Let me start by saying that I don’t get classic writer’s block. Or rather, I got it once, but that’s it. What I do get, however, is an overwhelming feeling of doom that my writing sucks, that there’s no reason to do it, that no one wants to read it, and that I might as well give up. I still write during this time, but it’s not with any heart.
It’s strange because when I go back and read what I wrote several years ago, I marvel at how fresh it seems. Even something I’d read several times. There are very few mysteries I’ve read that has a similar take, and while I don’t tie up all loose ends, I come to a satisfying conclusion. And, I actually prefer not tying up all loose ends, but I worry that it doesn’t seem deliberate. Sometimes it isn’t, but it still works out in the realms that I have set up.
Currently, I am trying to write new stories that are set in the current hellscape that is the pandemic plus police brutality plus political bullshittery. Since I write mysteries, I wanted to tackle what to do when I (protag) see a murdered body but have no faith in the police. It’s been going ok, but I’m not really feeling it. I’m trying to write a few other mysteries set in the same situation, and it’s really limiting. I mean, it’s supposed to be, yes, but it’s REALLY limiting.
One thing I do in my spare time is re-read old things I have written. There are two trilogies (I usually write in trilogies if not a standalone) that I wrote fairly recently–ok. Let me back up. They are not completely written. In the first case, one whole novel (230,000 words) and half the second one (125,000 words). In the other case, two finished novels (122,000 words and 128,000 words respectively) and the third not yet finished (57,000 words).
These are my two favorite trilogies, probably because both are fantasy in nature.
Side note: My brother likes to rant about how much he hates the fact that sci-fi and fantasy are mixed together because he loves the former and hates the latter. I heartily agree with him but because I’m the other way around. I don’t care much for sci-fi, even though I keep it mostly to myself. In most nerd circles, it’s taboo to admit you don’t like sci-fi. It’s also irritating that fantasy is seen as lesser to many–probably because of the gender skew. Sci-fi is seen as more logical (why, I don’t know, as it’s all made up shit, anyway) and fantasy as more emotional. You can probably guess as to the skew here.
In the first trilogy, the main character is human–or rather, she believes she’s human. She finds out that she isn’t exactly human, and part of the interest for me in writing her is how she copes with the realization (and several other).
Before I get into that, I have to say that it might be described as urban fantasy. I read somewhere recently that urban fantasy was a dead genre, which is grimly funny given that I read it around the time I finished one of the novels. The thing, though, is that I wouldn’t really call the trilogies urban fantasy. This is one of the issues with my writing as with the rest of my life. I just don’t fit anywhere. I read about other people writing fantasy, and they talk about the world building. I tend to keep the real environment and manipulate the people/beings in it.
In the second trilogy, the protagonist is not human–she is of a superior species. This has been a joy because I can have her do things that I can’t make humans do. The premise is that this other species has to live peacefully with humans, and it was difficult to find a rationale for not having the superior species just wipe out the humans. In the first book, the protag is begrudgingly following the arcane set of rules, but that gets blown out of the water by the end of the book. In the second book, she’s not as amenable, and she’s questioning everything she’s been taught. She no longer cares for the rules, but she’s not flouting them, either. The end of the second book changes that dramatically, and at the beginning of the third book, she’s over trying to play nice(ish).
In the first series, there is a big event at the end that signifies the end of the world as the protag knows it. She and her posse did something to change the arc of the universe, but it’s only the first step. In the second, they’re tracking down the locus of the situation, the impetus for everything that happened. While coping with the revelations in the first book. I know that everything is going to build until the final confrontation. Do I know who is going to be in the final confrontation or how it’s going to go? No. I mean, I know in general, but not any of the details.
A quick primer on how I write. I don’t follow any of the sensible rules on writing. I don’t have a schedule. I don’t write out a plan or an outline.
Side note II: I have never written an outline in my life. I know this is one of things that so many writers push. Write an outline and make sure that everything is written down. Correction. I did try once to write an outline because it was so forcefully pushed that it was the only way to be a real writer. I was miserable, and I couldn’t do it. Anything I wrote was flat and lifeless. Which, incidentally, happens to my characters if I try to make them do what I want that isn’t in their personality.
My way of writing is very organic and intuitive. I have ideas in my mind at all times, and I kind of think of them as background noise. I don’t notice they’re there until I need a new idea. Then, one comes to the forefront of my mind and I mull it over but not actively. It just sits in my brain and percolates on its own. Usually, a situation comes first and then the protag. Then, the first scene–I have to mention that I normally know who is going to be killed before I start writing. I may or may not know who the killer is, but that reveals itself to me fairly soon in the process.
I don’t have to wrestle with actually writing is what I’m trying to say. Or, rather, I didn’t until the pandemic. Now, it’s a daily struggle. I still get the writing done, but my brain is so fragmented, it takes three to four times to get it done. It’s torturous to force myself to write for more than five or ten minutes at a time.
It’s one reason I want to go back to the two aforementioned trilogies. Some of my most creative moments came in writing those novels, and I want that back. I’ve been working around my five-minute spurts, but it’s difficult not to get frustrated. I used to be able to write for half an hour or an hour at a stretch, and that seems like just a dream now.
November is coming up (yikes!), and that means NaNoWriMo. As I’ve written about before, I don’t have a problem writing 50,000 words in the month. I’ve written 200,000 words in one NaNoWriMo. For my own benefit, I tend to come up with a different goal because it’s more inspiring to me. I hadn’t done it for a few years, and last year I was surprised to see that they had added a new category–NaNo Rebel–for those of us who said fuck it. We don’t need your rules.
The pandemic has been wearying on me for several reasons. I don’t want to enumerate at the moment. I feel like my life is worth nothing, even more than I normally feel this way. There are five months left in this hellscape year. I don’t want to feel as though I’ve wasted the whole year (which I will, anyway). I want to set the goal of finishing both series this year. That might be too lofty a goal, but I’d rather not meet it than not try. That’s one-and-a-half books in the first series and nearly all one book in the second. I better get cracking.