So since it's a Sunday night and I'm sleepy and all I want to do is curl up with my book in bed, I've decided just to do a short post while I remember.
Following on from my IWSG post on Weds, I stumbled across this post by Nova Ren Suma, and it could not explain more accurately how I feel about my writing right now. All I've been dreaming of the last few weeks is having a glorious block of time where I can blissfully write - no job to worry about, no chores to do, the house would somehow miraculously cleans itself, and I'd magically have the inspiration necessary to power on through my rewrites.
Unfortunately, the lesson that this novel seems to be teaching me at the minute is that I can dream all I want - but this book is never going to get written without me actually, y'know, writing.
It's hard. It's so hard trying to juggle this little thing called life with writing a novel, but ultimately I believe it's worth it. If I didn't, I wouldn't be blogging right now. I wouldn't have spent my Sunday afternoon rewriting a single scene. I wouldn't spend my car journeys to work thinking up pieces of dialogues between my characters. I wouldn't be scribbling almost illegible notes while I'm half asleep in bed, because it appears inspiration likes to come along and knock REALLY LOUDLY when you're on the verge of sleep.
The piece of advice I'm going to take away from Nova's post for this month is the idea of momentum. I'm still going to try and finish my rewrites during November and this week, I'm going to be trying out a couple of new things that I hope will mean less distractions and more writing i.e. not coming home straight after work, listening to music (but not having a huge playlist that means I spend more time changing the song than I do writing), keeping my novel open on my laptop. But most of all, no matter how many, or how few, words I write, I will try to write every day. Because the only way I am going to get through this is to keep going, one word at a time.
How about you? What methods have you got to keep yourself writing?
Sunday, 9 November 2014
Wednesday, 5 November 2014
November IWSG: Getting over the (random) fear...
This blog post probably would've been more appropriate for Halloween, but seeing as how that was less than a week ago, I'm going to use it anyway ;).
It's that time of the month again, when insecure writers from all over the internet unite and blog about their deepest, darkest fears that have been plaguing them for the last month. Special thanks go out to Alex J. Cavanaugh for setting up the group, and a huge thank you to all of this month's co-hosts :)!
Although I'm not officially participating in NaNowriMo this year, I'm currently in the rewriting stage of my first draft, and my Other Half has given me the deadline of the 30th November to get it done - so in a way, I'm with all you brave NaNoWriMos out there, at least in spirit.
But here's the thing - I'm STILL struggling to get my mojo together to get into my rewrites properly. It's not because I don't know what I want to do, or that I hate my story (actually, I've felt more hopeful about this novel in the last few weeks than I have done for a while) - it's something else, and I only managed to put my finger on it last night.
I'm scared of succeeding.
I know, I know how odd that sounds - but the fact is, writing a novel is something I've been working towards since I was about 15. And the thought that by the end of this month my novel should (theoretically) be in a readable form (i.e. I could send it out to my beta readers if I wanted to) really does scare me. Do I have the dedication and motivation to actually finish something for once? After so many false starts and disappointments, I find it hard to believe. It's almost as though my subconscious is telling me that no, I can't do this, I can't actually realise one of my life dreams, heaven forbid - so why bother working on it?
So that's it for this month - a slightly odd topic, I know, but it's been bothering me for the last few days. Hopefully it'll pass soon - only 25 days to go until the finish line!
Happy bonfire night, everyone! Stay safe out there tonight!
It's that time of the month again, when insecure writers from all over the internet unite and blog about their deepest, darkest fears that have been plaguing them for the last month. Special thanks go out to Alex J. Cavanaugh for setting up the group, and a huge thank you to all of this month's co-hosts :)!
Although I'm not officially participating in NaNowriMo this year, I'm currently in the rewriting stage of my first draft, and my Other Half has given me the deadline of the 30th November to get it done - so in a way, I'm with all you brave NaNoWriMos out there, at least in spirit.
But here's the thing - I'm STILL struggling to get my mojo together to get into my rewrites properly. It's not because I don't know what I want to do, or that I hate my story (actually, I've felt more hopeful about this novel in the last few weeks than I have done for a while) - it's something else, and I only managed to put my finger on it last night.
I'm scared of succeeding.
I know, I know how odd that sounds - but the fact is, writing a novel is something I've been working towards since I was about 15. And the thought that by the end of this month my novel should (theoretically) be in a readable form (i.e. I could send it out to my beta readers if I wanted to) really does scare me. Do I have the dedication and motivation to actually finish something for once? After so many false starts and disappointments, I find it hard to believe. It's almost as though my subconscious is telling me that no, I can't do this, I can't actually realise one of my life dreams, heaven forbid - so why bother working on it?
So that's it for this month - a slightly odd topic, I know, but it's been bothering me for the last few days. Hopefully it'll pass soon - only 25 days to go until the finish line!
Happy bonfire night, everyone! Stay safe out there tonight!
