Less than a month from my book deadline and I am floundering—flailing wildly like a proverbial fish out of water. I’m an intuitive writer and right now, my intuition tells me that both my hero and heroine lack agency and their internal conflicts have been too easily resolved. The pace of the book drags and the story arc is not an arc but a sinking hollow. My middle is muddled, and as I head towards the ending I have so many loose ends I can’t possibly tie them all up in a satisfying way.
My characters are too flawed and messy for genre fiction. Meanwhile, the plot lags, the action unfolds with tedious slowness, and the secondary characters lumber on and off the pages but never come to life. The things I usually do well—conflict, sexual tension, and dialogue—are all missing or mediocre in this book. The things I struggle with are truly a slog. My descriptions come out bland and colorless. The choreography seems clunky and awkward. Every action scene takes hours to write and ends up boring and static
I want to throw out the last 2/3rds of the book and start over. But I can’t, because that would mean the book would take another two months, possibly three, to finish, and there is that deadline.
I think of all these things in the middle of the night. The time of day when it’s dark in the real world and even darker in my head. My mood isn’t a state of discouragement, but despair. I’ve lost my way completely. The creative energy that got me through nineteen other books has deserted me. The magic is gone.
Although I joke about my muse and believe most of my creativity arises from some mystical, unreachable place in my subconscious, I’m not usually one to whine about writer’s block. Under normal circumstances, I’m certain persistence and hard work is more important than inspiration. I’m also usually an optimist. But somehow this book defies all my attempts at being positive, and challenges my faith in the saving grace of resolutely plunging forward. My dogged, stubborn nature, which has served me well in my writing career, is no longer a steady, even glow but a frail, flickering light in the gloom.
This is it. I’ve reached the end of the line, the dead zone, the place where the careers of old writers fizzle out and die. Time and age has caught up with me. As my physical energy flags, my artistic drive falters. Gripped by hopelessness, I descend into oblivion.
And wake in the morning with a glimmer of hope. A slight return of vigor. I sit down in the chair and start writing. The characters, paused in mid-scene, lurch into life. And I’m off, following the trail of breadcrumbs they lay out on the narrow, twisting, dark pathway. I have to trust them and keep going. And remember the advice Nora Roberts shared at a happy hour during a long-ago writers’ conference: “If you write yourself into a corner, you have to write yourself out again.”
There is no other answer but to keep writing.
Thanks for sharing.
Mary, I’ve been experiencing similar issues for unknown reason. COVID burnout? Dunno. Don’t feel burned out. But on my newest ms, I’ve been having certain issues with getting things-to-page, and though not an outliner (not sure how you’re meaning “intuitive,” here, I found more metaphysical descriptions of the term as well, but I do also try to “channel the story”), this time around I wrote up a synopsis for my agent to use when publishers ask her what I’m working on next. I.e., I know where the story goes (have already written the ending, in fact), but am having issues “getting started” even though I already have near 40k words begun in 2018. I’ve since made terrific headway, but keep wondering why I’m having issues *now*. Even the ms I just finished in Nov went über easy! Maybe it is a metaphysical CHANGE in the Force? Again, dunno. But in any event it appears you’re forging ahead, and that’s what I’m doing. And if one area is a problem, I just work on another area.
But no matter the case, the solution is as you stated: write.
I think part of my reaching a crisis point was that I was pushing myself to write,even when I was run down and lacking in creative energy, I think, instead, I needed to give myself a break and step back from the story and figure things out and THEN “write myself out of the corner”. I’m going to write my next blog post on that revelation.
I agree that these are extraordinary times that have affected all of us in some ways and for us creative types, it has been especially difficult. I hope you figure out what’s going on with you and what is behind your struggle. One lesson I’ve learned is that no matter how long you’ve been writing, life is still gong to throw things at you that can alter the creative process and force you into “dark nights”. Creativity is a fragile thing for most of us. Something to be nurtured and cared for. Best wishes and cheers!
Great blog Mary!
Thank you, Kimberly. I’m glad if was meaningful for you.