Doldrums—MG Sondraal
For those who know me well, yes, I have incomplete craft projects and plans for garden that remain just that. Sometimes a craft project takes precedence over all else, but not usually. Some gardening plans are ruled by the planting/ harvesting timeline and others not.
But for important, meaningful stuff, like writing, not merely tasks to fill the hours, I’m deeply committed and prioritize my time and energy accordingly. I’ve always been self-motivated. I don’t need a deadline. I only need a promise to myself I’ll finish. I set tentative deadlines but delay them without chastisement if I underestimated the time to complete the task properly, never to the extreme procrastination of leaving them undone. I fervently believe consistency works better than inspiration, daily writing stimulates ideas, and incremental gains lead to satisfactory conclusions.
I completed a stand-alone novel in August that I’d written and edited in a few months. The chosen subject matter was new to me, and I’d adjusted how I write and found the new process a better fit. The combination of those two changes made the process of writing joyful. I liked my characters and the story arc. A review of the previous day’s efforts made the subsequent structural edit easy, and the line edits not as dreadful as I usually find them. I’ve sent this first readable version to beta readers for comment.
After this wonderful writing experience, I’m struggling right now, feeling totally adrift. What’s wrong with me?
I continue to write daily and don’t lack for ideas. I can’t focus though. I’m madly off in all directions, writing dribs and drabs in one project or another and then switching. This is not how I typically write. Admittedly, I usually have a couple of works in progress but one is being edited while the other written. This gives me the opportunity to step back from a project that’s stuck and still do something productive while my subconscious strategizes how to unblock the other.
Currently, I have two works in early stages and another midway, none particularly well-plotted and none with even an inkling of an ending, the kiss of death for me. I like to begin with a known skeletal structure for a story. Many colleagues love the freedom of “discovery” writing, but for me, there’s too much deleted dialogue, scrapped scenes, and misspent effort. I cut and alter enough of what I intended to keep. I don’t want to discard countless pages because they don’t move the story forward or worse, trapped the story in a blind canyon with no logical way out.
Maybe my current doldrum stems from the intense and exhilarating experience I had with my last completed work. Perhaps this is merely a magnified let-down normally following completion of a project, but it’s lingering too long.
My dilemma is how to move beyond this.
Despite best efforts, I can’t write myself out of it. I need more time to think about where each tale is going before continuing. That focused contemplation happens while walking, gardening, showering, or doing the dishes. It’s not in my dedicated writing time.
A writing buddy suggested I make a visual board of my various WIP, graphically indicating what’s done and what’s needed for each. That might help focus my thinking time with less anxiety. I’ll make one of those as an evening task while “watching” a murder mystery on TV.
This doesn’t solve my problem about what to do in writing time. I have another stand-alone, non-mystery novel in readable form but haven’t shared. I set it aside with the plan to re-read it with special attention to the emotional beats. I worry I shied away from fully exploring the sadness, and the anger and may need to punch up some of those emotions. The realism is challenging and I needed a break from it. It’s been long enough. I could do another edit and force myself to share it for critique. Ick. A spate of editing tends to spur my creativity, writing being a reward for the hideous task of curating every word.
Does anyone else have ideas? I’ll try anything and everything especially if it delays editing.