Writer’s block and hats. (There is a connection. I promise you.)

Okay.

So I know I started this whole tracking words, etc. thing a couple of weeks ago, and then had to backpedal this week while I went back to juice up a manuscript. (I have written 5,000 words of fiction — primarily romantic in nature — this week, in case you were missing the counts. I’m hoping I did what I set out to do, but may have to go back and address it a third time. Fingers crossed that that is not the case.)

Anyway, assuming that my rewrite is in fact done for now, I will be back on track on Monday. Well, Tuesday, really, thanks to President’s Day. (Aaargh. Stupid school schedules.) On my new book. Which is languishing at around 13,000 words, and which I was hoping would be at least 20K long by now.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today.

What I really want to address is the two hats an author wears. Or at least might consider trying to wear if she’s feeling stuck. (See, I told you there was a connection!)

I had lunch with a fellow author just a few minutes ago — she’s written mainly SF and fantasy, but got an idea for a mystery recently, and wanted to talk with me about how to go about making it happen. She’s got great ideas, as it turns out, with lots of twists and turns and interesting characters — but when she pulled out the document I’d sent her — ten blank pages punctuated only by chapter headings — I remembered suddenly how daunting the whole concept of writing a book can be. Blank page syndrome. Only instead of filling one, you’re supposed to fill about 300.

So I told her what I tell anybody who asks, and even occasionally people who don’t. (I know I’ve talked about this before, but if you’re a writer who suffers occasional writer’s block, it’s really important, so bear with me.)

Whenever I come up against the “Oh my God I have no idea what to write” wall — which happens to all of us — I step back from what I’m working on and split my writer self into two halves. Or two hats, as the case may be: the planner, and the scene-writer. The planner comes up with the scenes that need to happen — enough scenes, hopefully, to fill a book. Then she lays them out for the scene-writer, as in “These three things need to happen in chapter one.”

The scene-writer, on a given day, looks at the assignment the planner has set for her, sits down, and says, “All I have to do today is get this person from point A to point B and have her car blow up when she leaves the parking lot.” Or something (hopefully) equally interesting.

The scene-writer doesn’t have to worry about what happens in chapter 24, or even five pages down the line from what she’s writing. She just needs to finish her assignment for the day. And if something interesting happens during the writing of that assignment? She pitches it back to the planner, who can incorporate it into the whole plan and adjust future assignments to compensate.

Now, some people are ‘pantsters’ — seat-of-the-pants writers. And I am becoming more of one as time goes on. But when I’m feeling stuck, I just go right back to my planner/scene-writer split until things get going again. Because even if I write the worst scene ever written, at least I’ve got something to work with. If I throw in the towel and go to the movies, I’ll have nothing to dissect, and I’ll have a stomach-ache from all the Milk Duds I ate to distract myself from the fact that I’m not writing. Or maybe that’s just me.

I have a document I use in my classes called a ‘book map,’ which helps my personal planner put things together. If you’re interested in having a copy, feel free to e-mail me ([email protected]) and I’ll forward it to you.

For now, though, I’m off to exercise and then pick up my kiddo. I hope everyone is doing well and has exciting weekend plans. I don’t, unfortunately; my planner is limited to scenes lately, alas. But who knows? Maybe someone will whisk me off to Bermuda.

I’ll keep you posted…

And by the way, how’s YOUR writing going? Was it a good week? A great week? A Milk Dud week? Inquiring minds want to know.