So I’ve been seeing a lot of blog posts, facebook updates and tweets lately – about how great everyone’s doing. It seems everybody’s WIP is the best thing that ever happened to them, they’re writing it so easily, everything is falling in to place, and their lives are just perfect.
It seems no one is having any problems at all this week.
And here I am – thinking I might just go live in a cardboard box on the street, because nothing I ever do will matter.
Okay, that might have been a bit much – but you know what I mean! I’ve completely lost the feel for the book I’m currently writing, book 2 in the Columbus Archives series, and it’s the most awful feeling in the world.
It feels like it doesn’t make sense anymore. Like it’s complete and utter crap. As if my long and detailed layout was written by a five-year-old.
Of course I know it isn’t true. I’ve written over half of the book, and even though I know I need to rewrite parts of it, I know a lot of it makes sense. It just doesn’t feel that way.
It feels alien, as if I lost the train of thought I had when I planned it. As if I don’t remember what ideas I started out with, and as if I don’t know how to piece it all together.
Last time I sat down to write (a few days ago), I wrote 92 words.
What’s going on? I know I had good ideas, (and they’re still there), and I know I want to finish the book.
But then why did it suddenly become so difficult?
It’s weird because I’m not even in a particular difficult part of the book. It’s one of the most planned out scenes I’ve done, so why is it so difficult to get it down on paper/(screen)?
Often my go to advice when you can’t write, is to read. And luckily I’m not in a rut in that department as well. But whenever I read something, it’s always so amazing. Much better than what I’m currently doing. Yet again, I know that what I’m saying isn’t necessarily true – but the feeling is still there. The feeling of insignificance.
I keep thinking that it would have been better if I was actually stuck in my writing, if I actually didn’t know how to carry on the story, or if I’d gotten to a part that I hadn’t quite planned out yet. But that’s not the case either. I’m super confident in what I need to write, and how to write it. I just can’t… do it.
Writing this blog post has made me conclude I’m probably just lazy. Maybe if I quit this blog post here, and open the document with my book in it, I can continue writing there..
Maybe…
Trey Stone, Author 
Yes, I have had this feeling and often I still do. What has helped me has more to do with motivation to write than the actual writing process. Before I write, I have a flash card taped to the table where I write. I scribble my current word count for whatever I am working on on that card. At the top of this card, I have written these words, “This is your only way out.” Those words have a specific meaning to me. It gets my mind in the right frame.
When I sit there and stare at those words, most other things drift away. When I stare at those words, my mind set becomes this: It’s me and my laptop against the world.
It’s all on me. And that’s the Truth. It’s a sort of panic and stress. A deep anxiety. You think about life and how short it is. How little time you actually have. You think about how lazy you are. You think about your short comings, your failures, your fuck ups, your losses. You get raw. You get down to bare core of yourself. It really is just you and your laptop. It’s you and your words and nothing else. That flashcard and those words help me. It gets my mind ready to fight.
Creation is difficult. It’s much easier to drift through life. My suggestion is to figure out a way to make yourself feel as if your back is against a wall and the only way out is to write. Remember, “Comfort kills slow, but kills complete.”
Gabriel Thomas
Lone Cow
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