Sometimes the writing comes easy. Sometimes it’s like hauling a forty-pound bag up the stairs at Penn Station. Regardless, you have to keep at it. If you’re serious about writing, you don’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike.
Besides, those feelings about “good” writing days and “bad” writing days don’t mean jack taco.
On second glance
A few weeks ago, I hit a juicy part of my manuscript. Adrenaline and emotions raced onto the page in a flood of words. This had to be good stuff, right?
Nope. Upon re-reading—and I really don’t recommend re-reading until after you’ve finished the draft—I saw that the confrontation between my characters, which my memory had hyped up, was actually less-than-cataclysmic. In fact, it was downright tepid.
But I had managed to capture the essence of something promising. After at least one rewrite, and possibly two or three.
Then again, I’ve had more than a few days lately where every word felt like I was squeezing out the final dab in a spent tube of toothpaste. I’ve re-read some of those passages, too. Usually, they’re not nearly as bad as I had feared.
Forging ahead
For many of us, writing is a marathon, not a sprint. Some parts of the journey feel great; others are agonizing. The trick is to keep the end game in mind, even when you’re near the start of the course and won’t actually glimpse that goal for miles and miles.
While good writing days feel great, that buoyant state of mind isn’t a prerequisite; it’s a bonus. You’ll have far more days that don’t feel so good, and you can’t let them get in your way. If you do, you may never get around to writing that poem or novel that could change someone’s life—including your own.
How does your state of mind affect your writing? Have you ever written yourself out of a funk? Please share.
