The Worst Writer: To Purge or Not to Purge
Hello dear readers and welcome back to another instalment of "Did I actually manage to write anything this week???"
The quick and dirty answer is yes, I did indeed write a lot of something! Turns out the new tools I was trying to implement last week (like shoving my inner editor into a deep dark pit) actually allowed me to put a lot of words on the page. The problem is I'm doubting almost every single one of them. So what now? How do I "vomit onto a page" as some people eloquently put it and not absolutely dread the clean up I know is coming? This is going to be a doozy, so let's explore this together.
The Act of Vomiting
So, as I mentioned above the week actually went pretty well! Every day I got my butt into that chair at the library and worked until I got my daily word goal onto the page. It didn't feel like pulling teeth, and it didn't take me a ridiculous amount of hours like it normally does. It was the first time on this project that I actually saw a noticeable word count increase rather than the sluggish two steps forward one step back approach I had been taking with all the pre-editing before.
The only problem now is that it feels like things are going off the rails.
Yeah my writing is abundant, but it’s chaotic and unplanned. To use the mining analogy from my previous post it’s like I’m digging into the ground and pulling out everything I can find. Gold, silver, a funny shaped rock, you name it! Previously I had been meticulously going through and pulling out only the gold ore (and polishing it too, oops!), but now I’m sitting in a pile of nonsense and I can feel the panic creeping in.
To give you a clearer picture, this week I wrote over 4500 words for a single chapter. A SINGLE CHAPTER. All of my other chapters have been ~2500 words. This isn’t completely unheard of in terms of length for a chapter, but it definitely shows how much less editing I have been doing and that’s spooky, because the only person who’s going to have to fix it later is me.
The Act of Falling Off the Rails, Gracefully
Another issue with all of this writing I'm getting done is that I'm unable to keep pace creatively. Usually when I'm writing slowly I have lots of time to consider the implications of what I'm saying or where there might be a good time for something from the past to come in. When I'm writing quickly, that time isn't there, and those connection points feel less frequent.
It's like building a bridge one plank at a time. Before, I was sitting there on my haunches comparing each plank in order to find the best one to slot in, and then before I moved on I always made sure to run back and grab a new one. Now I'm just running across the bridge with as many planks as I can fit in my hands and slapping them down one after the other. I know I'm going to run out of planks soon. I'm just wondering when?
Well, the time might have come sooner than I anticipated as I've reached a point in my story where I don't really know what to do next. I know where I want the book to end, I just don't know how to get there. Part of me thinks of this as falling off the rails, but another part of me recognizes that I've actually encountered another writing beast... The Muddy Middle.
This isn't something I've come up with myself, although I appreciate you thinking so. No, this is a classic writing challenge many people face. It's basically everything outside of the set up and conclusion where all the decisions you've made previously need to be delivered upon. It's the area of the novel where your characters personalities really shine and the main plot points are supposed to reach a new level of stakes.
I can hear you saying right now "Well yeah, that's what writing a book is all about!" And to that I say, shut up! What do you know anonymous reader!? I find it difficult, and this point of the book writing process always gives me pause. But you know what? Not this time! I choose to grow from this!
I'm going to find a happy middle. Instead of barreling forward with no more planks to put down, I'm going to take a breather and grab a couple more. Maybe plan out how they're going to fit ahead of time too. Maybe I wrote all this as a reminder to myself that it's okay to reach the end of a creative burst, and even moreso, it's okay to take a pause and refill my supplies. We'll see how that works for me moving forward.
A New Challenger Approaches...
My god, every time I start one of these I think they are going to be short, but I clearly just have too much to say! The weeks ahead of me are about to get a lot busier. I have my brother in law coming to stay with us for a few days, then a friend from school, THEN we're going away to a summer cottage here in Denmark.
Should be lots of fun, but I have a cheeky tendency to not write when things get too busy and stressful. Hopefully you will keep me accountable dear reader, as I will certainly blame you if you don't! We'll chat again next week, thanks as always for reading!
Ta-ta for now!
M
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