One of the worst feelings for a writer is when the words you want to write aren't there. When the words are just missing.
Don't get me wrong, it feels awful when you keep putting out bad writing. Bad writing is frustrating beyond belief. But at least when you feel like you're putting out bad writing...you're still writing.
There's an old quote by Abraham Maslow that often comes to mind:
"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be." - Abraham Maslow
Sounds great, right? But what do you think that artist does when he can't paint or when that musician can't make music?
A writer who can't write is useless like a piano with no strings. It takes up space, it might even look pretty in some cases, but it can't do what it was meant to do. A writer who can't write is, by definition, useless.
I've completed three novel-length projects in my life. One of them is a collection of short stories (featured here), but the other two were actual novels. While writing both of them, I reached a point where I just had to step back for a little bit because it felt like the words were gone.
On A Sheriff's Duty, I took an 18-month break. Now it was in those 18 months that I wrote most of the pieces that would make up Call of the Mountains, so it wasn't a total loss, but that 18 months was tough. It was full of self-doubt and questioning, which are already a problem for most writers.
It happened when I hit a certain scene that I wasn't really sure how to continue from. I hadn't quite reached that scene, but it was coming up soon and I just didn't want to write it. I felt like it was going to be a bad scene, but I also didn't know how to get through the plot without it.
So I eventually decided, almost exactly three years ago today, to trudge through this scene I was dreading and get it done. Once that scene was done, I tore through the book and finished it about two months later. This scene proved to be something of a stumbling block, but I let it sideline me for too long.
I've had a few readers go through the book since then, and most of them have actually really enjoyed that scene. They've specifically mentioned how they liked this part of the book.
Now this example was pretty easy to get past, admittedly. I just had to do it. I just had to sit down, focus in, and force myself to write. Sure, there were things I had to fix in editing, but that's true of every part of a book. And my fears turned out to be moot, anyway.
Sometimes, though, that empty feeling doesn't go away with plain-old elbow grease. With the book I'm working on right now, tentatively titled Snowbird, I hit a serious wall about two months ago. I would sit down, turn on the computer, open up the file I was working in, and...nothing. The words just weren't there.
I felt empty. Vacant. No matter how much I tried to bang out a few hundred words, much less my goal of a thousand words a day, they wouldn't come.
I will fully admit that, as far as personal crises go, this one is about as mild as they come. Nobody died. Nobody's life changed drastically, nobody lost a limb. But, as I outlined above, I felt useless.
I was a writer who couldn't write.
I wish I could tell you some kind of formula for what I did to get past that feeling. If I'm being honest, I think part of the emptiness was from already feeling out of sorts personally, and that just compounded the difficulties in my writing. I tried reading some more, it helped a little. In time, I was able to write again.
In April, I only wrote about 3,000 words total.
I surpassed that count within the first two days of May. I got almost 15,000 words written in the first two weeks of May before I put a pause on that book to work on other projects. It helped that I wrote 3,000 words in one sitting on an airplane, where I had no other option but to write.
There's another quote that I think fits well in this situation:
"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." - Stephen King
There is so much truth to what King says here. I have never felt as capable and as productive as when I've spent a lot of time reading and when I've spent a lot of time writing.
Think of it like a watering can. If you want to pour water out onto your flowers or tomatoes or miscreants three floors down, then you first have to put water into the can. If you want to write, you first have to put something in by reading. It makes such an enormous difference when you've actually filled up.
It also goes back to the Stephen Covey classic Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the seven habits in that book that I think every major CEO or CEO wannabe has read is "Sharpen the Saw." What that means is rest, refuel, refill. If you want to be an effective leader, you have to rest and reset your mind and refocus.
The way that a writer does that is by reading.
The other way a writer does that, oddly enough, is by writing. It sounds counterintuitive, but it is the absolute truth. The more you write, the better you feel about writing. The more you write, the more productive and more confident you feel about writing, like a batter on a hot streak at the plate. If you're riding a great streak, all you want to do is get back behind the plate. You just want that next pitch to swing at.
When you're going great as a writer, you just want to write and write and write some more. When you're struggling, just like a great hitter who is in a slump, you start to get nervous. You don't want the keyboard, you don't want to go into that writing space, because it's just going to make you feel ineffective and worthless when you can't get the words out.
But, just like that batter in a slump, the only way to get better is to tough it out and swing until you get one. You may not knock a home run your next at bat, but get a grounder. Even making solid contact on an out is better than nothing. Eventually you'll find your swing again and you'll be able to get it going.
As a writer, you'll eventually find your pen again and the words will come flowing back.
I say all of this to get to one final point. The reason I'm starting a blog like this at all is because I need an avenue. Writing one book all the time is great, but it is exhausting. I need an avenue like this to get other thoughts and ideas out on "paper" for people to read.
I haven't settled on a publication schedule yet, but I hope to put out two or three posts a week on a regular basis. So stick around, click around the site, and keep coming back.
Hopefully the words will keep on coming.