How Chasing The Muse Can Sometimes Scare Him Away

In my previous post I talked about how my word count for Redemption had plummeted in the last few weeks or so. You may remember that one of the reasons I put forward for this happening was that I'd got too deeply into Editor Mode, which wasn't the right one to be in considering I was still doing a lot of restructuring of the plot. I still feel that's the problem, but I decided to go deeper and try to work out what made me free-wheel down that particular one-way street in the first place. And, after a great deal of thinking (and the odd portion of medicinal chocolate) I've uncovered some interesting evidence.

I'm still excited about this story. It still feels like the one I'm meant to write before I try and write anything else, so it's not that the fire's burned out and I'm subconsciously hankering to do something else instead. I know the story I want to tell now, inside-out and backwards - heck, I've even abandoned my pantsing tendencies and outlined the thing - so I can't use the old 'I don't know where I'm supposed to go from here' chestnut either. For the first half of Draft Two I was chugging along nicely, so whatever's dragged me down to a snail's pace has happened only in the last couple of months. Hmmm.... what have I changed about my writing routine in that time?

And that's when it hit me. Quite a few things, actually.

When you want to write the best book you possibly can, you look for ways to help you do that. Ways to help you first find your Muse, and then chase him down and hold him like a hostage to your writerly bosom. You want his mojo raining down on you whenever it's Writing Time. And so, if you discover suggestions for helping you do that, you grab them and give 'em a whirl. I grabbed a few in the last couple of months, courtesy of a myriad of Writer's How-To books. I lurve those books. I gobble them up and swallow them down like a big blue whale hoovering krill. And some of the advice I read in these books - and have tried to follow - will probably work tremendously well. For some people. But I've now come to realise they didn't - and don't - work for me. I'm sharing them here so that, if it turns out they're as unsuitable for you as they are for me, you can avoid making the same mistakes as I did (I kick sand in my own face so you don't have to, as it were.) So here they are - the Things I Must Now Stop Doing Because They're Totally Not Helping:

1 - I must stop reading so many writing how-to books!
Did I mention I lurve those books? There are a million, squillion of them out there - and the lion's share of Kindle versions of them are ludicrously cheap as well. I'm talking less than the price of a cup of coffee. And loads of them are pretty good too - brilliant even. I've learned a ton of genuinely useful and insightful things from them. So I got into a habit of reading them regularly - a little, bite-sized chunk of one in a ten-to-fifteen-minute feast every morning, just before I begun my writing session. And boy oh boy, was that inspiring! I would put the book down, infused with the heady cocktail of Successful Writers' Secrets and absolutely panting to get to my computer and immediately put them into practice. In terms of giving me a massive kick up the motivation it was like an intravenous double espresso - if I hadn't felt in the mood to sit down and write before each reading session, I sure as heck was afterwards...

Until I actually started tapping out words onto the page, that is.

Suddenly everything I was typing didn't look good enough anymore. Was it showing not telling in the clever way described in that book I'd just read? Is putting that bit in a terrible cliche like that other book warned against? In fact, does this whole scene follow the arc structure recommended in that other book that was so great...? I'd studied the texts, and now my poor old brain was thinking I had to pass the exam to prove I'd learned it all properly. Not the way to write freely and creatively.

I still stand by my original statement; there are some fantastic books out there on the writing craft that I would thoroughly recommend because I do believe they can help people become better writers. But, like the yummier versions of stuff we put in our mouths to feed ourselves each day, too much too often is not good for your writing health. So I'm putting myself on a How-To-Book Diet - I can still have them, but only as an occasional treat, not a daily snack before writing sessions. I may well get cranky and headachey for a week or so, but in the long run I think it will do me good.

2 - I must stop obsessing about my productivity!
One of the pieces of advice I read in one of the aforementioned how-to books talked about pinning down your most productive time to write. Some people are at their creative peak early in the morning, it stated, while others find they work better late afternoon or even late at night. The key to ensuring you're always working at maximum capacity, therefore, is to discover when you are at your most creative and strive to set that time aside in your schedule for writing. The process advised for doing that was to devise a spreadsheet to track not just the hours you spent writing each day, but the precise times you began and ended those writing sessions and the resulting word count for each of those sessions. Within two or three months, it was assured, a definite pattern should emerge as to which hours of the day produced the highest word counts.

