Staring Into the Abyss (But It's Not That Deep)

Over the past couple of weeks I finished a late draft of one book and am closing in on the end of the first draft of the third Pretty Crooked book. Yay, me. I should be feeling awesome and productive, right? I should be popping Cristal and eating duck confit and making impulse purchases on Anthropologie.

But instead, I've felt this shadowy doubt stalking me in the night and it's whispering in a creepy Poltergeist organ player voice: Girl, you better start thinking about your next project. Time's a tickin'. And then there's a counter-voice, which is a lot less scary but more rapid-fire and annoying a la Abed Nadir from Community: What, no great ideas? No brilliant flashes of inspiration? Maybe your brain is all withered and dried up. I saw that once, on this guy and... (he babbles on until I tune him out.)

In short, I guess you could say I've been grappling with a mystery all writers of all genres face: how to find inspiration. Because writing is a complex and ever-changing craft, and you change with it. What worked last time won't necessarily work now. You need to be able to approach a new project and all of its challenges with a fresh perspective. And energy. And enthusiasm.

Sure, I have some ideas for a new book, but I've come to the conclusion that Abed-voice could be right about the dried-up part. I've been really pushing hard for the last six months, working on two projects at once plus the day job and I think I need a little break. So I've decided to focus exclusively on my current project and not to jump into anything new for a little while. I'll use that time to read more, take in more films, art, music, ideas and regenerate. Gather up some creative momentum. There will always be pressure to write more, to move on to the next thing, and I am going to exercise my writerly right to ignore it.

In the meantime, a few weeks ago, I read this piece in the NY Times about where sentences come from, and I think it gets at the fear most people encounter when they try to put their thoughts into typographical order. In his editorial, Verlyn Klinkenborg says there's no magic. We just need to start with sentences and build from there—eventually we can trust our own thought process. When I'm ready to begin a new book, I plan to reread this first.

What about you? What have you learned about your own creative process? What has helped you make the leap to a new project?

Mystery Monday #12

It's Mystery Monday!
Welcome to our regular Monday feature, where you'll find different kinds of writing prompts and exercises. Each week, we'll give you something to help exercise your mystery-writing muscles.

So far, most of our Mystery Monday prompts have been about getting those creative vibes going to begin a story, but what if you are halfway through a story and are stuck? How do you work your way through a stumbling block in your plot and keep going?

I know many authors who, when this happens, simply write: "Something exciting happens here!" and then keep writing - which is exactly what you should do. You have to keep moving or the quicksand of doubt will surely pull you under. But eventually you will have to come back to that spot and, well, insert something exciting. What do you do then? While I can't help you out of that particular spot because every plot is different, I can tell you the answer is always the same: Look to your characters.

In an earlier post of Writing DNA, I talked about getting to know your characters. This is exactly where this helps because you can't get yourself out of this rut - your characters have to do it for you. If you find yourself in this situation, examine your characters. Their quirks, their fears, their habits - see what you can use to write yourself through the quicksand. Here's an exercise to get you started:

Your main character is snooping around in the villain's house and the villain has come home. Your hero is now trapped inside the villain's third floor office! How does your hero get out? Before you begin writing, think about the villain -- what would he/she have in his office that could help your hero? What would your hero have in his/her pockets that could help? What are the villain's habits, routines that you HAVE ALREADY ESTABLISHED in your story (i.e. you can't suddenly decide your villain always comes home and takes long baths; but if you already knew this and established it in a previous scene, you can use it). Any tactic - dialogue, diversion, etc. - is fair game as long as it fits into what you already have written about your characters.

Okay, write your hero out!
Good luck and have fun :)
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What if a classmate went missing right after you fought with her at a party and she was later found dead? What if you couldn't remember anything after that fight? Not even how you got home? Would you tell the police the truth? Or would you lie about what you remember until you could find out what really happened that night?

16-year-old Roswell Hart finds herself in this very predicament in Laura Ellen's YA thriller, BLIND SPOT (Fall 2012, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)