#IWSG: Slumping Towards Publication Day

I've had a rough few months in terms of creating new writing. There are a lot of reasons, all legit, but they didn't matter at the heart of it. All I felt was disappointed and frustrated. Drafting is normally my favorite part--where I get to play in the new ideas and see where they take me.

At a deeply honest level, where you admit what you really believe even when you know you're believing something irrational, I was worried that the fact I was struggling meant I wasn't good enough to do this. If I was "a real writer" I'd be able to juggle marketing, family life, and the day job, while still making progress on the next story.

But after NaNoWriMo, where I made a good start, I was stuck until about two weeks ago. I kept fiddling with the project (the third book in this series), but I couldn't figure out what was wrong and how to move it forward. Even my critique group, which normally has laser-sharp insight that finds the problem for me, wasn't that helpful. They told me what they liked and what wasn't working, but I was still stuck on what to do about the parts that weren't working. I was in a slump.

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I can be a very patient woman, but not with myself. Even with all the evidence to the contrary, in my irrational heart, I believe in the power of hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. So, when I was working hard and not getting anywhere, I felt broken. My confidence (normally higher than is probably actually warranted) was shaken.

Then, it came about two weeks ago in a flash of insight. In the end, it *was* one of my critique partners who helped, but it was in a comment she gave me in writing, rather than what she said at the meeting (Thanks you, Sarah!).  Without spoilers: my villain had just made a surprising move, and Sarah said that she didn't buy it, that not enough had happened to Cindy yet to justify the action she was taking. 

And I heard the angels sing and the trumpets play! That's what I was missing: I needed to back up and give Cindy's thread from beginning to end, instead of jumping her in so far along the line. I needed to let her struggle more and have more reason to become afraid so that there was more impact when we get to her surprising move. It's one of those realizations that seems so obvious now that I wonder what the heck was wrong with me that I couldn't see it earlier. 

So, my lesson in all this is to be patient with myself, that sometimes you can't un-slump yourself through hard work and stubborn perseverance. Sometimes the creative process just needs time.

What works for you when you hit a slump?

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This posting is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group blog hop. To check out other posts by writers in a variety of places in their careers, check out the participant list. This group is one of the most open and supportive groups of people I have ever been associated with. If you write, you should check them out!


If you want to check out my superhero stories, click the covers below. Change of Life, book two of my Menopausal Superheroes series just came out a month ago!