Well, as an ex-software techie and ever-so-slightly-OCD person, I was definitely up for that! I already had an Excel spreadsheet for tracking my hours devoted to writing projects (to make sure I kept up my targeted at-least-ten-hours-a-week schedule) so it was just a matter of tweaking that to record the extra layer of detail. Soon the secrets of my productivity peak would be revealed to me... what could possibly go wrong?

Well... turns out that, in a situation like this, being ever-so-slightly-OCD is something of a hindrance to the process.

Well I spent two hours writing that page there, but in that time I deleted large chunks and rewrote them three times, so is the total wordcount Microsoft Word's giving me an accurate assessment of how many words I actually wrote in those two hours or isn't it? And if I stop for lunch now, do I stop my 'session' and resume it once I've finished - even if that means I've only been writing for half an hour - because I can't write while I'm eating so if I included the time spent eating lunch in my session that wouldn't be a true reflection of my word count either?  What about toilet breaks - they probably distort the accuracy of my word counts too, surely? And since I've got this column that calculates how many words-per-hour I'm writing in each session... Excel can only handle time in decimal format, so if I don't want to give it (or, more accurately, myself) a migraine I'll have to make sure I only write in chunks of time I can divide decimally. And I can't record any times of less than an hour, because the formula I'm using to calculate words-per-hour multiplies any value of less than one (no, I don't know why either but it does - hey, I became a software technician to tell computers to do maths on my behalf, okay?) And that'll distort my word count even further...

And I'm supposed to concentrate on writing my novel when I've got all that swimming around in my brain?

But the most ironic thing of all? The results I did collect told me... nothing at all. Actually no, that's not entirely true. They told me that I always seemed to write roughly about the same time of day every day, give or take an hour. Well, yeah - there's a reason for that. That part of the day every day is the only time I get to fit in my writing sessions - at all other times of the day I'm busy doing the things I have to do to run a house and raise a kid and all that other stuff. And in the two months of tracking, my word count for those times every day was so varied the only 'pattern' emerging was that there wasn't one. Chocolate consumption probably had more of an effect. Or possibly... the brain-screwing stress of tracking my every writing moment to the nth degree..!

So I've reverted to a simpler, less scary spreadsheet. I track the total hours spent on a project each day, and the word count for that. I then have weekly totals for hours and word counts. And that's it. If I was the Mel Gibson version of William Wallace I would be painting my face blue and screaming "Frreeedommmm!" right now.

3 - I must stop treating the prep for my writing sessions like Sacred Rituals!
Lots of writers have their little 'things' they like to do to get themselves 'in the zone' for a writing session. Some like to have a pot of coffee brewing, so they can imbibe as they write. Others have specific snacks within grabbing distance. My main two are my Writing Soundtrack - a specific collection of instrumental pieces of music that reflect the mood of whatever I'm working on, playing low in the background as I write - and burning scented candles (the latter is particularly helpful if I'm also banning myself from eating chocolate that day.)

As I said, little things like these are great for getting yourself in the right frame of mind for writing. But if you get into a mindset where you believe you can't write as effectively without them... that's when they can start working against you. Sometimes I buy a different brand of scented candle than my usual, preferred one - and when I use it at home it doesn't actually have any scent at all, because it's just a cheap rip-off of a scented candle. Or my husband finishes his appointments early to work from home, and I can't have my music on because he needs to be able to make work-related phone calls without 'background distractions.' Just recently - well, round about the same time as I started getting snared by the above activities, actually - if either of those things happened it felt like someone had slammed the brakes on my writing session. How could I possibly bury myself in my writing and produce anything decent without the scent of Vanilla Honey wafting around, and tunes like Still Alive tinkling away in the background? No wonder my word-count-per-hour was so low today! And no wonder I was failing to make proper use of Setting to show not tell in this scene, like it said in that book I read earlier..!

