The Hard Parts of Writing ... for Me (Penny Rader)

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This month we're talking about the hardest part of writing.  For me, it's:

Getting past the fears

• Fear I won't have anything to say. (Stop laughing.  Yes, I'm a charter member of the "Help! I'm talking and I can't shut up!" club.  Talking's not the same as writing.)
• Fear no one will want to read what I write.
• Fear someone will read what I write...and hate it...or think it's stupid.
• Fear I'll never finish another book.
• Fear everyone will discover I'm a fraud, that I don't know what the heck I'm doing, that sometimes the only way I get words on the page is by using writing prompts or exercises.

Getting words on the page

• Snippets of dialogue will filter through my mind...but don't always get onto the paper as powerfully as I heard them in my head.  
• I'll see something amazing or intriguing but can't figure out how to describe what I'm seeing, how it makes me feel.  It just seems so...flat.
• I'm sure this is quite politically incorrect, and please forgive me if I offend you, but here goes. Ever read Little Black Sambo?  Remember the scene where the tigers run around and around the tree till they turn to butter?  Well, that's my brain.  All sorts of stuff in there whirring around, churning into butter, leaving me unable to focus and pluck out what it is I want to get on the page.
• The cursor on the screen just blinks and taunts and does nothing to coax forth words.
• The blank page has so many lines to fill and nothing comes out of my pen or pencil.

Conflict

• I avoid conflict.  Actually, I pretty much hate it.  There.  I said it.  Conflict makes my stomach a jumbled mess, makes it hard for me to breathe, to think, let alone find the words to stand up for myself. 
• Even though I know stories must have conflict between the characters to make readers care about them, to keep turning page after page, to follow the tale all the way to the end, I struggle with torturing my characters, with finding true conflicts that will genuinely make it impossible for these two people to be together...at least till I figure out their happy ending. I want happy-happy joy-joy, peace and harmony. Being mean doesn't come easily to me.  Unless you mess with my kids.  

Plotting

• I'll get a snippet of an idea and get a couple pages down and then not know happens next.  I kid you not. I have at least 15 stories started -- most of them haven't made it past 5 pages.  
• Sometimes a scene bit will pop into my head and I'll know that if I don't get it on paper it will disappear.  That bit of writing magic does not happen often enough.
• I have learned that if I know where the scene or story is going, I can come up with the words.  It's the figuring out all the steps, or even the big moments, of the characters' journey, of their relationship that I struggle with.  

So, why do I keep torturing myself? I often think about just hanging up this writing thing, but I've never completely been able to do so, at least not since it first occurred to me back in 1986 that maybe, just maybe I could write books like those I love to read..  Mostly, I guess, because even if I'm not getting words on the page, characters and scene snippets continue to flit through my mind.  Perhaps getting out of my own way is hardest part of writing for me.

How about you?

Nothing Comes Easy

What do you find is the hardest part of writing?

• Ideas?  There are times when I think I'll never have another idea for a story.  So far, that hasn't happened.  Will it?  Maybe.  But ideas for most writers are plentiful.
• Characters?  Those are the fuel that power the story.  With ideas come characters.  With characters come ideas.  Those are the easy parts of writing for me. 
• Setting?  Most of us have our favorites.  Our hearts seem to find them.
• Plotting?  I've sometimes thought I will never have a plot for the idea of a story.  And then something magically happens.  The ideas, characters, setting, all come together to tell me where the story should go, what it's about, what will happen to those characters--if they haven't already told me.  Sometimes it takes longer than I'd like, but if I start struggling, I rely on writing friends for brainstorming and we put it all together.
• Writing?  The actual putting words on paper?  Unlike Pat and Joan, the actual writing is what I enjoy most.  It may not always be right.  It may take making changes, but as long as I have an idea of where I'm going, where the characters are taking me, what the setting is and the direction of the plot/story, I can write and write...sometimes to the point of writing too much.

So where's the hard part for me?  Finding the time.

I don't have an outside job that keeps me from home.  In the past, that's been true, and I quickly learned that if an idea or a piece of dialogue popped into my head, I needed to write it down.  It might not be perfect, but it's a start.  The fact is, writing while working outside the home was often easier than working from home has become.

That sounds silly, doesn't it?

You see, I have a family.  All of us do, whether it's children, grandchildren, parents, husbands, or siblings...or all of those.  They demand--and deserve--a part of our time.  Sometimes they take priority, and writing is put aside.  But there are times when I have to say no, I'm working, when I'd rather do something else. Nothing comes easy, does it?  Especially the things that reward us the most.  That includes family.

But even though I've figured out that even short blocks of time can be productive, it isn't as smooth as it could be.  My family knows that I "work" during the day and often into the night, and they respect that.  But there's still a shortage of time, especially quiet time, with no interruptions.  And sleep.  There's never enough time for that.  In my shortest bios, the words, "sleep is highly underrated" are the truth.

Would I give it up because it's sometimes difficult to juggle a life that includes constant interruptions, too many things on my to do list, a shortage of time, and days when it's hard to keep from falling asleep?  No.  Never.  And whether anyone reads what I write or not, I'll still keep writing.

No matter what we do, no matter how hard something about it might be, we keep doing it because without it there'd be a void.  We're no different than the crafters, the soap opera addicts, the sports junkies, the volunteers or anyone else who has a passion, and that includes family.  It may not always be easy, but we don't give up.  The harder something is, the more joy we have from the accomplishment of it.  After all, if everything was easy, where would be the joy in getting through it and finishing?

Give me more time, and I'll fill it to overflowing.  It's the nature of the Time Beast that lives inside me.  There's no use fighting it.  Somehow I manage to muddle through and find The End.

The Hardest Thing About Writing.

Patricia Davids here. This month the WARA blog topic is… The Hardest Thing About Writing.

The hardest thing about writing is…writing.

That's it.
 

That's all I've got.

Okay, I can elaborate to increase the word count on this post a little bit.

The hardest thing about writing is actually typing words on a blank page.

For me, dreaming up the story is the fun part. The what if this happened, and why would she do that, and what would he say then? That's fun.

Verbal stories don't have to be spelled correctly. There is no punctuation needed. They can be long or short. They don't have to come in somewhere between 55,000 and 60,000 words. I love the seeds of a story. I don't like planting, weeding, watering, fertilizing, picking, cooking, canning and putting a pretty label on it. In other words, I don't like the work.

But a tomato seed will never become a delicious bowl of tangy salsa unless all the work gets done. It is, at best, only the promise of a good thing.

So, like any devoted gardener, I put in the work so that others may enjoy the bounty of my labors.

In my latest book the seed was, how could I a write an Amish story like You've Got Mail?
The salsa is, Plain Admirer. Love is only a letter away.

 
In case you couldn't guess from my blog, I'm not into vegetable gardening. I don't like to plant, weed, water, fertilize, pick, cook, can. I enjoy growing flowers. They take only half the work. Plant, weed, water, fertilize, done! Enjoy.
I wish the weather would warm up so I could go dig in the dirt.

What are your garden plans this summer. Veggies, flowers, stories, or all three?