Switching creative gears (and grinding them all the way)

[rj_anderson]

I've been trying to work on Touching Indigo all day, but my brain refuses to connect with it. I thought that giving myself a week off after finishing my revisions on Knife would help me switch gears -- especially since I took part of that time to re-read the first seven chapters of Indigo and think about where I wanted to go next. But no...

I don't know what to do about this except to keep plugging away out of sheer bloodymindedness, and if that means sitting down every afternoon and evening for a week and typing random nonsense for an hour, so be it. Eventually, I know -- I hope -- I'll break through this fuzzy mental state and get excited about the book again. It will start haunting my dreams and pestering me with ideas at inconvenient times and places. I'll have a hard time getting to sleep because I'll be plotting out the next scene in my head. If it happened to me with Knife after mumbletyseven revisions, it can surely happen with this book that I haven't even finished yet.

It's frustrating, though, waiting for that to happen. Right now writing feels like staring at a plate full of my least favorite vegetables.

What do all of you do to kickstart yourselves when you're feeling creatively blank?

Comments

[olmue.livejournal.com]

I'll write random scenes and conversations that occur later in the book--or maybe even not at all. I think one problem may be that you've sewed up part I nicely, which means starting again is in some ways starting a new "book." It's not the same as picking up a scene in media res with tensions already in place. Maybe play around with some later scenes of tension, just to get yourself back into the feel of things?

Good luck!!

[snickelish.livejournal.com]

Yes, when I get stuck I often find it's because I don't really understand the motivations of some minor character. Often it helps to write a snippet - maybe a few paragraphs - from that character's POV in which they explain who they are, what they're doing, and maybe how they view the events thus far. Since I tend to think most clearly in first person anyway, I get a much clearer picture of them this way.

And sometimes these digressions actually make it into the dialogue later, which is always a bonus. :)