They say a bad workman blames his tools - and that was me, blaming a lack of access to tools that - in all honestly - weren't essential to getting the job done. Nice to have, yeah - like a massage is a nice thing to have at the end of a stressful day (so I'm told.) But does not having said massage render you incapable of functioning? No. You just carry on without it. My writing rituals are not magic spells that enable me to channel my Mystic Writing Spirit Guide - they're just Stuff I Tend To Do while I'm writing.

So there we go. I tried to chase my Muse - but he thought I was hunting him down and ran the hell away. Guess that's what happens when you go after him with an arsenal of equipment and a slightly deranged look in your eye. Next time I shall just remember the wise words of Stephen King - just  show up at the page regularly and eventually he'll hang around of his own accord.

Little Bits of Happy a Writer 'Needs'

Writers can be a funny bunch.

 They love their vocation with a passion when it's working well, to the point of wanting to do it to the exclusion of... pretty much everything else, really. However, when it's not working at all, every second of doing the thing they once loved so much becomes a kind of slow, cruel torture - an exercise in futility that brings nothing but self-loathing and despair. So they... keep on doing it anyway, because not doing it is, somehow, even worse...

But there's another side to many writers that perhaps only the loved ones of writers are aware of. Because many writers have what might be described as 'quirks.' 'Fetishes,' if you like. No - not those kind of fetishes.... well okay, maybe, but that's not my business and I'm not planning to 'out' anyone here, so deep breaths, relax, etc. No, I'm talking about seemingly innocuous, everyday things that writers like. I mean, really like. A lot. Things that probably promote little more than a 'meh' from non-writers, but fill a writer's heart with sweet, fizzy joy.

I used to think it was just me being a bit geeky - but after discussions with other writers it soon became clear that these little sources of happy were shared by many of us. So here, without further ado and all that, are just a few of the Writer's Secret Little Fetishes. How many can you put a tick next to?

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* - Pens!
Pens are things of beauty. That slender shape, their weight in your hand, the pretty rainbow of colours and designs they come in... a writer can never - NEVER - have 'too many pens.' The concept simply doesn't exist. This applies even if you hardly ever use pens anymore. These days, around 95% of my 'writing' is actually typing; tapping away at some keyboard or other. Typing is faster - and, if I make a mistake, correcting it is easy, takes mere seconds and leaves no trace of the original error behind.

But that doesn't mean I don't love pens. I do. Love. Pens. Desire pens. Covet pens like a miser covets his secret stash of gold bullion... to the point where I can be... *squirms*... slightly possessive of the ones I call 'mine.' I have a husband I love dearly, but he 'borrows' pens and then treats them as if they're just... things to write with, goddammit! As in, once 'borrowed,' he not only doesn't return them but (and I advise you to sit down at this point if you're of a delicate disposition) he doesn't retract the nib/put the cap back on when he's finished writing with them. So they dry up. And DIE!!!

When the pen in question is one of a pack of five from Poundland ('cos even cheap pens are lovely) this is annoying. But when it's a Special Pen - one you picked out individually from a sea of pens in a proper pen shop because you just saw it and liked it... well, every writer knows a small puppy cries every time a Special Pen dries up.

So yeah, if I see my poor husband hovering around my pen tub with a certain look on his face I do have this tendency to get my Gollum on now. "Nooooo.... you can't have the preciousssss! I bought you some pens last week - use your owwwwnnnn!!" And many of my writer friends have assured me they feel the same way. Which makes it not crazy at all.

* - Notepads and notebooks!
That's as in the old-fashioned, paper-filled ones - not the computer-y things.

As with pens, the same rules apply; it is utterly beyond the concept of reality to have 'too many' notebooks and notepads. The reason is simple. Sometimes even writers who write mostly on computers like to go places where computers aren't and scribble down ideas and brain dumps, and the good old notebook and pen is still the idea combo for that. But 'story ideas' are completely different from 'notes on a current work-in-progress,' and both of those are nowhere near the same as a 'writing journal' - which is not to be confused with 'morning pages'... So of course you can't just stick all those things in one book, together - no, that's just insanity! You need separate books, for each separate type of scribbling... preferably with nice patterns or soothing pictures on the cover, that reflect the different natures of the writing inside.. Oh yes, the endless variety of pretty covers - some so special and beautiful they deserve to have you devise a new type of writing altogether, just for them...

