Today would normally be a book review post, but 1) I haven't been feeling well so I didn't schedule one, and 2) I haven't posted anything but reviews the last two weeks and want to change that.
I said before that I was going to get back to writing regularly, and I haven't. But it's not that I'm being lazy or getting in my own way or even that I just haven't had the time. No, I sit down to write, and I stare at a blank page. After so many minutes I open one of my in-progress stories (lately that means the shorts I wrote at Hollins this summer and intended to turn into a story cycle), but even with those I hit a wall. I read them over and over again and wonder what to do next.
Do I change things? Start adding to it? I don't even know.
All the ideas I have suddenly seem all too close to the books I've been reading. It's like all the words I had have simply shriveled up. Like I'm creatively constipated at the moment and all I can do for now is just wait it out. But it's been long enough, I think. I didn't write for months because I was "too busy" and now I'm not writing because I can't think of what to say, so I'm just going to start. I'm not going to stare at the page any more. I'm going to fill it. Even if it's crap. And I'm going to keep at it.
I've got three short stories set in the same world that I want to flush out. I've got two different stories I started ages ago and a third not too many moons ago, and the novel that I want so desperately to get fixed one day.
I have stories to tell, I just have to start.
I got into a rut with my current book. I got a LOT of freelance work out of nowhere, and it feels like I don't have time, although I know I do have time. There's just an adjustment period or something. Excuses, excuses. I could write today, for instance. Will it happen? Hm.
ReplyDeleteLet yourself skip ahead in one of the stories and write the most interesting part. That's my suggestion. That tells you if there's a kernel there, then you know what you're writing for.
I've heard that before but never tried it, will have to give it a shot! I really want to get back to writing short stories at least weekly to work on craft and get back to some kind of routine, but I just get caught up in myself. I'd like to get one of those word/magnet boxes where you just pull out words and go from there or use them to write a poem or something. I've even seen games that give you a noun, adjective, and verb and you have to come up with a story out of it. I think that would just be a nice creative boost.
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