It’s not writer’s block exactly… or maybe it is?
Do you consider it writer’s block when you can’t get past the first half of the draft?
So my writing sprints come and go in waves and often leave lots of half-finished drafts like randomly stranded seashells.
In the not-so-distant past, I read somewhere that having a million drafts is a good thing. The day you don’t have any ideas, that’s when you should worry. And how do you turn those drafts into published articles? Well, you pick the ones you care about the most and you sit with them. I don’t remember where I read this, but it sounded reasonable enough. Until… My phone crashed a couple of times yesterday and I got this panicky feeling that I should really back up the drafts in my notes app, just in case. Only when I opened it, there were a lot more of them than I remembered. Going through them took me a long time. A few of them made no sense, some of them were just ideas, many of them were closer to the finish line, if not quite done.
Looking at the many, many half-finished drafts, I thought it’s not writer’s block exactly… is it? When you have the idea but you’re not sure how to round it up. It’s not exactly that the words don’t come, it’s more like you don’t know what to do with the ones you have. You start to feel like that friend who’s always rearranging furniture looking for the best feng shui.
The million-dollar question is what to do with a million drafts? I got a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. More than backing them up, I wanted to move them down the pipeline. I’m still figuring it out, but here’s a few things I’ve tried or seen other writers do… (if you have any suggestions feel free and encouraged to comment!)
1) Change the narrative voice: that’s how The One Where She Swipes Left finally came into focus. Don’t ask me why, but especially with stories, I feel like the simple act of shifting first person to third person or vice versa can sometimes shine a different light on it. When I was a kid, I’d sometimes climb on top of the dresser and see what the room looked up from there. It’s a little bit like that. Same thing, different perspective.
2) Give it to someone you trust: my brothers are usually my beta-readers. Thanks to their questions and highlights I’ve cut away entire paragraphs making room for better words. One of my closest friends, also a frequent reader, has also helped quite a few posts along. Sometimes with questions, sometimes with encouragement, I didn’t know I needed to hit the publish button, oftentimes by making me rethink the endings. Where do I want the story to go? What do I want to leave the readers with?
3) Brainstorm titles or alternative titles: this can help you hone in on the key idea and offer a different window to look at the text through. To be honest, I usually leave the title for the end and when I add the title I review the content again. I almost always find things to tweak or check.
4) Keep coming back to them: leave it, come back to it, repeat. Sometimes it’ll be so long before I look at it again that I’ll have all but forgotten about it and the text will look brand new. My take on the idea might be new too. I wrote The One With All the Breakups like that, in bits and pieces, months apart.
5) Accept that some may never leave their draft status, but they are a necessary part of the process.
6) Set ’em free: I’ve seen some writers publish a collection of excerpts in one post. Like… “yeah they’re incomplete but they can’t afford the notepad rent anymore so I’m kicking ’em out into the world” type of thing. I don’t think I can do this. Maybe I should, maybe keeping them in the notebook gathering metaphorical dust is akin to the box of toys under the bed in Toy Story and how sad was that? Maybe putting them out they can inspire some other writer to play with the idea that inspired it. Maybe.
7) Lucky number seven… write a rambling post about the rambling drafts in your phone app in the hopes that the muse will take pity on you and sprinkle some inspiration. At the very least, the frustration of it fueled a post.
Do you consider it writer’s block when you can’t get past the first half of the draft? Or when it’s 90% there but doesn’t feel done? Maybe it’s editor’s block? 🤔
