I think that most of the regular readers of this blog are writers of one sort or another. That being the case, I have a question for all you writers; how’s your writing going these days? Following some of the blogs of this site’s usual suspects, I’ve gotten the impression that writing isn’t going all that well, at least fiction writing, for some of us. I know that I’m in that boat, and I’m wondering how many of you find yourself sharing that boat.
In my case, I haven’t written any fiction since February, and that was mostly revising something I’d started last fall and abandoned. I abandoned it again after adding maybe 10K words. Since then I have managed to maintain my habit of writing an hour each morning by writing two blog posts a week. I’ve also spent the odd moments all spring and summer daydreaming a new story in fits, starts, and lots of dead ends. And I’m still not at a point where I can say that I have an actual story that readers might like to read. With winter looming and with it, nothing better to do than write, I really would like to find that story. The clock is ticking.
So how about you? Are you busy writing away? Great. Motivate us. Please.
Or are you like me, floundering? Are you searching for a story that you can get excited enough about to sit down and start putting it into words? And if you are floundering, do you have any idea why? Have you arrived at a point in life where you are wondering why you are trying to do this? Or is it simply a case of a lack of energy or health? Or is it a lack of motivation i.e. you’ve written books, and you are wondering if you need to write any more? Or are you like me; experiencing a lack of a new and interesting story ideas to develop? Or do you think it’s simply a temporary case of writer’s block? In short, are you desperate enough to write a blog post about not being able to write, just for something to write?
Please share your experiences with your fellow writers in the comments below. Misery loves company.
Writers Supporting Writers 
My fiction writing has been going well lately. It’s the marketing and promotion I’m having a hard time with. As far as not writing goes, sometimes our field just needs to lie fallow for a while. To me, it’s all part of the process.
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Glad to hear that your writing is going well. Marketing and promotion is always problematical unless you’ve written a book that a lot of people are already familiar with; i.e. more of the same. Eight plus years ago you could publish a book and expect some (maybe not a lot, but some) people to find it on their own. These days a book is invisible unless promoted by you or Amazon.
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Yes, the publishing industry sure has changed since I was in school.
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I’ve written a couple stories in the last year, which is more than I’d done in the two years before that, so I call that progress of a sort. But that said… currently, I’m in the same boat as you. I feel like I’m floundering. Sometimes I’ll get a story idea and think “Ah, this is the one!” but then after I mull it over a bit, I’ll go, “Eh… it’s not so great,” or worse still, “Hasn’t that already been done?” And maybe worst of all, “Haven’t *I* already done that?”
I feel like I’ve run out of things to say. Except not, because I still believe I want to craft a really good story, something better than anything I’ve done to date. But when I try to, it just isn’t there.
What I need to do, I think, is try some kind of radical experiment. Something that isn’t science fiction or horror; something totally different from what I normally do. Make a total break with my own habits, and then see if the fresh approach gives me some new ideas.
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At least you’ve been writing. I’m trying to do what you are thinking to do; write something completely different than I have before. No genre. Just fiction. We’ll see if I can do it.
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I’m thinking along the same lines, Berthold. You’ve spoken about wanting to write literary fiction. Maybe give that a try. Or think of it as something exploring the human condition, as we talked about in our recent chats. In any case, lock that inner critic out!
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I will do my best. I wonder sometimes if I can lock the inner critic out anymore. I’ve written so many reviews, maybe now I think too much like a critic and not enough like a storyteller. But I do enjoy reviewing…
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Actually, your reviews show that you can write almost anything.
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I’ve been floundering for years, occasionally able to break through and finish a thing before returning to floundering. I have a new idea for a story that I’m really excited about, but I just can’t find the path towards working on it on a regular basis.
I am definitely pondering “why I am trying to do this.” As I have been for the years of floundering.
So, sadly, I’m not providing the motivation you requested. I am stuck as well.
I want to create a regular habit of writing, like when I first started doing this thing around 20 years ago. I just don’t seem to be able to do it.
