There's No Such Thing As Writer's Block (Maybe)

Don't shoot the messenger, but this is what I believe.

Just like you, I've sat down to a blinking cursor on a blank page and been terrified that this time I won't be able to do it. The words won't flow, the plot won't come, the characters are just going to stare at me, hoping for direction. And every time, once I get my fingers warmed up and I type two or three pages of crap that I have to write first, I'm able to get to the good stuff buried underneath. This is why I say there's no such thing as writers block.

It's actual name is procrastination.

And the actual name of procrastination is fear.

We put off writing because we're afraid of the blank page, the dormant characters, the crappy dialogue that we're sure to produce. We're afraid of the plot kink that hasn't quite worked itself out yet, so we put off having to deal with it by jumping on Twitter, checking out Facebook, or surfing Tumblr for just a few more minutes.

I always tell new writers that they can't be afraid to suck, but I think that established writers need to be aware of that as well. Sucking is part of the process. No one has ever produced a first draft that anyone other than their mom would praise.

We ambush ourselves with self-doubt, whittling away precious minutes with ultimately useless activities, then tell ourselves that we'll write tomorrow. Tomorrow there will be more time. But the single paragraph that you write tonight puts you one paragraph ahead for tomorrow, and the three sentences you tack onto it during your lunch break gives you a head start on the evening. All those short paragraphs written in stolen moments, and choppy sentences you forced out of yourself before going to bed can be massaged into a coherent narrative when you're editing.

So don't be afraid.
Write the words.

Why Wait For the New Year?

It's mid-November, which means we're looking at a long stretch of good food and lack of self-control. Everyone knows that starting a diet right now is begging for failure, and so a lot of us just cave to the inevitable, gorging on pies and cookies, cheese ball and turkey, because hey... we'll take care of that in the New Year.

Cheers.

But... here's the thing - so is everyone else. Go to any gym in January and you'll find a lot of huffy, sweating people who I'll bet have very shiny, very new membership cards... and I doubt they fly out of the purse or wallet much past February. We're all guilty of those front-loaded good intentions that wither away when we discover they're actually, you know - work.

The same applies to your writing. So maybe you told yourself it's too late to hop on Nano, or maybe you started out Nano with a bang that withered away into a low word count. Now shopping lists are staring you in the face and people want to come stay at your house. So screw it. Why even try? That shiny New Year's resolution will make everything better - and this year will be the year you stick to it.

Right?

Except, much like the gym, a lot of other people are making that same resolution. And while in the gym all this means is that there's a longer wait for the elliptical and more of a permeable musk in the air, but with the publishing industry it means that agent's inboxes are fuller than usual. And that can mean two things - either one of these queries is a similar concept to yours and beat you to the dream agent, or all those queries are horrible and the agent is disenchanted with these reborn resolution queriers by the time s/he gets to you.

So measure up, and ask yourself - is my life really going to be that much better in January? Less busy? Will I really feel more inclined to take my writing seriously just because an electric ball hit a platform with numbers on it in Times Square? I doubt it, so call today January 1 and polish that query, or finish that manuscript now, before the hordes beat you to it.

Oh, and go to the gym too. You'll feel better.

How I Name (Or Don't) My Characters

I know there are writers who put a lot of thought into naming their characters. Name origin, ethnic connotations, new and inventive spellings of old names - you name it (pun intended) it's been done. And yes, there are some pretty cool ways to go about naming your characters.

But, I'm just not one of those writers.

I'm what I call an extreme pantster. I don't do any planning or plotting, and there's sure as hell no outlining in my world. I generally know what's going to happen and how the story will end, but I don't know how it will unfold.

I don't even know my character's names.

When I was writing this post I was reminded of a Neil Gaiman quote from Coraline:

“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?"
"Cats don't have names," it said.
"No?" said Coraline.
"No," said the cat. "Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”

Not only is this a great example of how cheeky cats could be if they spoke English, but it's also how I think of my characters before I need to assign them a jumble of pronounceable letters that we call a name. Who they are is what's important, not what I'll call them.

I generally think of them as Girl Character, Boy Character, Quirky Friend, Silly Pedestrian... whatever the situation calls for. This is how my brain accesses that character file right up to the point in the manuscript where common sense demands they have a name, at which time I have them tell me.

I stop for a beat, and say, "What's your name?" And they tell me.

In the case of NOT A DROP TO DRINK I needed a name pretty quickly. I knew the first line of the book long before I started writing it -- "Girl Character was nine the first time she killed to defend the pond." But, that doesn't quite have what it takes, does it?

So I asked, and she told me her name was Lynn.

I was like - "WOW! That's a totally perfect name! Your mom would have picked a practical one-syllable name because she might have to yell for you in dangerous situations. She needed something quick, something that would carry in the wind. Yeah. That makes total sense. Your name is Lynn."

How serendipitous was it that much later - as in, months - I looked up the meaning of her name and it's derived from the Gaelic for pond or lake, and is usually used for someone who lives near water.

Um, yeah. She totally knew what she was doing.