When people find out I write novels, they tend to ask the same sorts of questions. Where do I get my ideas? How do I create believable characters? How do I keep track of all the plot threads without my brain leaking out of my ears?
The funny thing is, none of those are actually the hardest part. The hardest part about writing is, unfortunately, the writing. Not the romanticised version where you're struck by inspiration and hammer out a perfect chapter while staring thoughtfully into the middle distance. I mean the actual, practical business of getting your bum in a chair, ignoring the siren call of social media, resisting the temptation to spend three hours researching medieval spoon-making, and putting words on a page.
Writing a book is thousands of tiny decisions to keep going, even when you'd rather be doing literally anything else.
Focusing and Getting Down To Business
I am a planner. Methodical plotting and planning is the only way I know how to actually complete a novel. I can’t wing it; I need to know what’s going to happen before I start writing to avoid plot holes and the trenches of editing hell. But all the plotting and planning can be a nice distraction, a handy tool for procrastination, and stop me from actually progressing to getting real words down.
Also, getting stuck in the weeds with plotting can be a bit dull at times. I can find myself losing the spark of inspiration for the really cool story I want to tell when getting myself stressed out about geology and the exact science of my future-world building.
I am also, it turns out, incredibly easy to distract. I enjoy research so much because it gives me little side quests to run after, and dopamine hits in short bursts.
Writing, for me, is a slog until I find my groove and fall into a semi-hallucinagenic flow state. And even that doesn’t even happen, sometimes! Sometimes every sentence is like drawing blood from stones.
Ways I Combat Procrastination
Be Ruthless – I have to check in with myself when I’m in a research and world building spiral. Is this really really essential to the story? Are readers going to need to know this is so much detail?
Give Myself Deadlines – I book a review session in with my critique partner or sensitivity readers. Sometimes I’ll just set arbitrary deadlines of ‘by the end of this month, I’ll have chapters x and y drafted’. Turns out I’m a bit of a glutton for punishment and working under pressure does drive me to complete tasks.
Use the Pomodoro Technique - write for twenty minutes, then break for five, and repeat this for an hour, then break for half an hour, then repeat. This is probably the most effective way of getting me to be productive
Hide My Phone – The minute I hit a wall with an idea, and can’t immediately figure it out, if I sit back and stare at the ceiling to mull it over, inevitably, I pick up my phone and start to scroll social media, thus throwing myself into the Pit Of Despair.
Finding Inspiration While The World Is On Fire
Often, these days, I struggle to find the motivation to work on any creative projects while… *gestures broadly out of the window* at the world. Sometimes it’s really hard to know why I should bother. It feels frivolous to spend time playing make believe and writing that down instead of doing more to proactively help people struggling out there, to do more, to be more of the change I want to see in the world.
And yet. Stories have always emerged from difficult times. Humans were telling stories long before we had functioning Wi-Fi. We tell stories during wars, pandemics, and personal grief. We tell them because they're entertainment, yes, but also because they're how we process the world around us. Stories are rehearsal spaces for hope. They help us imagine different futures. They remind us we're not alone.
I remember what the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett said: "People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.”
Stories matter, especially now. Story telling is how humans have always made sense of the world. How we understand our place in it, how we see where we’ve been and where we’re going. I think maybe telling my ‘silly little stories’ about friendship and love, of rising up against oppression and fighting for a better tomorrow, is actually something meaningful I can offer the world.
It's Like The Great Stories, Mr. Frodo. The Ones That Really Mattered.
The hardest part of writing, for me, is choosing to keep creating when it feels easier not to. To believe that stories still matter. To sit down, open the document, and trust that somewhere between the first sentence and the last, I’ll find something worth saying.