Writer's block

A big fat roadblock, that's what this is! The first weeks of June were productive to the extent of being misleading; I felt a book could be done by October or November. The last weeks have been rather eyeopening. Nothing more than a hundred words, and a genuine problem. Do I continue on the same story, or do I move on to a new one, having more zest. And it doesn't help that my concentration has completely shattered. Cant spend even ten minutes trying to think on the story without any unrelated thoughts creep in and cause train wrecks in my mind.

A new backdrop and conflict

Yesterday I didn't manage a chapter. All I managed were thirty three lousy words. But I realized it was not my fault. The story refused to be written, because it knew it was not going anywhere great. To put it in simpler words, the protagonist did not have any motivation for going after the antagonist and the antagonist did not have any reason to do anything. Frankly speaking, I did not even have a fully chalked out antagonist. He was, kind of, behind a blanket of mist.

So, I have decided to give in to the whims of the story and bring forth the antagonist. That should add the necessary conflict to make the story spicier. Of course, the first chapters will have to be rewritten, but I will continue on assuming they are. Oh, I hate first drafts! It will be fun for the reviewers, when suddenly after chapter 9-10, the story stops making sense, or at least seems discontinuous.

I will spend the next few days working on the newer story. This will make it version 5, I think. Or at least, 4.1, depending on whether there are so many changes that it can be classified as a new release.

Memo to myself, don't force the story. If it's not coming naturally, then something is wrong. Try and figure out what.

Second memo: Add as much conflict as possible and in liberal doses.

A chapter today, or bust!

I am going to finish a chapter today, screw it! The last two weeks have been such a waste of time. Now, enough is enough. I will finish chapter 10 today, whatever happens.

I have come up with a foolproof method to ensure I keep writing. If I don't write, or intend to write that day, then only corn flakes for dinner. So, it's a win-win situation; either I finish a book, or I lose some weight. Nice!

Tense and nervous, can't write

I got stuck in chapter 9 longer than I care to remember. Finally, sick of it, I left it alone and started chapter 10. But it's so difficult to kick start writing again. I cant get beyond the first few words!

I think it has got to do a lot with the fact that the last week or so has been disturbed. I was very busy at home, not able to concentrate on writing. Then there have been office tensions; I shouldn't have taken on the new project; not worth the hair I am losing. And the big fat issue! Spent the weekend looking for a house to buy. Not easy, I tell you. Now I am so tense that I am afraid it would creep into my writing.

Writing is a peaceful process. It sets the mind at peace, within and without. I know, or at least I feel, that if I can spend just half an hour writing, the tensions and apprehensions would be forgotten and the words would come out automatically. But I am so nervous that I cant even get that half an hour of crappy writing out of the way. I am off my chair in five minutes at best. Big fat numbers, a few times my annual emolument, start floating in front of my eyes and my heart sinks low into my kidneys.

So, I am stuck into a vicious circle. Writing will have a calming effect on me, but to write I need to be somewhat calm. Now how do I break this, I don't know. Maybe music might help. Some Indian classical for the soul.

If I am in such a state from just the prices of the houses, what will I do when I actually end up buying one. Maybe the blog needs to be renamed as 'a book, sometime in this century'.

Review pains

My friend just reviewed the second chapter and sent it to me. I am tempted to reply back to the mail, saying 'Bah, what do you know!' or something to that effect, just stronger. Handling reviews is so difficult. It's like someone telling you that your baby is ugly. It becomes even more painful when we spend hours writing a line and then we are told that it's dumb.

But unfortunately, it is a pain that I will have to carry with me. The best method I have come up with is that read the review first, but I don't react, as the first reactions invariably involve doubting the reviewers sanity, intelligence and human origins. I don't do anything on it for at least a week, and then I go through the review again. Initially it does seem that the reviewer must have nuts for brains, but after a sufficient period of time, the review comes across as quite valid. Not all the comments may be right, but some are; and then, some are quite beneficial.

Half week holiday

Had to go down to my home town for some family emergency. Finished up some pending tasks at home, but got no time to write. Now back to the grind with nothing more than a pair of sleepy eyes, an aching head and about 1500 more words.

One good thing though. I continue writing in the passive form, but now I understand it during review. I read through a page and corrected all three sentences. Still no idea about how to go around the '-ly' words.

