So, let’s start with how this rollercoaster ride began…I wrote my post for day 12 and then forgot to post it. Not a promising start.
Then I reread what I wrote for the previous day and had a complete blank on where to go next. Not writer’s block. Not exactly. But certainly the first vertical lift on the ride.
I managed a bit of a flow for a while, mostly around filling in some plot holes. I did some reflection after that, realizing that, if I didn’t get the draft of the book finished this month, it would likely not get done this year (December already looks like it will be a write-off month for many things).
That added some additional and unwanted pressure on the writing. That being said, I also came up with some additional ideas of where to go next so I have a few somethings to write about today and tomorrow. Maybe even the next day.
What to do when the words don’t flow
One piece of advice I try to follow is the use of bullets.
No, I don’t mean get a gun and shoot stuff up, I mean use bullet points to put ideas down quickly and succinctly. You may not be in the mental space to write cohesive sentences. You may not know who is speaking or the POV to use but you do sort of know where the story is going. Use bullet points to record that.
You may only have bits of scene in your head that you can get out. Perhaps a clever turn-of-phrase from a character. All those things will help you to write the scene when you ARE in the right headspace. Get them onto the page and out of your head.
That was a lot of what I did yesterday.
What’s next
I’m going to build out some of the ideas I had. Try to push the rollercoaster to get some speed (not to mention the words on the page) and build towards the looming climax to the story.
Hopefully, the ideas I had will give me a couple days of writing prompts to do that and help me gain visibility in who will be in the final set of scenes (and in what capacity)
