea. In fact, I might try it next time I'm stuck. It could be so much fun. Shove in Mary Sues all over the place and have all my characters act out of character. It'd be hilarious! I think my characters would start behaving themselves, just to stop me writing such slander about them!

[gravityslave.livejournal.com]

Hmm.
I find that I stop writing when I notice I've spent the past few days writing garbage. The best way for me to get myself writing again is to have some sort of a deadline. I write better under some pressure- and while I am certainly not guaranteed to turn out something incredible just because I have to finish it very soon, I am at least writing again, and who knows how many little things I'll be able to recycle together into something big?
I really need to learn how to type, though, because I'm too slow to keep up with my train of thought.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right about deadlines. I'm sure if I had a deadline for the second draft of Black Fiddle, I'd be working much harder on it. Well, either that, or leaving it all to the last minute.

I'm glad I learnt to touch-type, because otherwise I'd be completely lost. I have the worst handwriting in the world and it still can't keep up with my thoughts. Thank goodness for keyboards. :)

[gravityslave.livejournal.com]

Not to mention hand cramps!
I have a great deal of trouble with essay questions on exams (you know- the 2 pages per question sort) because my hand cramps up within minutes and I can't read my own handwriting anyhow. :-)

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

That was my biggest worry with my exams last year. Never mind the study and having to get to a stupid location, what about my handwriting! I tried to make it as neat as I could but my hand ACHED so much.

[blackswans.livejournal.com]

I think of Jo March, scribbling in her attic. And I read creative writing books that have little snippets from people like Anais Nin and Katherine Mansfield, and then I get all inspired again.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

What a lovely image! I think I would have been a terrible writer in that sort of era. There'd be ink everywhere and I'd be complaining about hand-cramps and not being able to read what I'd written the previous day. And it must have been impossible to write by candlelight without ruining your eyes!

[alankria.livejournal.com]

It is my dream to roll out of bed at about 10am earliest, wearing rumpled pyjamas with messy hair tied back so it doesn't annoy me, and sit in my big comfy desk chair and write away for hours. This would preferably occur in a pokey attic with a nice big skylight. And there would absolutely be cats. Many of them. Curling around me and purring.

Unfortunately, the real world is cold and cruel and I am clearly going to have to get a real job and hope that within 10 years I become famous enough to live off my writing.

Sometimes there are just days when I cannot write. And I have to accept that. I either watch films or read books, or I can't write because I'm too busy doing other stuff. Reading novels normally kick starts my creative juices, actually. I can live with myself if I go a few days without writing, and after that the ideas are all going whizz burr rush in my head so I voluntarily jump right back in. ...I haven't written today. *frowns* I'm too tired at the moment. All this pesky revision is hurting my head. I wrote yesterday, not to mention the mass of ideas I had for the planned sequel to 'Painted Angels'.

I think I may go to bed now. Good night!

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

A writing attic would be lovely! Slopy ceilings and funny nooks... it'd be perfect.

It is cruel that we have to get "real" jobs, instead of sitting at home and writing. Real jobs are so boring. And they take away from the time you can spend writing. Or building attics. Ah well. I suppose we all have to start small and work our way up.

[naelany.livejournal.com]

oh dear, surly characters doesn't sound like fun at all. I wish I could offer advice, instead all I have to offer is good wishes.
What's a milo?

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're really disagreeable. You have all these things you want them to say and do and they get all stubborn and either refuse to do it or sulk about it. Then they like to try and get the narration in on their campaign and that's when it all goes merrily up a familiar creek without the much-needed paddle...

Milo is a sort of chocolately powder that you add to milk. It's supposed be partially good for you, too, but not when you eat it by the spoonful, straight out of the tin. Not that I'd do that, you understand.

[naelany.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* oh no, no, no! Of course you wouldn't ^_~

Mix it Up

[coolshoeswalter.livejournal.com]

When I get stuck, I write something totally different -- nothing that's been assigned, something out of my usual genre and just for fun. I write nonfiction, so when it's tough sledding, I "work on" my novel; that is, I write a couple of hundred words that sort of continue this fiction story I started a few months ago in a fit of pique. No pressure, no (personal) standards to live up to, no expectations, nothing. And, surprisingly enough, if flows. Don't know what, if anything, I will ever do with it. Doesn't matter. It exists merely to remind me that I can indeed, write. Stop by my blog if you like: www.AskAnyMom.blogspot.com

Re: Mix it Up

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a good idea. In fact, that's pretty much why I started the story I'm posting on FictionPress. I don't have any expectations for it; it's purely there for writing and to have fun and experiment.

Thanks for dropping by my blog. I shall certainly have a look at yours, too.