Downtime
One of the many frustrating things about writing is not writing. This can itself take on many forms. There’s not writing because you’re meant to be working on a project but you’re stuck. There’s not writing because life is getting in the way and you can’t find the time. Then there’s not writing because you have completed a big project and need to choose which of the limitless number of idea you have had to work on next. All of these can be frustrating, but it’s the last I want to focus on here, because it’s the frustration I’m experiencing now.
Part of me thinks I should feel content. This has been a productive year. I finished two novels, both of which are being submitted to potential publishers. I’ve finished a short story collection with a brand new novelette that will be coming out soon. But apparently my brain can’t go more than a day without feeling like I should be working on something.
The feeling I get when I’m not working on something is awful. It’s this cocktail of anxiety, tension, and dwelling on mortality. No wonder so many writers throughout history drink too much.
The obvious answer is to work on something. I have plenty of ideas. I have a novel I shelved because I didn’t like where the third act was headed… if I could just fix that act I’d have another completed novel, I mean the first two acts are great, how hard could it be? It turns out that working on something if my head’s not in it, can lead directly into the “stuck” frustration only greatly amplified because if my head’s not in it I immediately divert some attention to the ever increasing host of other ideas. This can lead to a rapid ping-ponging of back and forth between this is frustrating I should work on the thing that’s almost done instead, but that’s frustrating as well, back to something new, oh no I’m trapped in a loop!
Another potential answer, and one I’ll probably need to shift to soon, is the concept of preproduction. Before I write a larger project I want to make sure I know as much as possible about this. To establish tone I try to read in the genre, watch applicable movies or tv shows, and create a playlist of music to have in the background once I begin writing. This can quickly feel like a cop out and trigger the anxiety, so I remember to do all this while having a notepad handy so I can sketch out character ideas, or other ideas that come into my head. Still it doesn’t quite fulfill what I get from writing, but soon I can start writing out character backgrounds, dialogue I think they might say, and even snippets some of which I might actually use, even before I’m ready to start outlining.
And then of course if all else fails, there’s this blog. The gaps in posts are pretty revealing as to when I was drafting a book. But the posts themselves shouldn’t betray a lack of progress, so much as a means to allowing for relative downtime, preproduction, and generally not going insane if I’m not writing intently at the moment.
