No, I'm not talking about agent rejections. Although I have gotten a few of those this week. But let's be honest, rejections are a little bit a part of life when you're sending out queries and that's okay. You eat ice cream and get over it.
What I'm talking about though, are rough patches in your WIPS. I hit one recently and I was really having trouble getting through it. I had just wrapped up a few dramatic scenes and everything I wrote after that seemed a little boring. So I did the worst thing you can do. I just didn't write. For a week! I had been on such a roll too, writing every day (night) and my word count was growing and my story was unfolding and then BOOM. Rough patch.
Luckily I found a great blog by Jenny Torres Sanchez and she mentioned a twitter challenge she does called #1Kwordchallenge, which is basically writing 1,000 words in an hour. Seemed like a good idea to me! I thought perhaps just powering through the rough patch would help me move on. It turns out that I really liked what I wrote during the challenge. Not only that, I wrote almost 2,000 words in an hour because I wasn't thinking too much. Fantastic!
So anyway, I guess my advice of the day would be to power through any rough patches you have. Of course you may have to go back to edit and make it make sense later but that's better than just staring at it, right? Right.
So go kick that rough patch's butt!
-Brandy
Hi Brandy!
ReplyDelete2000 words - good for you! I have rough patches all the time, and you're right, not writing is the worse thing you can do.
I just went through the dumb stage, which happens to me with every novel. ;)
and yay! I'm you're first follower - woot, woot!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kimberly! I'm just getting things started here, so thank you for the follow. Good luck with your writing!
ReplyDeleteGreat advice -- write through the rough patch or else you'll hinder any progress. I'd love to tackle the 1K an hour thing (I've seen it tweeted quite a bit), but I'm such a S-L-O-W writer, I'd probably end the count with, like, 50 words, tops.
ReplyDeleteNo. Seriously.
Something to aspire to, though, right?
And I know all too well the feeling behind rejections! Welcome to the party! Er...not. It really does suck. But it's life.
Thanks for following my blog, by the way! Nice to "meet" you!
Wait a minute. I couldn't shake the feeling I've seen your name somewhere and then it hit me! Did you win Knight Agency's Speed Date 2 challenge?
ReplyDeleteCONGRATS!
Hey Ashley! I've actually checked out your blog a few times and just realized I could follow you... I'm getting into this slowly, obviously.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the congrats on the contest! Today has been a really good day.
Hi Brandy,
ReplyDeleteSo glad the 1kwordchallenge helped you through that rough patch! It's definitely helped me in the same way. Sometimes if I have too much time to sit and think, I just ending up wasting it instead of writing. Yeah, what I have to show after an hour is messy, but it's something to work with.
Look forward to reading more of your posts. And, congrats on the Knight Agency's Speed Date 2 challenge. Looks like you're on your way:)
Thanks Jenny! I love the 1Kwordchallenge. It's really helpful. Hopefully it will continue to catch on and we'll have a lot of words to keep up with! :)
ReplyDelete