In spite of my general winter induced unproductiveness, there is one thing that I have been working on with more devotion that I had expected. I have been writing like crazy (at least compared to my usual non-Nano writing). For years, I have nailed NaNoWriMo and then returned to writing a hundred words here and there, unfocused and uninspired. But this year was different. I continued writing into December and then January and February.
So, what changed? Well, the project I’m working on is decidedly silly, by design. It’s the first book in a series of quirky mysteries that I’m working on with a good friend. These books will win no awards. They will not be taught in English literature classes. But they are good fun.
And I think that is what has finally broken me out of my writing slump. The expectations for this book is so low. Nobody is expecting this to be great literature. It doesn’t take itself seriously so I certainly don’t have to. In essence, I’ve given myself permission for it to be truly awful.
Now, by awful I mean that it doesn’t have to be deep or meaningful. The grammar is more or less correct. It has a plot, character development, and decent pacing. But it doesn’t have to be profound.
For whatever reason, some part of me had decided that if I was going to write at all it had to be important writing. It had to be on the same level and with the same gravitas as Pride and Prejudice or The Great Gatsby. Anything less was a waste of my time. And so the pressure built up to the point that I became discouraged whenever the story wasn’t saying something profound.
I had a story I was writing where the characters kept spontaneously bursting into BIG EMOTION like it was a 90’s soap opera. And I hated it. I never finished it and it’s now gathering dust on an external hard drive. I had another story where I kept trying to shove capital t Themes into it. It was about racism both in modern American AND the past. It was about domestic abuse and PTSD. It was about feminism and anti-semitism and so many more. All in one 65,000 word story. And it was awful. Because, of course it was. The story was being asked to carry too much on it’s shoulders.
I ran from these stories because I couldn’t mold them to fit the mold that gnawing voice in the back of my head made. I was writing LITERATURE, damn it. And nothing less would suffice.
But now? I’m writing bird puns and cackling to myself in my local coffee shop. I’m telling other people what I’m writing about with a sense of pride. I’m working feverishly to finish the second draft so I can give it to people to read. It’s an absolutely wonderful feeling.
So, now for the advice part. If you’re stuck in a writing slump, I highly recommend writing something entirely silly. A twisted fairy tale. Fan fiction. A sappy love story. Give yourself a chance to write something without any pressure for it to be good. You might be surprised how well it turns out!
KT Byrde Writes 