Once I realized that I could pick and choose–take the morning pages technique but leave the exercises–I found it very useful. And the exercises might be the core of what works for someone else. There are more ways to do this writing thing than you can shake a stick at.

Most of the site’s posts about writing and genre fiction are interesting to me, but this one is immediately applicable as well. So, thanks.

And despite the fact that I’m working–slowly–on a book that I’m very interested in, that’s a chewy new approach for me, I am still mourning those half-born children.

Some idiot concrete suggestions: try writing short pieces if you can, even if you can’t finish ‘em. Try some old writers’ workshop tricks (ie., write down ten opening lines, choose three, and write as long as you can on the first one, then go to the next one and write as long as you can, and then to number three, and you get the idea; or try drawing three cards from a tarot deck or illustrated game deck of some sort, and write something that is inspired by the images; or choose three random words from the dictionary–words you didn’t know before–and write a story based on one of them; or…you get the idea. Don’t worry about finishing anything, just get a lot of stuff going and see if anything just won’t let you alone…

It’s not just to keep writing, but to keep being jazzed about writing, and if you’re mourning a work you may need creative distraction.

After a two-year relationship with my agent, in which she advised me on re-writes to my first novel, assisted me in re-working some of the direction on my second novel, and encouraged me to write something new and out-of-universe (since my first two novels are part of a series), she has decided to release me from my agency agreement. I won’t go into too much detail, but it turns out that my first novel, while being praised as well written and enjoyable by many of the editors who read it, was also rejected by every editor who read it.

So here’s my question about how to “jumpstart” things, not just creatively, but professionally. On the creative side, how do you jumpstart your creativity for something new, when the something old you’ve been working on for a few years consumes you so much? If my series isn’t going to sell because of something out there that’s too similar, I need to work on something else, but my heart and mind keep going back to book 3… I can’t seem to get a different story going. It’s gotten to the point that I have stopped working on novels altogether, and instead have pulled together a creative team and begun working almost exclusively on comic book concepts.

And on the professional side, what do you do when your primary work is good enough, but is still being rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with quality? In my case, and much to my chagrin, my series has been called too similar in basic premise to another series out there. The tone is different, and the characterizations are worlds apart, but the very basic premise behind the stories share a few important elements. And without those elements, my stories don’t work. That’s the professional side… is it possible to overcome something like that?

One thing I think I could truly get my brain around would be one of those comic book tie-in novels you mentioned, but writing one would be pointless unless I already had the job… and you don’t get those jobs on your first time out of the gate.

So what’s a qualified but unpublished author to do? Other than keep writing… that’s a given, and something I’ll be doing until I’m in my grave, whether I’m ever published or not. But for now, the only plan I have is to start submitting to some smaller publishers myself, without representation, and hope I can get myself out of the slush pile that way. And I can already tell I’m going to miss the days when my agent got me, if not out of the slush pile, at least to the top of it.

With The Stone War I stalled about 2/3 of the way through, and found that a very ve-e-e-e-ry loose outline helped…once I had done the 3-pages-a-day thing for a while to get the muscles moving again.

I also have found that when my objective in the novel is getting lost in the mist, writing a once-upon-a-time story about the plot. Huh? An example from Point of Honour: “Once upon a time there was a fallen woman who became an investigator…” or something like that.

As for deadlines, sometimes they are marvelously focussing, and other times they absolutely paralyze me. And I don’t know until I reach one which it’s going to be. At times like that a work ethic is useful…

Here’s my question: after a long hiatus, what is it that one needs or is there any precise way to measure it? Is it that writing is like, say, running, and you need to build up to “get in good writing shape” or is it more like a stream that’s gotten bogged down in a series of deadfalls, rockslides, and backwaters, and has to cut out a new channel to flow properly? Or - some other fabulous analogy?

But the pressure to do a book in 6 weeks does put the writing juices into action!

The more difficult side of this is that it also shows you how much you’ve changed, and maybe the world too has changed, since the last time.

Love, C.

I find that outlining sometimes helps me. If I jump back up to the 50,000-foot view of the novel and try to write a quick-n-dirty synopsis of what I’m trying to accomplish, often I can figure out the problems or find a new way around them.