This newsletter isn’t about hairy genitals, I promise.
It’s about running into a funk, or a low point, or a slump, stagnation, rut, lull. A variation on which I have recently been in the thick of on my current writing project.
I’ve been smashing it, guys! Up until now, I’ve had no problem rocking out almost 2,000 words a day, which you might remember from my previous newsletter. But recently, I don’t know what’s happened, but I’ve found myself dreading the 90-minute writing period I set aside for myself.
I still do it, though. Sometimes, when I don’t hit my word count in the morning, I’ll go back to my laptop at some point through the day and reopen the project. It comes at the cost of my lunch break, relaxing after work, or my reading time before bed. Doggedly, I’ll noodle away until the progress bar reaches the end, then I’ll close Scrivener (my writing software of choice), feeling a mixture of achievement and melancholy.
For a while there, I wondered what was wrong with me. I thought it could be the book itself. Maybe my outline was lacking interesting conflict, or the plot was getting too vague and meandering. But even if that was the case — which I’m pretty sure it isn’t — shouldn’t I be experienced enough by now to work through that without feeling down on myself?
When I complained about it for the tenth time to my girlfriend, I remembered doing the same thing with my last project. And the one before that. And the one before that. The more I reflected on previous slumps, the more I realised a trend: they all came around the same point in the process.
🦔 The Furry Region
We start most projects with a hiss and roar, excited about our genius idea because surely nobody in the history of the creative world has ever thought of such an enthralling, provocative, entertaining story. Our initial burst of creative motivation carries us through a brief planning period, or for some, it inspires immediate action.
A few hundred words in, maybe a thousand or two, the motivation wears off. We’re left with that yucky comedown feeling like the 3 am post-MDMA blues, where you’re still wired but not feeling that euphoric, the world-is-golden optimism. Novelists known as ‘pansters’ (people who write without an outline and just… write by the seat of their pants) often experience this comedown the hardest, probably because they haven’t made a plan, so when their creative motivation burns off, they’re left with nowhere to go.
On the rare occasion that we make it more than a quarter into our project, be it a feature film script or a novel or anything that’s longer than a blog post, we must be wary that coming up sooner or later is that dreaded trough of self-pity.
You find yourself inexplicably unmotivated to work on the project you were previously so damn excited about. This self-pity trough could be brought on by re-reading some of what you’ve written and finding it lacklustre. It could be triggered by reading the work of a more accomplished peer or writer. Maybe it’s the inevitable consequence of sheer time spent grinding. How can we expect to sprint an entire marathon?
Tim Urban of waitbutwhy.com fame has a concept where we feel insecure when we’re learning about something, and while the context is dissimilar, I feel like the core idea is the same:
Credit to Tim Urban
Our goal is to push through our version of the Insecure Canyon to Grown-Up Mountain.
Rephrased for our purposes, I christen them ‘The Furry Region’ and ‘I’m a Writer and I’m Writing’ incline.
We see this kind of graph in a bunch of places, like the 3 Act Structure:
And the Kübling Ross Change curve:
It seems there’s always a slump before a climb. Our mission is simple: brave out the slump.
In The Furry Region, it’s incredibly easy to take your foot off the pedal. When my phone alarm blared me awake at 6:30 am on Monday morning, the last thing I felt like doing was writing. But what did I do?
Well, I’d love to say I got up, brewed coffee and wrote anyway. But in reality, I fell back asleep, jerked awake twenty minutes later, brewed coffee, then spent fifteen minutes reading reviews for the Ōura Ring Gen 3§, then for the Garmin Vivimove Trend watch§§, then watched a music video for an obscure Wings song from the 80s because it was in my head.
AND THEN I started writing. I got 600 words into it and had to rush to work.
The important part about that anecdote is the 600 words. Even though I suspect they are far from the best 600 words I’ll ever write, they are a tiny step out of The Furry Region, and for that, I am proud of myself!
Soon, I know I’ll hit that ‘I’m a Writer and I’m Writing’ incline, and it is gonna taste sweet.
Okay sure, it’s not as flash or charming as Tim Urban’s graphs, but it’s a start
📣 Shout Out to: The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk
Apart from having one of the coolest covers I’ve seen in a long while (I first laid my eyes on this book upon its release mid-last year while I was perusing a book shop in Brighton, UK), this quirky historical fiction has had me glued to my Kobo.
“Living in the country may be but a half-life, but life in London is not whole – it is simply the other half.”
The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is Sean Lusk’s first novel - what a legend!
§ My Ōura ring (gen 2) is one of my favourite accessories. It’s a smart ring that measures heart rate, heart rate variability, and body temperature while the wearer sleeps. It provides a treasure trove of data that only nerds like me could ever find interesting.
§§ I currently have a Garmin Vivomove Sport watch that tracks my heart rate. Yeah, I know, who needs two devices to track their heart rate? I love data, what can I say? This watch is an analog-digital hybrid, so I get the data but also avoid looking like a yuppie.