I feel like the common advice to new writers of “write every day” is overrated. Sometimes it’s okay to just think. As I mentioned in a previous post about my opinion on word count versus time spent on project, I think that it’s okay to spend some time just thinking about your project, especially if you’re stuck. When you’re stuck or lost, my best piece of advice is just to sit there, wherever you feel most creatively focused, and just think. Sure, a book is only written one word at a time, and you’re never going to write a book if you don’t put fingers to keyboard (or pen to paper), but words are just expressions of ideas and ideas need to come first. If you’re struggling with an idea don’t feel guilty that you haven’t written anything or didn’t hit your daily word count. If you dedicated time to think about it you’ve done enough for that day.
One of my prior projects, a horror-comedy that’s an affectionate parody to some of my favorite B-movie tropes, I spent most of the first half of my time working on it aiming for a daily word count. This was a mistake. In trying to make that word count I would often write myself into corners, take paths that did not fit the story I wanted to tell, or write jokes that didn’t even land with myself. The final revision of the book ended up being around 60k words, but thanks to that word count goal, I wrote myself into so many corners, that around 50k words were cut before I even completed the first draft. If I had abandoned my word count goal earlier I would have had more time to think. More time to reflect on what kind of things I wanted to parody, and where the story was ultimately going. Focusing too much on word count lead to burnout and is possibly why I decided to end it on a cliffhanger and get around to writing the second part later. (Although I would be remiss to not mention the fact that life, especially work, got stressful around that time too).
My current work in progress has a lot less abandoned plot points so far. Of the ~60k words written in the first draft at this point, only about ~6k scenes worth of words have become abandoned. As mentioned in my previous post on writer’s block, if it wasn’t for just sitting around and thinking I would most likely have written the project into a corner or taken it down a path I did not want to take it down. I ended up writing that “muted” tropey scene I said I was going to write in that post, and it ended up being the wrong fit. So yes, the experimentation was necessary, but I only knew it wasn’t a right fit sooner than later because I gave myself time to think.
As I mentioned earlier, words are important, you can’t have a book without words, that is a given. But ideas are the DNA of all books, and they can only form when given time to think and reflect on the project. Sometimes you’ll sit down, unsure what to write or where to take your story, but don’t give up and leave your desk, yet don’t force out words that don’t connect with the DNA of your story. Instead, sit there and think. Set a timer if you want, that’s what I do. Words are important, but ideas are everything. And once the ideas come to you, that’s when you can begin writing again.
