On getting something down on paper...

Jamie's comment reminded me of this. I thought y'all might enjoy it.



The Process
by Joseph Massey

Cross-stitched
outside sounds
double the day's

indoor confusion.
How to untwine
noise, to see.

There's the bay,
highway slashed
beneath; water

a weaker shade
of gray than this
momentary sky's

widening bruise.
The page turns
on the table, bare

despite all
I thought was
written there.

Middle of the Book Doldrums

So as I was sitting in the waiting area of my daughters' dance studio, waiting for their lesson to finish, I pulled out this tiny little notebook and continued to work on my novel. I filled page after page no problem and was very excited about my progress...until I typed it up at home and it turned out to be about 1/2 page. Ha ha. Anyway, I am having the middle of the book doldrums. I am at the place where I don't know what else is supposed to happen and continue to be exciting for another 15,000 words and still be relevant to the main plot and building up toward the climax.

Have you ever been there? Any suggestions for getting through it?

Writer's Block

I've realized afresh something I thought I already knew--I can't write from an outline, or figure out my story ahead of time.

I've been trying. It's been a disaster. I can't like my story or my characters enough this way.

I have to write to discover my story. I can't know what it is until it comes out on the page. No wonder I've had writer's block: I've been trying to tell my story what to be, when what I really needed was to listen, as Ann Lamott says, to my inner broccoli, my creative subconscious--the crazy-woman down in my mental basement. You know, the one with all the good ideas, the bizarre stuff you never thought was in your head (and maybe shouldn't be).

I've been keeping her down. Luckily she got out yesterday, and the result was 6 and 1/2 new pages between yesterday and today. Whew! Now I can finish my Christmas shopping without so much stress. I was beginning to think maybe this book wasn't going to happen.

What do you guys do to get the creative fires burning? How do you dig yourself out of the mire when you're stuck? How many metaphors can we use for writer's block?

How do you write?

I am thinking about starting a new novel and letting the one I am halfway through with sit for a while. The idea for the book has been stewing in my brain for a while, and I am excited about it. However, when I actually sit down to write it...nothing comes. That's because what I want to write about is IN THE MIDDLE of the story. Writing a beginning bores me. And if it bores me to write it, isn't it logical to think that it will also bore people to read it?

What do you do? Do you start at the beginning and faithfully make it from start to finish? Do you write scenes from the middle and then go back and put on the beginning and the end and anything else missing? Do you say, heck, forget the beginning...who needs a beginning?

I'd love to hear some thoughts.