Follow The Call

The most effective way to banish Writer's Block forever is to listen to the call. Write what you want to write. Write what interests you. Write what haunts you. If an idea sticks in your head, use it, even if you are not sure other people will like it. If you lose interest in the novel you are working on and long to start another, sometimes it is wise to listen to that urge. Although it is a bad idea to abandon every project you start when the going gets rough, if you are truly bored with your current novel or story, it is better to write what you really want to write.

I was 'stuck' on, but not bored with, chapter seven of The Witch's Daughter. I have been reading a lot of Law and Order fanfiction recently (as evidenced by my previous posts), and I really wanted to write some Olivia/Alex romance. I fussed for a while, attempting to make headway on The Witch's Daughter, but it just wasn't coming. I abandoned the project for one night and wrote 2000 words of fanfiction. Afterwards, refreshed, I could go back to my novel and get some actual work done.

I usually end up working on two novels at the same time. This helps me keep my mind off of the huge list of 'planned' novels that I keep in my head. I also try to rotate my projects so that I am not working on two similar ideas at the same time. For example, I will work on one fantasy novel and one modern-day romance at a time, but not two books in the same fantasy series. It just creates confusion, and you cannot use your second novel to 'purge' the staleness of the other novel out.

That said, even if you get bored with a novel and decide to put it on hold/scrap it, DO NOT delete the material you have so far. You might be able to find a use for it later in a different project. I know that 10,000 words of The Witch's Daughter was written two and a half ago years before the novel took shape. Also, I have been able to use parts of a novel I wrote when I was 13-14 for all three of my Amendyr novels. You never know what you can use later. The country of Amendyr itself and its tyrant, the Queen, were created for that original novel.

It is hard to strike a balance between pushing through the slow parts of a novel and beating a dead horse, and only experience will truly tell you when to pause, when to scrap, and when to just slog through.