writing through writer’s block: entry #2.
i should probably give an update on how writing the first draft of my first novel manuscript is going, huh?
i’m currently about 40,000 words into this book – a combination of the 20k words from last year’s draft and the 20k new words i’ve written this year. i’m sitting here thinking “wow, i have to write 60,000 more words – where the fuck are all of these words going to come from? how am i going to be able to come up with more people and places and things in my characters’ lives that are not only meaningful to them and the people around them but also meaningful to me because i want to write a story i care about???” aka the usual spiral. i believe the words will come because they already have, but knowing what those words will be beforehand is not possible. i have to write them.
despite said spiral, writing fiction for the first time has been both what i hoped it would be and completely unexpected. when i thought about what writing a book would be like, i imagined myself the way most people imagine writers over the past 30+ years: sitting in front of a computer screen, staring at a blank page for hours, writing a few words or maybe even a paragraph and frantically deleting all of it, terrified about never being able to fill pages with words that people actually want to read. more than that, i was worried i’d have to actively select every single one of the words and details in my story and place them in the “correct” order immediately to make it worthy of further exploration. writing this first draft hasn’t been like that for me. potentially because i’m a pantser and i let my characters unfold the story (their names, their pasts and present, their idiosyncrasies) for me. or maybe because i lean heavily on dictation to move ideas from my brain to the page.
it hasn’t been easy – i of course have moments where i struggle to think of scenes or question how to move the plot forward, but the process hasn’t been what i expected. i expected the overwhelming anxiety of perfectionism and achievement motivation to prevent me from writing, because that’s typically exactly what plagues my writing and honestly, me using and sharing my skills in general.
i expected to NOT write.
the absence of it is strange. good, but strange. it’s almost like i don’t know how to feel about writing with complete freedom without guilt, even though i’m writing in this way for the very first time. it’s like i’m waiting to carry a heaviness that isn’t coming. i’m sure the stress and an accompanying assortment of emotions will arise if/when i decide to pursue publication; however, i expected to wrestle with myself and my motivation while writing the manuscript because this is a completely new experience for me. stretching outside of my comfort zone to accomplish a writing goal only i have set for myself. it’s been pleasantly startling to experience full alignment with what i want to be doing to achieve a goal of this size and what i’m actually doing on a daily/weekly basis. i want to write this book and i’m writing this book. 2000+ words every week. i’m doing it. getting to know the characters i’m writing, the world they’re living in, and my own routines, patterns, and styles as a writer.
as i progress further along on my writing journey, i hope i’ll continue to reflect on how it’s feeling to do the thing that i dreamt about as a little girl. i know how it felt to write as a high school student, a college student, a grad student. i can look back at those memories and see myself staring at computer screens carefully crafting ideas over days and weeks or writing in blue books, structuring thoughts in real time. if i’m fortunate enough to get this book published, i don’t just want to remember that i accomplished a goal over these coming months and years – i want to remember the feeling. of scribbling thousands and thousands of words. of meeting and loving characters that my curiosity and creativity have brought into the world. of keeping promises to myself. i want to remember how it felt to write.