Heroes are dimwits and not writing puts me in a funk

I have been stuck in a chapter since Monday now. Didn't write anything on Tuesday, sat staring at the monitor on Wednesday, and got myself in another bit of a hole on Thursday. Though this hole is just a personal decision one. This is the first time in the book that the hero has a choice to do something heroic. Till now if he did something heroic, it was mainly because I left him no choice.

Now, he has to make a choice. Do something heroic, or take the easy way out. Most ordinary people would take the latter, but would our heroes do that? No! They would do heroic things, jump over lakes of fire, swim icy oceans, kill fiery dragons, and in general, other dumb things.

So, I have realized one more thing. Heroes are dumb, dimwits, who have no idea what's good for them. And that there's no way out. When faced with a choice, let's say, cooking for himself, in which he has to start from picking the food, or having dinner in a fine classy restaurant, the hero will have to take the former. Otherwise, what will the writer write? The hotel menu?

I think not writing daily has other disadvantages too. I have been in a funk on Tuesday and Wednesday, which I think came from not writing on earlier days. I wrote something yesterday, though inordinately crappy, but I am feeling much better. I am not sure about not writing putting me in a blue mood, but I will keep myself under observation, and update the results.

Don't take breaks

I read in a book that taking a break from writing for even one day has disastrous results. I am experiencing that first hand now. Took one day off, as I felt sleepy, and today, I seem to have forgotten how to write. Cant put a single word down. I have lost the link and the continuity, but most importantly, I have lost my characters. Just because I didn't think of them for a day, they refuse to tell me what happened and how they reacted. And as a direct result, I have to write the story myself. And I am not such a good writer. If the characters don't tell me the story, I have nothing to write.

Memo to myself, WRITE EVERYDAY! Getting back into the flow is just so hard, that it's not worth lazing around for a day.

Writing is easy

I know I will write a contradictory post soon enough, but at this point writing is easy, writing is fun, and writing is joyous.

I wrote myself out of a hole this morning, and between you and me, it was a fantastic piece of writing. I was so happy, and I cant wait to go home and continue on ahead. I haven't got such a feeling of success since God knows when. This is great! This is what I want to do. The days of depression and disgust, all the struggling to put even a word on paper, all the self doubt, is worth it, just this one moment of complete and utter satisfaction and the uninhibited joy of creation.

A story has its own legs

There is this movie, Alex and Emma, which starred Kate Hudson and this guy, who is a writer. The guy, Alex, is broke and has the local goons behind him, so he needs to finish a book real fast. But these goons break his laptop, so he cant type. So he calls up Emma, Kate Hudson, as his stenographer. And then go see the movie. However, there was one scene, in which Emma asks Alex, how will his story end? Who will win and so on. Alex replies that he doesn't know. Emma is surprised. How can a writer not know how his book ends. Alex replies that he doesn't know the story, but he knows the characters, and the characters will take the story wherever it needs to go. When I first saw this movie, I thought that was such a load of crap. But that was the engineer in me, I guess. Now I know exactly what he meant. I knew my story intimately when I began to write it, but now I don't even know it as much as an estranged friend. I don't know what will happen, till I actually write it down. And then I get surprised at what I write!

I really hope that this is how things work. I have no prior experience of writing anything so long, and I dont want the story to meander and get itself lost. At this point, however, the story is roughly going where I want it to go, so I am not worried. When the story starts to ramble, probably I will lasso it and bring it to heel. Let it enjoy its freedom now.

Early morning sprint and review guilt

Mosquitoes woke me up at 4:30 AM. Had cornflakes, green tea with honey, lemon and ginger (going whole hog there), watched the last hour of October Sky(one of my favorite movies) and sat down to write at 5:30. Had a bit of an upset tummy, so between trips to the bathroom, wrote about 2000 words in two and an half hours. Now, no matter how many things go wrong at the office, which they tend to, more often than not nowadays, it cant really be a bad day. I have already achieved the double of my daily quota of writing. So it's already a day well spent!

I am giving the first drafts of my completed chapters for review to a couple of friends and relatives. Yesterday, one of my friends spent three hours (at least) reviewing one of the chapters. She did a very thorough job, pointing out most mistakes. But now I am not sure whether sending out first drafts is such a bright idea. I feel that if I would have gone through the chapters, I could have reduced the mistakes by fifty percent. It's not to say that I would have figured out everything, as she did point out quite a few things that I didn't know. Like I shouldn't start a sentence with anyway. I didn't know that, no sir.