Tomorrow. I will start.
That’s what I say every day. And then tomorrow comes and other things happen.
I really, really need to figure this out. I have plenty of stories to tell, that I want to tell. I need to figure out how to focus on them, avoid the distractions, and get them done.
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I have to say that the way I get things written is that I write the first thing every morning, these days only an hour, and have been doing that for maybe the last 10 years. The thing is I really enjoy writing. Time flies when I’m writing. It’s the lack of ideas, ideas that are new and that interest me, that make it hard for me to write these days. I am, however, giving myself leave not to write fiction if I don’t want to. I don’t want to make a job of it. We’ll see how it goes. I hope you can find a time and system to write, especially since you have stories to tell. You have the stories, I have the system… neither of us has both.
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Yes. I need the system and to shut down the inner critic.
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I’m in the same state, Mark. Lots of ideas but no resolve to manifest them in words. I’m hoping it’s a temporary state that will change as we get into the season of long nights.
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I just need to sit down and write for a little bit every day. But there are so many other options and things that need to get done. It’s a challenge to focus on this one thing.
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Exactly. It’s different when you need to write so much that you can procrastinate all that other stuff instead of letting it be the reason to procrastinate the writing.
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You have one paragraph, or one page. That’s it. Write the whole story in that space. Not allowed to go beyond that boundary. One para, or one page. And a different story each day or week (depending on the time you have available – but I’d expect one every day. A page is 250 words; a para is one subject intro’d, bloodied, and defined).
No shirking. One paragraph, or one page. Every day.
A fly struggles to walk up a wall, and closer to the web that holds his meal – or will he become the meal for the spinner.
Instead of a fly, what if that’s a man struggling up a hill, even knowing that just beyond the hill is his enemy – but with (or within) his enemy is his son.
Instead of a man struggling up a hill, what if it’s a couple in the halloween of their lives, the fruits all ripened, laid away in storage for the winter of hard times – but they know the harvest isn’t enough to feed the whole family, so what do they do?
A small story is no less a story than a large one, it only ensures that the emotion must come with fewer words and yet evoke the fullest resonance.
Do that, and do it for yourself. Your stories, your dreams, lies, and promises.
One para, or one page. Every day.
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Thank you for your comment and creative suggestion.
I also think that writing every day is a key habit to get into as a writer. I wish I could come up with a story idea or an image that can be turned into a story, as you clearly showed us how it can done. I envy that level of creativity.
However, in my case, I must confess that I’m a novelist, not a short story writer. I don’t appreciate short form fiction as a reader as much as I should. And as a writer, I like writing lots of words too much for short stories ever to appeal to me 🙂 Instead, every morning I write my blog post or book reviews while I try to come up with a novel to write, or in the case of today, I write replies…
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Big ideas come from being in tight places, and most people want either a ‘big’ idea or too much in the way of ‘events’ before they start a novel, but a good novel can focus on one small problem built into a mountain by how different characters ‘see and experience’ the same situation. Take Game of Thrones – it’s about family, the things we do to ensure our family continues (although the repetition of ‘the things we do for love’ implies the same, that ‘love’ is protection, obligation, and separation from others), regardless of the harm done to other families in the quest to save ‘our own’. A small idea becomes a big, big story because he showed it through the perception of several different families (constructs) and their idea of what obligations and responsibilities were required of each member.
Small ideas, written in short form, can expand into huge tomes because for each character used to show another side of the concept, that’s a good 30-50k words. Depth of concept, a huge oak from a tiny acorn, with branches filled with other lives alongside and because of its existence.
All my stories/novels started with a paragraph or half a page or so of an idea at its seed stage. It doesn’t have to be for anyone else, just something that intrigues me. If the idea keeps growing after I’ve written it down …
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I’ve done something like this, but it was one page a day with the objective of completing the first draft of a novel in 200 days. It worked. I hadn’t thought of writing a complete story in that one page. Good idea!