This is why I have shelves full of pretty notebooks; my local fire station could justifiably class my house as a hazard zone. Most of those notebooks have no more than the first three pages filled - some are still as blank as the day I bought them (possibly years ago now - hell, I don't even remember.) But they're there, looking gorgeous and waiting for their moment in the sun. It may come for them, one day. But if it doesn't... it's no biggie. They don't have to prove themselves to me - they had me at "that'll be four pounds ninety-nine, please..."

* - Writing 'how-to' books!
Here's a social experiment; leave a random book about the craft of writing on a table somewhere and see how many writers can resist picking it up and looking through it. The answer is highly likely to be none. It doesn't even need to cover a writing genre they're interested in - chances are they'll still, at the very least, read the blurb on the back. I personally have never had any desire to write romance novels and probably never will. So if I saw a book called 'How to Write Romance Novels' would I give it a go? Hell yeah! A writer wrote this book - and I'm a writer too! That practically makes us siblings!

Besides, if the first best thing in the world for a writer to be doing is writing, the second-best thing is reading about writing. We're insatiably curious about how others do it, especially if they've done it well enough to gain a ton of respect - okay, and/or money - in the process. Writing is lonely sometimes. We need the odd reminder we're not the only nutcases doing this crazy thing.

* - Specifically 'Writing-Friendly' Sustenance!
Everyone - even non-writer types - has their little foodie/drinkie vices; the special treats they indulge in when they need a little emotional TLC. But many writers have at least one special type of comfort sustenance that they will swear, with hand on their heart, helps them to write. Some regard it as an essential requirement for the process, insisting that without it they cannot write at all; others will turn to it when they feel blocked or that their work has become stale, like a tried-and-trusted home remedy. Coffee seems to be a popular one (specifically good-quality, 'proper' coffee - none of that instant muck, apparently.) Hemingway would probably have said 'alcohol.' Mine is chocolate.

It's all in our minds of course; as far as I know there is no scientific evidence that favourite treats have any specific effect - chemical or otherwise - on the creative synapses in our brains. Whatever. Science Schmience - pass me those Magic Stars, I've got a cranky chapter of my work-in-progress to write...

* - Their Special 'Writing Place!'
I left this one 'til last because it's the most important. Virginia Woolfe famously talked of having 'a room of one's own' for writing. Which is lovely if you've got a spare room going begging... but not all of us are lucky enough to have that. What almost every writer who's serious about their work does have though, is some kind of designated space where they always go to do their writing; be it a permanent fixture like a desk wedged in a corner of a room, a specific comfy chair that's universally acknowledged by the whole household to be 'the writing chair,' or a kitchen table that's commandeered part-time whenever it's... not being a kitchen table. It's the Special Writing Place we call our own. And boy, do we call it our own...

Like cats, writers can be territorial. Even with a part-time writing space like a kitchen table. We have no problem with it being a kitchen table when we're doing things other than writing... but when we are in residence - it is NO LONGER A KITCHEN TABLE, y'hear?  Seriously. So here's the deal - and listen up, because this is important. All the time our Special Writing Place is being our Special Writing Place, you DO NOT put your stuff in or on it. Not even temporarily. You don't take or even move any of the stuff we've placed in our Special Writing Place - not even if it's on fire, just call us. And you definitely, definitely do not hover over us doing that face that means "when are you going to be finished here?" Take it as read that The Hovering Thing will never be welcome in our Special Writing Place. Remember these simple tips and we will have no need to snarl at your approach like a feral animal anymore. You're welcome.

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These endearing little quirks of ours were never intended to be a thorn in the side of our loved ones, and we like to think most of them aren't that troublesome. But living with a writer is never going to be a run-of-the-mill experience... and at least we're not out robbing banks or something, hey?

Well - not in real life, anyway...

Wherefore Art My Writing Mojo?

Writing is flippin' hard sometimes.

Admittedly it's not 'hard' in the same way as, say, going to war or working in an A&E department is hard...