But what I cant decide is that if I would have sent the second or third draft, so to say, with common errors like typos and tenses removed, wouldn't she have been more effective. The other part of the dilemma is if she wouldn't have acquainted me with the errors I didn't know about, then I would have continued making them till the end. So, all in all, I don't know. I think the time taken for review will not be reduced by much, nor the time to correct those errors, as percentage wise, I will make almost the same number of errors.

Memo to myself, never mix math and writing. But maybe it's to late for that.

Another pointer, continue as is with the review system. The way I see it is, at least I am getting some comments. Now if I stop sending out chapters to her, she will lose her link, which may reduce the comments she points out. Will give out for more reviews once my second or third draft is done, so my fourth or fifth draft is as good as it gets.

Frustration, but progress

Yesterday, I went through my monthly installment of frustration. I thought that my book was useless, and no one would read it. I got myself depressed, and vague thoughts of throwing the remote on the TV didn't help soothe much. It started with one chapter, which I thought was forced on the characters. Then it just got worse. My characters are not good enough. My background is not good enough. This is a problem, that is a problem. How I would spend my entire life working like a donkey for some other donkey, how one day I will die having achieved nothing but obsolete knowledge of mobile networks. How my life is no better than a coolie's, how I am just a software coolie. Well, you get the idea!

However, unlike the last few times, there was a difference. I still continued writing. I only got about 300-350 words on the page, but they were good words. I surprised myself with the sudden change that took place in the book and the situation. I had thought of writing the whole book again with a first person narrative, as it would then have my tone, but I realized that the protagonist is not me, so I continued on. I may still change it later, but I find it unlikely.

Oh, and yes, I am writing myself into a dead end, and by the time I finish chapter 9, I would be thoroughly stuck. One of my close friends, who critiques the chapters for me, asked me why write myself in a corner then? My answer was, that if I dont take the difficult path, the book would not really be interesting. I mean, if I am in a hole, so is the character, and so is the reader. If I dont put people in holes, how is it supposed to get interesting.

Problem number 1

I have finally realized what my biggest problem is. I am not enjoying writing anymore. Writing has become work. I read one short chapter I had written about an year ago. It was funny, carefree and fun to read. That was because I didn't think much about it. I didn't think about the people who would read it, or its grammar, or its literary standards. In the last eight months, I have learned how to write correctly, but I have forgotten how to write.

I have forgotten the basic rule of writing. I should have fun while doing it. To heck with correctness.

I hope I get back my carefree writing again, otherwise I will become just like those hundreds of thousands of people, who write very correctly, but their writing holds no juice. It is just the dry pulp left behind after every drop of enjoyment has been squeezed out of the activity.

Progress and problems

Over the last week or so, I have made a lot of progress. First, I am at least able to write for an hour each day. And this write means write; it doesn't include time spent in drinking green tea, or playing games, or hitting the space key a hundred million times. I have been able to reach the stage almost daily, where I can write without thinking.

And with the progress have come problems. I have seen two issues in my writing. I keep using -ly ending words a lot. I havent been able to see how to stop this, but at this point I will just keep writing and avoid them where ever possible. I will not be breaking my concentration, just because i wrote 'briskly' or 'promptly'. Once I am done writing, I will keep one revision only for -ly.

The second problem is time. How do I fill in time between two actions or speeches. I end up with a surfeit of phrases like "soon", "in a moment", "sudden" and "suddenly" (which is a culprit in two ways). I felt this to be a loose way of writing, and wanted to tighten things up, so I queried my writing group for the same, and got the following responses. All are good, and can be used depending on the situation. The most innovative, however, is marked in bold.

1. Why not describe something or have one of your characters do something, like fiddle with something, or move somehow? I don't know the context or setting, so it's difficult, but I seldom use "after a moment" or "soon after."

2. You can also describe something happening in the environment that implies the amount of time that has passed: the motion of a shadow, the changing sound of traffic, the melting of ice in a drink.

3. I usually describe it explicitly, eg 'seconds passed', or 'minutes later.'