I am not a writer or journalist in the classic sense, but have been typing on this keyboard for about three or four days now and have hit the Backspace key about about umpteen thousand times.
Currently, I have been staring at white-space all day.
I know I have things to say, to share with family, friends, and whoever.
But I am looking at a blank page and can’t think of anything to relay.
I’ve tried stepping away for awhile, but my thoughts keep bringing me back to this freaking keyboard. Where I look blankly at the screen.
Okay. Just by the first post, I thought maybe you were having a psychotic break. The second one made things clearer
Just write. First drafts suck. The point of them is not to be creating words that will be published; it is to get your thoughts in order. Don’t know your story yet? No sweat. It takes a long time to type 100K words, and your subconscious will moodle it out in the meantime. Just write.
Ever read the how-to-draw book called Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain? It’s like that. Remove your filters. No judgment. No goals. No have-tos. Just. Write.
–or–
Maybe you are a plotter. In that case, start outlining before you start writing copy.
Set yourself a time limit (1 hour?) and type anything and everything that comes into your mind.* Every joke, every thought, all of it.
Alarm goes off, sift through, see if anything connects/strikes your fancy.
No go? Try again. Have fun with it.
*The Straight Dope is full of weiners;
My wife has a nice butt;
That dog has a poufy tail;
Paul Revere would have loved a Harley for his Midnight Ride.
I agree that you need to just start writing. Anything. The more you think and try to collect your thoughts on what you want to write, the longer your mind stays blank. I have the same problem with my personal blog.
If you’re shooting for a history based story, then start writing about some event in history that really has nothing to do with what you’d like your actual story to be about, but it may help get the ball rolling in the right direction.
Step 1: Lubricate the mechanism. Pour two fingers worth of something and knock it back.
Step 2: Write the first draft (or sentence, or paragraph).
Step 3: Still not working? Repeat Step 1.
Step 4: Clean it up when you are sober.
For my first book I had a clear idea of the beginning and end, but not much of the middle. So it ended up meandering a whole lot, with (I hope) a handful of interesting stories that were only somewhat connected to each other. For my second book I planned out the entire plot in advance, and I think it flowed much more smoothly. I’m going with the second method for my third book.
In both cases I had a general rule – I must write every day. Even if it’s just a sentence or two – I must produce and save some sort of progress each day. I didn’t stick to it 100%, but it did help me make steady progress.
I’m a pretty harsh self-editor, wanting to tweak every word as I go, and I know from experience that it makes it really hard to get anything done. It gets a bit easier if you just dump a bunch of stuff on the page to start with, because then you’re editing, rather than writing. (Plus, you don’t have the intimidation factor of that empty page staring back at you.)
Oh, and tuesdayweld’s Step 1? It’s not that bad an idea. I’ve written plenty of papers that owe their start to salt, lime, and tequila. Downing so many that you can’t read what you typed the next day is contraindicated, though.
For those of you struggling to get pen to paper (or words to the screen, to be more accurate), have a look at http://750words.com/.
The idea of the site is that you write 750 words every day (apparently that’s about 3 pages). It logs how many days in a row you can do this, and you get badges and awards and stuff. It’s a bit silly, but it does encourage you to just get writing, daily. I guess it plays on the human predilection of ‘earning’ shiny things for your achievements.
I did this for a while last year and it did get me into the habit of daily writing. Most of my days, I was just starting off by writing complete drivel - blogging about my day, and so on - but it would usually end up flowing into actual writing, that I could then copy and paste into an actual story.
I don’t use the site any more, because a) it costs money (albeit not that much), and b) after a while I was in the habit of writing every day anyway, so I gave it up. But I did find it a good way to form the habit.
I usually don’t have much trouble, but I literally stared at a blank screen the other day for what seemed to be hours.
I would type in a sentence then hit the backspace key.
Repeat, lather, rinse.
Maybe I should go back to old-fashioned paper and pen and doodle while I collect my thoughts.
Sometimes I do this when I have a dry spell, it can help. My preferred method is to have 2 or more story ideas going, and when I get stuck on my “main” one, I switch to one of the others and work on that. I find having a different outlet helps because sometimes my thoughts just don’t want to go the way *this *story needs them to go, but they’ll gladly wander in the direction of that story instead.
So, maybe try starting a second writing project and have it be still connected to your first history one. Maybe start collecting family stories/memories etc. that are related to your history novel. Write them out as a series of short stories collected in one volume. Something that can give you another direction to go in when you get stuck on your first one.
A novel (especially a historical one which means lots of research unless you have a PhD and your thesis was about that particular time, in which case it still means some research) is a tough place to start writing. Try writing a short story set in that time period. Maybe it will turn into a part of your novel.
Want to write family and friends? Buy some small note cards, or even postcards, so there isn’t room for more than a couple of paragraphs. Start small. And if you want to write something unpleasant for any reason, I’d suggest you start writing someone else something pleasant.
Do you have something to write or do you just want to write something?
If the former, and you know more or less what your novel is about, close your eyes and start playing it in your head like a movie. Then write it down - and, as the others have said, don’t edit as you go. Just write.
I can write a 550 work column in an hour if I have an idea. That I’ve been doing it for 17 years helps.
One more hint - I think L Ron Hubbard did this when he was a hack writer, but it might have been someone else. When it is time to quit, stop in the middle of a sentence. When you get back you can easily finish off the sentence, and then have your rhythm going.
