by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson
You
know what I’m talking about. I don’t care if it’s your first book or your
hundredth book or anywhere inbetween, you’ve had one of those horrible sinking
moments when you sit at the computer (or legal pad, or whatever), knowing you
have to write something, and the well is dry.
You
stare at the screen. The screen, blank except for a maniacally taunting cursor,
stares back, daring you to put something on it.
Except
there’s nothing. There are words in your brain, but they are disjointed and
incoherent and have nothing to do with the project at hand. Either that, or
they are crystalline and perfect in your mind, but they will not go through
your fingers to the keyboard, coming out mangled and incomprehensible if at all.
Even
worse is when the book is finally finished – every word carefully chosen, every
thought pristine, the entire manuscript polished to a dazzling gleam. It is the
best thing you have ever written… and you just know in your heart you’ll never
write anything so lovely again, so why even try?
Or
the effort of turning out an acceptable book, one that is the best you can do,
is just too much. The thought of starting over with fresh characters, a fresh
location, a fresh plot (and I do occasionally wonder if that’s why we are so inflicted
with long-running series today!) is not only exhausting but frightening. I got
away with it last time, you think, but can I do it again? Sometimes I find
myself typing the most horrible rubbish simply because I can’t think of
anything else that would be better. Sometimes there’s a surprise, though, and after
a little time, that rubbish you typed doesn’t seem so bad after all. It’s
better than you remembered, and if it isn’t, perhaps it can be fixed. And if it
can’t – well, that’s why delete keys were invented.
Luckily
for most of us these moments of angst are fleeting. Sometimes a good night’s
sleep, the reading of a good book – or even a bad one – maybe even a cup of
coffee or a walk around the block is all it takes to get us started again. The
anticipation of this predictable doubt at my abilities is what makes me always
have at least four, perhaps five, projects going at once. If one is finished or
goes stale, I can go on to the next. There’s something about immersing myself
in a semi-familiar but incomplete world, where I can remember the main
characters and the basic story but am still in the dark about exactly how, that
spurs my creative juices. And on I go…
One
last word of advice – if all the above fail, put down words. They don’t have to
be sentences or even part of a story. Type your grocery list. Do the minutes
from the PTA meeting. Just get those fingers moving over the keyboard and it
will prime the pump.
E L
Doctorow tells the story of how he had dried up after finishing a book. He was
sitting at his typewriter (I think it was a typewriter) and his mind was
absolutely blank, even though he had to write another book. He stared at the
wall, knowing he had to start typing something, so he decided to write about
the wall. He lived in a turn of the 20th century house built around
1909, so he started writing about how the wall was built. And about the way the
town was when it was built. And about the fashions and mores of the time.
Without even knowing it he had started a new book.
The
book was Ragtime, and we all know what happened with that, don’t we?
Above
my computer is a little, hand-lettered sign. I don’t know where the quote came
from, and so cannot give attribution, but it is too good not to share. “Writing
is easy. All you do is stare at a blank screen until drops of blood form on
your forehead.” Unfortunately, all too true. So – quit moaning and start
typing. The words will come.
