This isn’t going to make any sense. That’s okay. It makes sense to me, and I have to write it so I can get back to work. These are things in my head that I need to put down so they’ll get out of my way and let me finish my script:
I have this idea that there are all these stories racing around the multiverse, and they try real hard be brought into life by a writer, a photographer, a musician, or some other creative person. They’re fickle, though: they’ll knock on your door for a little bit, but if you don’t make an effort to open it for them, they’ll take off and find someone else to grant them access to our world. Writing them down in a notebook will get them to stick around for a little bit longer.
I also look at storytelling like a cable that runs through spacetime. Grab a cable and it’ll take you to the place you want to go and reveal the story to you along the way, but you’ve got to hold on real tight, and you can really only hold on to one at a time. It’s okay to jot down where you saw other cables in your notebook while you pass them, though.
Then there’s the log jams, which is where I’ve been the last three days.
You know that old cartoon with the logger who keeps saying, “This one, she holds up the whole log jam!” The camera reveals a gigantic pile of logs, hundreds of them at least, and they’re all stuck behind this one log that’s holding them together, preventing them from falling down and unleashing some mayhem. I think it’s Woody Woodpecker, and he wants the one important log for a house or something.
Well, I’ve had this logjam. I don’t think of it as a block, because I have my structure all in place, I know where my guys are going, and I know how the whole thing ends . . . I’ve just been stuck on this one very important thing . . . that happens to be in act one. I can’t just skip past it and come back later, because the way I handle this particular thing will affect everything else in the story.
I’m not going to go into specifics, but it was frustrating the hell out of me. I’ve written and thrown away hundreds of words and dozens of pages while I tried to work it out.
About an hour ago, the one log that held up the log jam fell down. I figured out what to do in act one, and in the ensuing pile of apparently random logs, I found a lot of other ideas that I will probably use in the rest of the story.
This is a huge relief to me, because I can finally dash out the door and grab a cable now. Be back later.
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Yup, it’s been my experience that if a writing idea comes to me and I don’t make anything of it, I will see it, or something similar, in a published writer’s work, a few years on. Perhaps worse is getting a great idea and then fiding someone else did it a while ago — perhaps some ideas don’t realise they’ve already been used. Or they still have more to say if they can be made different enough. That’s something that I’ve been trying to work out for about 3 years now.
New phrase for “writer’s block” = “log jam”?
Glad it’s been cleared. Maybe next time you should get some (Canadian!) beaver’s to help you out with your log jam…
I’m going through the same thing you are as I type (or I should be, if I wasn’t over here shirking responsibility). I’m writing my first novel, and actually just finished my first ever first draft (lots of firsts). You read other books and think the whole thing just drops on these published guys in a complete and total way, and get frustrated when it doesn’t work that way for you. Then you talk to published authors, or read their blogs, and find it doesn’t work that way at all. It’s like making Frankenstein’s monster in the dark.
Keep plugging away. You’ve got a leg up on most of us — you’ve published three books already, to my knowledge. Nonfiction or not, it’s huge having that under your belt.
Good luck.
GOD, what I wouldn’t give to find that log!!!
Sometimes I feel like I’m freefloating through the cables with my hands cuffed behind my back… unable to grab anything.
Good for you, Wil! Can’t wait to find out where your cable leads!
What you’ve described makes perfect sense to me because what you’ve described is almost exactly how I’ve tried to describe writing to other people.
I’ve always felt that everything we write in fiction (and, perhaps, for folks like me that are also journalists, non-fiction, too) actually exist in other dimensions/universes/whatever.
Luckily, I haven’t experienced too many logjams in my newspaper writing — in my fiction … well, let’s just say I’ve left many an uncompleted novel behind.
Good luck on the new piece!
You may be thinking of Black Jacque Shellac, the Looney Tunes character. But, ICBW.
You had a problem with the key log. Remember Frank Herbert and his Bene Gesserit. At least I remember something from the Dune novels
Yes, stories (and ideas in general) are fickle and will find new homes if they aren’t nurtured. I’ve voiced the same thing many times, mostly to myself, but occasionally to people I trust. I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in that thought.
Actually, that made (mostly) perfect sense.
About a week ago, I found a few spirals with notes for stuff I had jotted down years ago. Some of it was salvageable. A lot of it isnt.
Heh.
Or as Shane MacGowan once said:
“There’s all these songs just floating around in the air and you can just grab them. If you don’t, Phil Collins will.”
