Slow Writing Day

/ TSGalton

I’m having difficulty. No matter how many of my favourite tracks come on, no matter if I gaze wistfully out into the (surprisingly cloudless) English sky or deep into the dark corner of my DVD collection which I’m naggingly aware is out of alphabetical order, I can’t seem to conjure up any decent ideas to put onto paper.

I guess I was a bit overzealous yesterday. I was being so productive that I burnt out.
Part of me wants to sit at the computer until I squeeze enough words out of my tired brain to meet my daily goal. 200 words isn’t that much, right?
That doesn’t seem like the best option, though. Is it worth writing ideas down even if you’re aware that they’re not the best they could be?

“Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.”
― Steve Martin

Writing this is helping. It feels like a bit of a warm up, to get my fingers tapping at keys of their own accord, without having to mentally construct each sentence first before giving them the command to type.
Maybe I’m just being silly and the words and ideas will start flowing as soon as I press ‘publish.’

I have two main ways of dealing with problems in my life.

  1. I’m over-thinking things. I deal with this by letting the problem go in some way, either by forgetting or ignoring it, or delegating the problem to someone or something else (like I did with my character creation problem).
  2. I need to reverse it, turn it on it’s head. Very few problems are so sturdy of construction that they can survive to plague me both ways up. No food in the house? I fancied a walk anyway! Work is ruining all my social plans? The feelings will be that much greater when I finally get to see my friends again. Slow writing day? Great reading day!

How do you deal with slow writing days? Or problems in general?
Feedback is awesome 😀
Toby

10 thoughts on “Slow Writing Day”

  1. I suffered from writers block for most of my life. To the point that I never finished anything, then after a breakdown, I decided that I needed to do the thing that made me happiest and I started to write.

    Two pages, everyday. All building on the last, it was enough to feel productive but low enough in terms of a daily goal that it was achievable. Then before I knew it, I had a story. Then another episode, and after that, a series of them. I sent it to an agent who suggested it as a book and I had to get to grips with editing and revising before I sent it back to them. I am now in the position of my agent finding me a publisher as I work on the second book, as well as having other drafts of projects that I am editing as well as writing short fiction.

    No one can save a writer from the challenges that come, and they’re different to each of us, but they can and have been overcome. It’s down to you entirely but I believe that we can support one another. It’s heartening that you’re being honest about what blocks you.

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    • I refuse to use the phrase writer’s block for what I get, it makes it seem much worse than it is. I am, however, learning how to deal with the subtle peaks and troughs in my motivation level.
      You write 2… pages?! A day?! I thought my 200 word goal was bad enough, I can’t imagine trying to do that much in a day…
      Do you write full-time?
      Thank you for commenting 🙂 I didn’t realise until now but I was actually worried nobody was reading my blog!
      Toby

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    • I’m learning to do just that!
      My very first drafts of ideas (of which I have a lot at the moment) involve throwing rough, unedited and unformatted ideas at a word document.
      The fun begins the next day when I review the draft, usually chuckling at how awful it reads. I’ll expand on my ideas at this stage using the comment tool.
      Still, when words are scarce, anything is progress!
      Thanks for the comment!
      Toby

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