As you’ve noticed, I’ve not been doing many writing updates. This is because, of course, I’ve not been doing much writing. It’s fairly typical with me to have a good first few days to Nano, followed by a terrible week or so of “I hate my novel, it’s useless, I’m useless”. This month I’ve skipped the initial “good start” phase and gone straight to the “I suck at writing” stage.

So, how can I get over this?

There is something very restrictive about working on the computer. Not only does it feel kind of permanent, especially since I’ve written the beginning already, but there’s also a lot of distractions.

Here’s my typical morning of writing:

*bing* You’ve got mail.

Oooh, could be something exciting, let’s see.

Oh, it’s spam. Well, let’s see who’s updated on Facebook in the last ten minutes.

No one. Well, what about the Camp Nano-thread? I wonder what everyone is up to.

Oh, that’s pretty quiet. Must either be at work or work writing. Hrmmm, maybe, I’ll write a blog post instead.

Okay, finally back to the story. Oops, not sure if that’s physically possible. Let’s google it.

*Thirty minutes of random google-link following later*

*bing* You’ve got mail.

So, as you can see, it is sometimes advantageous to step away from the computer (and also shut the telephone off). When I’m at this stage of my writing, the only way to get myself actually doing it is by trickery. And the easiest way to doing that is to write something that doesn’t matter. And, to keep myself free of distractions, to write something that doesn’t matter, and to write it on paper. The “on paper” bit is the important bit because I’m not committing that portion to the story, I’m merely committing it to paper. If it’s good, and relevant, and I can read my handwriting, then I might transfer it across into the main manuscript. If not, well, who cares – it’s not like anyone is ever going to read it anyway.

The best way to do this is in small snippets. Waiting for the kettle to boil? Might as well dash out a few quickly scrawled words. Dinner’s on the stove, so I can’t responsibly walk away to do something else, well, might as well put pen to paper. What’s that sound? The smoke alarm? Oh s**t.