The Traveler would be proud 😉
But seriously, whenever I have a logjam, I grab another cable as it were, and write a story in an entirely different universe or genre. Usually when I return to the originally logjammed topic, the force of the water has sent all the logs over the falls ; )
I’ve had some of my best ideas freed up when dropping a log.
…wait, that’s not quite what you’re saying, is it?
I really should be staying focused on these three audio drama scripts I have to finish writing before January 3rd.
One idea I have heard is to imagine interviewing your main characters, sometime after the event. Ask them about their memories of it (even if they are sketchy) and ask them about their feelings at the time, and whether those feelings have changed in the months after.
The idea here is to learn what impact the key event in Act One had on your characters, and whether they saw it differently, and how it impacted the events that came after.
I’m halfway through the “Just a Geek” audio book and I love it! I know you don’t need me to tell you that you’re the man but you are the man, Wil! I especially love where you depart from the text and add little side comments. Awesome.
Is the “script” you refer to in this post a screenplay? I like the idea of you writing a movie — I’m sure you’d do well. Gotta be sci-fi, right?
I’ve been trying to be a screenwriter for two years now. I’ve gotten some attention recently because I did well in some contests: I won the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival Screenplay Competition and I made the semi-finals of the Nicholl Fellowship (pretty rare for a horror movie).
I was pretty close to selling a script but the production company decided to go with something edgier written by Jimmy Kimmel’s cousin.
Hi Wil,
You’ve probably heard of the solution of the “butterflies in the stomach” problem is to get them to fly in formation. Well, you’ll have to find your mental version of a log driver. (According to the Log Driver’s Waltz song, the career was pretty popular with the ladies of the time too.)
Wil,
So now you are going to wright a great script. If you put your full creative energy into it, this will be worth waiting for you to get it great.
FG
I think you simply needed to lubricate the chute with a few drams of Guiness… let your mind get fuzzy and accept the muse; the details somehow seem to sort themselves out quite well without any conscious effort.
The log probably was simply spinning freely, not getting any traction against the effluvium packed around it. Periodically flush the crap away….
I found that when I get into a log jam with my photography, the only solution is to just… keep… working. Work on anything related to the project, even the silliest task, just keep the machinery running, and eventually the jam breaks. Sometimes it takes a looooooong time, though. Whew.
Interestingly, you somewhat echo Terry Pratchett’s idea of Inspiration Particles.
http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Inspiration_Particles
Makes sense to me! Now go enjoy the ride. 🙂
I can really relate to what Dils said. I have the same problem… I get sidetracked by other stories when one isn’t going well. Then suddenly the original story is just gone. 🙁 Lac of discipline on my part I think.
And follow the link Gandalfe posted! Pratchett was the first thing I though of as well. 😀
Okay, dude. I gotta book I think you might like. Check it out at: http://www.outskirtspress.com/AmericanOdyssey.
If you like it, get back to me.
Logjams are good…They give you the time to percolate the answers you need.
Its great to see you got your creative juices flowing again. Let that cable drag you anywhere it wants to.
Logjams aren’t necessarily bad. Sometimes they present the only opportunity you have to a solution you hadn’t foreseen when you set out on a project.
What works for me is to let the logjam sit for a while, and I go on to other parts of the project.
You just described my last 5 days.
I am going out of my mind! Everything that hits the blog has been not even close to what I wanted to say. Like someone is holding my thoughts in a vice grip.
Makes perfect sense.
I read in a book the other day that when you begin thinking about an idea, you get plugged into everything else that has ever been thought about the subject. Now, did that make any sense?
Wanted to wish you and your family the merriest Christmas and your happiest new year yet.
Thanks for all your inspiration and humor through the year.
Love,
Daniel
My husband and I were just talking about this invisible structure the other day, he likened it to a continuous looping ribbon contraption that once able to grasp the creativity and knowledge of the ages is at one’s disposal once you get past the barrier.
My log jam just exploded, unfortunately it was a whole Fibber McGee and Molly closet full o’ family angst. Poured out everywhere. 🙂
Wil, thanks for your blog! When I have a tough day I come here to read up and hopefully catch some cheer. So here’s some for you. I am not a D&D-er, but hought you might like this Youtube:
IM IN UR MANGER KILLING UR SAVIOR
Happy Xmas!!
Congratulations!! 🙂 And congrats on getting the extra days on your deadline! No one wants to be stressed around the holidays!
Wishing you and your family peace and love this holiday season and in the future!
Cheers!
Speaking of logs, Amazon proposes Wil’s books translated in French. Is that true? It’s stated as such but nowhere in France, via Amazon, is it sold… I’d have to buy it from the USA or UK. I’m suspectful…