1)   Don’t tread water. Keep moving, ideally in the same direction. This means that you are not hitting the same point over and over again. Hit it and go on. What’s next?

2)   Go back and re-read what you wrote over the past couple of days. This takes a certain kind of discipline, because you are likely to hear the angry, frustrated voice of the inner critic telling you just what he or she thinks of what you’ve written. So you must find a way to read just for what’s there, for what’s working, if you must—but better not to even ask yourself if it’s working. Just see what is there and from that, arrive at what comes next.

3)   Put your hands on the keyboard. Close your eyes. Know, powerfully, that what is coming next will come to you. Trust the inkling. Grab it. Go.

4)   Make a left turn, if you can’t keep going forward. If you start to get stuck, just make something happen. Do it as an experiment. You are going to write many books, and many drafts of this book. There is no way to avoid  writing it wrong some of the time, unless you skip out on writing it right, too. So loosen up, get it wrong, and see what you learn.

5)   Remember that water bouys you up if you keep breathing. So, too, will all the swirling matter of your book support your further progress. Lean into it. Breathe, relax, and float. To reverse the poem, you are “not drowning, but swimming “ . . .

What keeps you writing?

Janet Thornburg is the author of a collection of short stories, Rhurbarb Pie (from Thunderegg Press). She teaches at City College of San Francisco and performs solo shows known for their hilarity. This is her experience of last year’s Book Writing Cycle:

One day last fall when I was checking my email at work, between a penis-enlargement ad and an update of my American Express balance, I found a message from Elizabeth Stark about her upcoming NaNoWriMo classes.  She offered preparation, support, and follow-up for writers bold enough to commit to writing 50,000 words in the month of November.  I’d been tinkering with dead-end revisions of a novella for a year, and the idea of writing 50,000 NEW words in one month made my mouth water. “Sign me up!” I emailed back to her.

I’m the kind of writer who polishes the beginning of a story for weeks and then has to discard it as soon as the real story gets rolling.  I routinely sit and fret over a word for twenty minutes and then scratch the whole sentence.  I spin my wheels and then whine because I don’t have time to finish anything.  Taking on a challenge like NaNoWriMo seemed like it would either break me of those habits or kill me.

If I’d tried it on my own, I would have written thirteen beginnings, scrapped them, quit, and said it was a ridiculous idea anyway.  However, because Elizabeth was coaching and encouraging me and because my fellow students were consoling and inspiring me in our group Skype gatherings, I learned at last the skill of pressing onward in spite of imperfection.  I learned how to write a first draft through to the end.  A HUGE first draft.  I found new kinds of writers in myself–dogged, sloppy, sleepy, wacky, wildly intuitive writers who all worked together for just one goal: to make that day’s quota of words.

I finished 50,000 in thirty days.  It was a glorious writing coup.  I highly recommend Elizabeth’s classes.  Amaze your friends and family.  Amaze yourself.  Write 50,000 words in November.  Whew!  Did I REALLY do that?

Want to do it, too? Sign up here.