Earlier this week I sat down to write the daily 1,667 words needed to complete Camp NaNoWriMo and I didn’t want to. Just the thought of writing filled me with dread. I couldn’t really pinpoint the feeling.
It was then that I asked myself a question. Why didn’t I want to write? I was doing so well before. After a few moments of thinking to myself, I knew the answer. The story was boring. I was bored because the story felt boring to me. The characters were at a stand still. They were looking for clues but weren’t getting anywhere. I wasn’t getting anywhere.
I knew that I didn’t want to stop writing Crimson Queen. I’d told myself that I wanted to complete most of the story this month. If not most, then all. I didn’t want to change my goal completely.
Coming to terms with this, I looked back at all my plot and character notes. While some of it had changed, the intention and direction was still there. I still so much content left to write.
So, I finished the scene I started the day before. After doing this, I forced myself to move on to the next scene. I needed to move forward. And so I did. Saying this, I wasn’t always capable of skipping a scene and moving on to the next one. It took baby steps like summarising, leaving comments for myself to go back to, and even writing a different version of the scene all together. It was enough to get me to this point.
Once I had a ‘fresh’ start, I wasn’t bored anymore. I was excited. Writing the daily goal for that day didn’t take very long. My fingers ached by the end of it but I was done. Goal complete.
Looking back at it, I’ve come to realize how far I have come since starting out. Being able to skip scene is huge for me. I was the type of writer who had to get every word perfect. The scene had to be perfect. I could not and would not move on until it was. I remembered getting so fustrated and stressed out because the words weren’t coming out like they were suppose to. It got to a point where I stopped writing the story altogether for weeks on end and focused on something else.
I am very grateful that I am not that writer anymore. I have the strength to move forward and focus on the scenes I want to write. Sure, I still have to remind myself that I can always come back to something but that doesn’t always happen. Then I start asking myself, ‘would I regret not finishing this story?’ and the answer is ‘yes’ all the time. It’s the small things that keep me going and I know that I am not alone. I just can’t let my struggles stop me.
Dabbling in the Art of Writing 