noveldoctor

You know how it goes. You follow your inspired muse to the page and start writing and everything’s going great, then 1000 words in, you hit a wall. A big fat concrete wall with barbed wire strung across the top. Maybe the wall is a plot hole. Maybe it’s a character who is suddenly acting out of character. Or maybe you’re just really, really tired because you stayed up all night reading Anna Karenina so you can honestly say “Yes, I’ve read Anna Karenina” should anyone in your writers’ group ask if you’ve read Anna Karenina because that’s the sort of thing you imagine writers in writers’ groups ask whenever there is a lull in the conversation and you’re certainly expecting lulls at the next meeting because you’ve been asked to read an excerpt from your incredibly boring work in progress.

So what do you do when you hit a wall? Well, the best advice I’ve ever heard is this: change your environment. Get up out of your chair. Run the washing machine again since you forgot to put the washed load in the dryer last night (blame Anna) and the laundry is smelling more like Mountain Man than Mountain Spring. Pick up a book and read a chapter. Walk the dog. Walk the ferret. Walk the goldfish. Re-introduce yourself to your children. Pick lint off your significant other’s sweater. Knit a sweater. Go for a run. Call your mother. Kiss your spouse. Kiss your neighbor. Chase a rabbit. Eat a cookie.

Just do something other than stare at the blinking cursor.

This is excellent advice. Yes, there are some writers who can bore a hole through any writing wall with sheer determination (usually prompted by a looming deadline of “yesterday”). But most of us aren’t Cylopsian like that and we hate those people anyway so instead we must get up out of the chair.

I don’t know the science behind it, but apparently when we walk away and do something totally unrelated to the problem at hand, the brain feels emotionally secure enough to back up and re-consider the problem from a different perspective. (This is sort of like what happens when you’re trying to remember the name of that movie – you know, the one with that actor who did that other movie with that actress – and you can’t for the life of you remember it no matter how squinty your eyes or how furrowed your brow, but then it comes to you three days later during the silent prayer time at church and you’re so excited that you accidentally blurt “What Dreams May Come!” really loud and a split-second later as you re-play your prayerful exclamation you realize you might have pronounced “What” as “Wet” and no wonder people don’t invite you over for dinner after church.)

I run into walls a lot. (Insert Toyota joke here.) Want to know how I deal with walls? Do I flip down my Scott Summers sunglasses and burn a hole through the concrete? Nope. So that must mean I get out of my chair and do something else, right? Um…no.

I stare at the blinking* cursor.

I might still try to write, but it only takes a few keystrokes to discover that I’m facing one of those Escape from New York walls you can’t get over without Snake Plissken’s help and Snake’s retired, so good luck with that.

So instead? I just stare at that blinking* cursor.

Three hours later, I get up out of my chair and declare myself a complete failure as a writer, having added nothing to my novel except an impenetrable obstacle that fittingly resembles a very wide, very tall tombstone.

Here is where I’m supposed to spin this unflattering picture of the writer’s life into some kind of inspirational lesson. Um. Nope. Can’t do it.

Because sometimes writing is impossible. Sometimes trying to put a word on the page is like trying to staple a wasp to a jackrabbit. And sometimes, you waste hours of your life staring at a blinking* cursor.

I’m sorry smelly laundry. I’m sorry obese ferret. I’m sorry neighbor who looks exactly like Kate Beckinsale**. I suck.

What can I say? I’m a writer.

*Please feel free to replace the asterisked instances of “blinking” with your favorite swear word. I did.

**No, I don’t have a neighbor who looks exactly like Kate Beckinsale. But this is my blog and my daydream so I can pretend whatever I want. Like right now? I’m pretending that Kate Beckinsale’s people will happen upon this post during routine “checking for unflattering web content” Googling and decide it would be great PR if she were to suddenly show up in Colorado and invite me out to dinner where I’d be happy just to listen to her talk in that sexy English accent even with her mouth full of P.F. Changs’ Oolong Marinated Sea Bass.