How to Write a Novel #2

That’s right, I’ll admit it, I feel a bit stuck at the moment, with the book. It’s OK – don’t panic – I’m not stuck stuck, I’m just a bit… I dunno. Just a bit stuck, that’s all. I always knew that I’d hit a stumbling block somewhere along the line (let’s face it, a novel is a BIG project) but I didn’t expect the stumbling block to be a writer’s one; I thought it would be a big unsolveable muddle instead, but I haven’t run into one of those yet, thank god. I suppose that’s good news.

But the thing is… I keep trying to write, and the words aren’t popping out like they were a month or so ago. Back then, I couldn’t stop the words from flowing, and when they flowed, they were goooood. Satisfying friendly sentences were writing themselves and I felt like my job was to act as their servant – I was totally attuned to the meaning behind the words, and all of the ideas were simply flashing out of my fingers and into the computer, at a speed I could hardly keep up with. And I liked it. But that’s not happening at the moment, which is a tad annoying. In all honesty, lately I’ve felt like all my best efforts involve dragging words out one by one and arranging them in a way that ultimately equates to a shitty sign that says ‘SUNE BEDS’, much like the one in the picture on this post. Pffffffffff.

So why’s this happening then? I’m not particularly enamoured with the word ‘muse’, but all the same, where’s my muse gone? Well, I think I’ve got three answers to that question. Let’s take a look at these answers and see if any of them make any sense.

The first answer:
The book, I expect, will be roughly 100,000 words long – a lorra lorra words, by anybody’s standards. And I’ve written almost 60,000 of them already. Almost. So that’s rather good. Very rather good in fact.
Obviously a book has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and also obviously, I’m in the middle part of it now – actually it seems fair to say that I’m right in the middle of the middle now, which is cool. A landmark of sorts. But what I’ve discovered is that there’s an overlap between the beginning and the middle – the story doesn’t just jump from one stage to the next; no no no – they sort of swim into one another, like adding warm water to a cool bath. The change from beginning to middle is gradual, and almost imperceptible.
When I hit the 50,000 word mark, I felt a shift – this was the point where I left the overlappy bit, where I moved on from the ‘beginning’ phase of the story completely and entered wholly into the ‘middle’. I’d built my foundations and now I had to do some filling, so that the ending makes sense when I get to it. Thank goodness I know how the story ends, as otherwise I’d be completely lost by now.
Before I started writing, I’d already spent a couple of years working out how to start the book – thinking about it and constructing it in my mind – and with the beginning came the ending, so I’ve thought about both those parts a lot, for a long time… Which means – yep, you guessed it – I haven’t really given the middle so much attention, so it feels unfamiliar and a little bit under-represented.
All of this makes the middle phase rather tricky… I need to be extra careful while writing this bit, because if I miss anything important, the end is screwed. And if I add anything superfluous, the ending will have to change, and I already like the ending so I’m sticking with it.
So I guess that explains, partly, why the flow has slowed – I’m not writing with wild abandon because I need to take extra care over each sentence in order to maintain the storyline, and I’m unprepared for the exact content of each chapter in this phase.
This seems fair – I can accept this. I’d still like it all to flow though, please.

The second answer:
I’ve got college work to do, dammit. I already wrote about the battle between essay and novel here – and nothing has changed. I’m still inactively sitting in the middle of an urge to write fiction and a duty to write an assignment. So I’m pretty sure that’s part of what’s stopping me from achieving much of either at the moment. What a ballache.
It’s funny though – there is a simple solution to this quandary: I can do a bit of both. I can write a bit of essay, and afterwards I can write a bit of book. Easy peasy. I have no reason not to approach it all like this.
However, I’m not approaching it like this. Instead, I’m sitting around wondering when I’ll write either of them. Grrr.
I don’t have a great deal more to say about this right now, which probably suggests that I feel guilty somehow for not getting much done, and I’m probably in denial about my guilt, so I’m probably avoiding facing up to any of these feelings, which would probably lead to me taking responsibility and pulling my finger out and actually doing something. Probably.
Which all suggests that maybe I’m enjoying not writing at the moment, even though I’d like to do some writing. I’m enjoying not writing because writing would mean overcoming a little issue that I’ve discovered in my psyche, which I don’t want to dig into right now. Or something like that.
Ugh, maybe I’m just a bit tired of it all. Maybe I should go for a walk.

Well OK then I will, but I’ll write answer number three first.

The third answer:
I try really hard not to allow astrology to interfere with my day to day life, but nevertheless, sometimes I feel forced to admit that I’m simply a holographic projection of consciousness onto an imagined physical realm which represents the movements and relations between some strange entities that we perceive as the planets which make up the solar system. There, I said it.
Yes, that’s right – nothing really exists the way we think it does and as poorly evolved humans we’re powerless when it comes to changing that. If you don’t believe me, watch this video and say “Wow.”
There is a lot that I could write here which would be totally unrelated to what I’m trying to say, so I won’t say it. However, even if you strongly disagree with the last two paragraphs, it remains true that Mercury was recently in retrograde and the dates of that event correspond directly – acutely even – to the time when my writing was in full exuberant flow. I started writing the book on January the 21st, a week after Mercury entered the ‘shadow phase’ of its retrograde. And my words slowed to a trickle on March the 13th, when Mercury finally broke free of this particular stage of its odd little pattern.
Oh, by the way, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can learn more here.
So, I’m fairly sure that this is all a part of what’s happening: as much as I’d like them to be, the planets just aren’t quite aligned to my storyline right now. How rude.
The good news, if my hunch is correct, is that Mercury will go retrograde again in May, so I don’t have very long to wait until that happens. Phew. It would be awfully nice if I were able to write some book in a flowy way now though, instead of my having to drag the words out one by one while I wait for the universe to align itself. Bloody planets, getting in the way of my story.

So here’s a question: what the fuck am I going on about?
I think I’m talking about acceptance. I’m constantly telling friends and clients that there’s no use in fighting against what is and wishing that now was different – Now is what it is, and there will be another now soon, which will either be different or the same, depending on external and internal factors. I mean, the next now might be the same because I believe it’s the same, or it might be different because I believe it’s different. It also might be the same because it is the same, or it might be different because it is different. I guess my part in all of it involves managing the balance between what is and what I believe is is. Does that make sense? No? Oh piss.

Anyway. That’s where I am now: I’m not stuck, I’m just stuck, even though I’m not stuck; I just believe I’m stuck. And I believe I’m stuck because I’ve forgotten that now is the way that now is. What a schoolboy error.

Let’s find a positive note to end on.
Here’s one: I appear to have created a new now by writing this. I’ve written a blog post! You’ve just read it! Hooray! Welcome to now. This proves that the muse isn’t gone, and the words aren’t stuck – I’ve just been holding onto a misconceived idea of what flow is, that’s all. I mean, the book was flowing (and will flow again), and I keep looking at it expecting the flow to still be there, when clearly the flow is somewhere else. I think it’s telling me to go for a walk.

Well, excellent, I’ll do that then. As always, thanks for reading. See ya later.