by Cami Walters-Nihipali
There’s a saying I heard one time, though it was long enough ago that my memory storage has long since discarded the specifics, but it went something like this: Everyone wants to write a book, but only a small percentage of people do.
It’s like sitting at one of those dinner parties (not that many of us have had the opportunity to go to one in the last year or so, so maybe now it’s a Zoom get together) and someone asks you what you do.
“I’m a writer,” you say.
To which someone else says, “Oh, I have an idea for a book I want to write. I should have you write it.”
You don’t say it doesn’t really work like that, but you just smile and nod.
Someone else says they’ve been thinking about an idea for a long time, they just don’t have the time.
So then, why is is it that people have the ideas but none of them make it to the book?
WRITING IS FREAKING HARD!
Hemingway wrote, “All you have to do is sit at the typewriter and bleed.” And if that isn’t the muthertruckin truth!
That is why most ideas never make it beyond the idea. People hit the struggle of writing, either not attuned to their process, or unable to push through the difficulties and they just stop.
Writing a book requires perseverance. It takes you wanting it more than not wanting it because there will be a few moments, maybe all of them, when you feel like your brain has been run through the blender, sucked through a straw, digested and shat out. Okay. That’s gross, but writing a book isn’t glamorous (though we all want to think it is). Nope.
So here’s the truth about what you have to do:
Sit down and write.
Force yourself to sit down and write.
Sit down and write.
Turn off your wireless devices, and write.
Stop procrastinating on TikTok and write.
Sit down and write.
Write
Write
Write
Write
Here’s a story:
Once upon a time I was writing my fourth book, The Bones of Who We Are. It was the final story in the Cantos Chronicles trilogy and I was having a horrible time of it. Completely stuck. I wanted to trash it, mostly because writing is hard (!!!) and the insecurity I was feeling about the story was heavy. There was so much about that book that had me doubting. I felt in over my head. Add to it that this story had the pressure of the final book of the three, so there was the ending I had to address. My brain, a complete swampy mess by then, was ready to throw in the towel. The story was too hard.
And yet, I didn’t quit. I kept going.
Everyday, I sat down and wrote a little more. I worked it forward. One scene here. A poem there. I rewrite there. One more scene. I focused everyday on sitting down and adding a little more because the story needed to be written, and I was the one to write it since it had been given to me to do.
And somehow, the draft got done.
Persistence, I don’t think, means that what we do is completely graceful and without struggle. Persistence is moving forward even in the face of that struggle. Wading into the struggle and pushing through in spite of it.
I have tools and techniques I’ve developed over the last seven books to help me when I get stuck (subscribe to my newsletter for those), and that’s why it is so important to know yourself as a creator. To understand what you need to keep your process moving. Here are some things to try:
10 Tips to Keep Writing Forward
Put on a song or a sound (like a rainstorm). Write without stopping until the song ends. Chances are, you’ll keep going.
Set a timer (I suggest 20-30 minutes) and write nonstop. Don’t stop to correct anything. Don’t stop because someone has yelled because they need to know where the ketchup is. Write. Write. Write.
Stuck? Write a scene from a different character’s perspective.
Still stuck? Have you tried interviewing your character?
Write the dialogue of a scene (skip everything else). Then go back and fill in the details.
Have you tried the outline? Sometimes a bullet list of what needs to happen between events is helpful and then you can cross them off as you write them. Better yet, put them on post-its and when the scene is done, rip up the post-it.
Stop writing when you get to a “break” in the scene but you know what needs to happen next. (This was a Hemingway suggestion in A Moveable Feast). The point is not to deplete your creative well, allowing it to refill between writing and to avoid staring at the blank page.
Remember that writing is REWRITING. Allow yourself to take outlandish risks in drafting. Does that character want to rob a bank? Let them take you there. Once the draft is done, you can fix all the stuff that doesn’t work later.
Have a favorite moment from a movie, a play and book? Rewrite it using your characters focusing on the way they would play that scene in your book rather than how it is in the original. The point - get those characters' voices talking and get them moving. Find the rhythm with them on the page.
Nothing working? While this adage goes against the sit and write, sometimes you’re too close to the story and you need some distance. Take a break. I suggest 2-4 weeks. Work on something new, focus on the blog. Read. Read. Read. And after the break, reread what you’ve started from beginning to end (don’t revise or edit). Make some notes about what you’re thinking and dive back in.