(I see you amazing people there... what's that you're holding? Oh - the world's smallest violin. Okay, well, that's fair enough...)

No - writing-flavoured 'hard' is a different kind of challenge altogether. Not least because, when it is hard, it has this magical ability to make you feel like you have suddenly become the most stupid person in the universe.

I started learning to talk from about... ooh, fourteen months old, according to my mum. I've been doing it ever since - maybe not as much as more extrovert people, but even when I was shrinking against the wall trying to be invisible I was still practicing in my head. I started learning to write at about five, when I first started school - and I've been doing that ever since as well. With both of these abilities under my belt, that's a lot of years of using words and stuff to get my point across.

So you'd think, after all that time, I'd have got the hang of it by now. And, for most of the time I believe I function quite ably. But, in those dark periods when Writing Gets Hard, it seems as if something freaky happens to my brain.

I know what I want to say. The movie scene playing in my head is very clear; I can see every detail of the action and hear every word of the dialogue. All I have to do is take what's unfolding in my brain and put it down on the page in front of me, right? Simples.

Except, for some reason, it isn't.

It takes me ten solid minutes of word-wrangling to convert one teeny-tiny aspect of the scene in my head into one sentence - and when it's done that sentence reads like someone whose native tongue is Chinese and they only just started learning English half an hour ago. When I read it back, even I think "What the heck does that mean?" I started writing 'The Renegades' because I thought I actually had the ability to do it - what the gubbins happened to my brain between believing that and now?

I can state with conviction that I didn't have this problem with Draft One. Draft One poured out of my brain in a crazy, uninhibited gush and I just spilled it all over the pages like a kid let loose with the nursery paints. That's because Draft One was my happy-fun-go-nuts-and-CREATE! time, when there were no limits and no 'wrong' way to do anything.

But now I'm about a third of the way through Draft Two - and  Draft Two is the time to put on the Serious Pants and say "Right - let's sort this shit out then." This is the stage where I'm supposed to be rebuilding the story foundations so they'll actually take the weight of the unfolding events, making sure all the pieces fit together and that it doesn't look so bloody awful it'll bring down story property prices for the whole neighbourhood. In Draft Two, it seems, there's a wrong way to do everything - and I seem to be pretty damn good at finding them all.

Everything I write looks messy and repulsive at the moment. I almost wish I could just pull out all the story-stuff dancing around in my brain and squish it onto the pages and say "There you are - ta-dah! Screw words and sentences and all that crap -  that's how it's supposed to look." But I suspect that would just look messy and repulsive in an entirely different way.

I have been assured by many writers that this is normal - indeed, some have even gone so far as to say that it's a necessary part of the Draft Two process. (Oh. Hooray then.) But it's not a fun part, no it surely isn't. Writing like a drunk idiot without the actual fun of first getting drunk and then behaving like an idiot is not good for the self-esteem, it has to be said.

But I made myself a promise with this book; I was going to FINISH IT. Come what may. Even if, at the end of all the hard work and effort, it turns out to be monumentally crap. And I intend to honour that promise. Because, even though I don't like how hard it is to get this thing written at the moment, I still like writing it. Crazy-ass writer-type that I am.

So I'm going to keep turning up, keep on truckin' through it and keep on working through the pain. Apparently (according to my writing friends) by doing that I can eventually come out the other side of this Tunnel Of Crapness and into the light of Yay, I Might Be A Writer After All-ness.

Until then, I may have to get emergency supplies of chocolate shipped in. Dig for Victory, and all that...

Can A Little of What You Fancy Do Your Writing Good?

Writers are creative people, yeah? And creative people are sensitive, requiring a higher degree of stimulation in their daily lives than non-creative people.

(Not in a kinky way, of course. Well, okay, maybe some... s'okay, I won't ask. Not my business after all...)

This is the reasoning behind the popular idea that many writers have vices - which, in spite of messing up their everyday lives on a scale of 'not that much' to 'monumentally,' are also what 'fuels their genius' and 'frees their creativity.' Hemingway, for instance; a man renowned as much for being a great drunk as a great writer. Lots of creative types in other fields are also well-known for having a strong liking for stuff that's not entirely good for them; Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones regularly consumed enough drugs to floor an elephant.