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Like most of you, I don’t have a story that needs to be told right now. I decided I was finished with my previous group of characters and thought I would write a bunch of stories I hoped would stick together into something bigger. But I can’t get past the note-making stage. When I had a single plot in mind, even though it wasn’t worked out in detail ahead of time, I was able to work toward it by writing several hundred words every day. But when the project is ill-defined, there’s no compulsion to work on it, so it’s easy to let other things in life take the place of writing.
But November through March are prime writing months. It would be a sin to waste them. Cage’s process sounds worth following.
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Not writing much lately. Some short stories and articles/ book recommendations which I wish they wrote themselves. I had the why too, but my main reason is mind and body too busy with other worries – some bureaucracy to battle, hopefully with success… Renovating an appartment and moving and spending more than I could afford… But this (renovating and furnishing, without luxury) is not the time for penny-pinching, it will come afterwards, once problems of all kind solved and we in a new home…
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Those are good reasons. You do need both the time to write, and the uncluttered “head space” to work in, in order to write stories. Hopefully once you are settled, you will find a story ready to be written.
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Thank you, Chuck! I have plenty of ideas, but not having the proper mind space, I struggle with transforming them into words.
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I can understand why you aren’t writing. I hope these problems are soon resolved and you can return to writing!
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I do think the “need” to tell a story is important. Like you, Audrey, I have the books I’ve written behind me that will probably define me as a writer. And at 73, I don’t have a long future as a writer to work with or worry about. I can be content with what I’ve written.
And yet, what keeps me wanting to write is how much I enjoy not only putting words together, but thinking about writing – playing a scene a for a possible novel, a blog post. or a book review in my head, over and over again. And over yet again:)
We’ll see what I can do during the writing season of winter.
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I relate to your point about the ever-shortening future to write anything!
I felt compelled to write my first few books; I couldn’t not do it. Since then, I have had to persuade myself to get in the chair and take up the pen. Now, even thinking about that effort makes me weary.
Rather than flog ourselves into writing, we need to open ourselves to thoughts and impressions that will create the compulsion to write. Unfortunately, I don’t know if that can be done intentionally. Yes, I know we’re told to write even when not inspired, but I’ve done it both ways, and inspired writing is way more rewarding than the workmanlike approach.
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I’m 1953 vintage, and I’ve been an Indie (SP) for around twenty years. In my dark years, I churned out heaps as I drank too much. Amazingly, much of it is quite readable. I stopped counting the full length efforts after about 35, and about a year ago I said enough is enough, preferring to work on other creative passions like oil painting. Then about six months ago, the worm of a new story crawled into my mind so I thought, ‘Hell. Why not give it a go.’ I’m about one third done but I’ve lost some direction with it. So, I’ll sideline it and get onto other things like assembling the flat pack three drawer chest which will take to the end of the year the way I’m going about it. The new book? Dunno. Time will tell.
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Life gets in the way and writing suffers.
I got through SepSceneWriMo, 30 days of ~500 wpd. Since? Life and it’s ability to suck itself dry.
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I still write every day but I’ve not added a single word to my novel for well over a year. I write poetry, short stories and children’s books but no novel work. I know why. It’s because I look at the thousands of books being added to Amazon every day and I know there are no real quality standards for the content of many of those books. I think of the huge effort I’ve put into my existing three books, the research, the editing, hours and hours of effort, and frankly, it just doesn’t seem worth it. My book will just join the hundreds of thousands of other books, some absolute rubbish, and disappear. Sorry, no upliftment here 🤦♀️
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That is a sad truth of the current publishing world. Either you strive for traditional publishing, which is a longshot and not a guarantee of success, or you self-publish and add to the ever-growing mountain of books. Quality doesn’t even matter anymore, really. Who doesn’t have a huge TBR queue? One thing we indies have, however, is control over our books. We can market or not, publish or not, as we please. No one can tell us our books are going to be taken out of print.
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Hi Audrey, that is true. I self publish because I work for a corporate and have for 25 years. I’m not going to dance to the tune of another one with my creative passions.
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