This has led to another popular idea/myth; that, without those hedonistic lifestyles, these people would not have been able to create their masterpieces. The drink/drugs/debauched sex orgies were the oxygen for the raging fire burning within; take away that and there would never even have been a spark, never mind a flame.

Sorry, but I think that's mostly bollocks.

When Hemingway famously said "Write drunk, edit sober" people probably took his words a little too literally because of his obvious liking for the former state. I'm willing to bet that the 'drunk' he was talking about was more to do with shutting out your internal censor, writing without stopping to read over what you're writing - not 'drink Jack Daniels until you're writing in your own drunken drool.' I doubt even he would have got much writing done in that state. All the same, the idea persists that his problem with the falling-down-juice was as much what 'made' him a writer as the fact that he... well, y'know, wrote. Would he never, ever have achieved what he did if he'd just limited himself to a couple of beers a week? Seriously?

Then there's Stephen King; in the earlier years of his writing career he admitted to being a massive coke-head, whacking out bestseller novel after bestseller novel while flying high as a kite on the white stuff. He hasn't touched drugs for over twenty years now, but he's still just as prolific - and as popular - as he ever was. He didn't need the drugs to be great at what he did - he already was.

So no, if you want to become a better writer, taking the kind of 'trip' that doesn't involve some form of transport is not a required part of the process. Sure, some dubious substances make you hallucinate, see wondrous visions, smell colours or simply transform your iPhone into Robert Pattinson's butt-cheeks. That's not your imagination on fire. That's just your brain going funny, and it doesn't just happen for the 'creative types,' it happens for the dunderheads too. Y'know, the kind of people who think The Jeremy Kyle Show is a documentary...

On the other hand... there is another school of thought that's become popular recently to at least preach about, even if it's not necessarily practised. You've probably heard it at least once or twice - feel free to stop me if this sounds familiar...

'A creative mind requires a healthy body; you should eat only healthy food that nourishes you, and take plenty of exercise to keep yourself fit - don't put junk food into your body, you must treat it like a temple in order to be a productive writer... ohmmm... *sound of wind chimes*...'

Sorry, but I think that's bollocks too. Well, just a little bit anyway.

I like chocolate. No, let me put that into better perspective. There are times when I would crawl through fire, acid rain and shards of broken glass for chocolate. Chocolate, however, as all those nutritionist-types and Government Health Officials will tell you, is Bad. Naughty. To add to this, I also have a medical condition similar to diabetes type II which means I have to restrict my sugar intake - bad news if I had any plans to embark on The Chocolate Diet. So I don't eat it as often as I'd like to - along with all other sugar-packed naughties like tomato-based sauces, bread (yes, bread!) and - somewhat surprisingly - an awful lot of diet foods (honestly - check the packets. Who knew, eh?)

But here's my confession... when I'm drying up on the writing front, when nothing's coming and I feel like I have the world's worse case of literary constipation - I eat chocolate. And not just your cheap, everyday bar of chocolate either. I'm talking badass chocolate; the really good-quality stuff with a ridiculously high cocoa content and the ability to make you put on ten pounds just by reading the ingredients on the wrapper. Hey-ell yeah - bring it on, baby!

And you know what? It helps. It always helps. Badass chocolate never lets me down! 'Treat my body like a temple?' Pffft - yeah right - only if it's a chocolate temple! Yes, I know, before you even say it - the effect is psychological rather than because of any magical wonder-substance in Badass Chocolate (why has nobody marketed a product called that? Hell, I'd buy it..!) Don't care. It works.

A little of what you fancy does do your writing good - don't be bullied by the Healthy Body Healthy Mind Brigade! Embrace your chosen vice; chocolate, coffee, cake, pizza, whatever - for those times when your writing soul needs a big hug. (Although I'd still discourage embracing hard drugs as your chosen vice, of course - 'a little of what you fancy that's not illegal and likely to seriously mess you up' is more what I mean.)

Just remember though, that - like a hug - if it goes on too long and with too much enthusiasm it gets restricting and just a little bit creepy.