Ask the Author: Angela Benedetti
Answered Questions (3)
Angela Benedetti
I rarely get writer's block, where I can't write at all. When that happens, there's usually some external cause, something going on in my life that's sucking up all my attention, or otherwise not allowing me to sink into my work. In 2012, frex., my husband tore a retina. He needed two surgeries that year, and we didn't know for months after whether he'd ever get enough sight back to even be able to read paper books. I was frightened and stressed out for most of the year, and my wordcount total for 2012 sucked rocks. That sort of thing happening can make it hard to be productive at anything, and I've learned not to fight it -- when I'm under that kind of stress already, I don't need more.
More common is project block, where I can write in general, but there's a roadblock on a particular project. How I handle that depends on whether I have a deadline for the project, or whether I just particularly want to work on it.
I rarely have deadlines -- and never for more than a short story if I can help it -- and my usual strategy for dealing with project block is to go work on something else. I always have a pile of partials on my hard drive, so it's rarely tough to find something else to work on. Or I might start something new, if a plot bunny has been jumping up and down demanding attention.
Sometimes just letting my subconscious work on something for a while is the answer. I'll wake up, or sit down to write, or be eating dinner or whatever, and suddenly Poof! I know how to get past a particular roadblock. I'll go back to that project and work on it until it's done or another roadblock comes up. This works often enough, that turning to a different project is, I'll admit, my go-to response to project block.
If I have to get something done, or just want to very much for whatever reason, I have a few techniques I can use.
Sometimes just asking myself, "Okay, what's the next line?" will do it. Focusing on what the next line, the next sentence, should be, without worrying about the scene or chapter or whatever, can get that next line out. Then I do it again. And again, and again, and eventually I'm past the block and words are flowing again. This takes some focus and discipline, but it can work well.
Another technique is to go back to the beginning of the story and start reading. Sometimes I'll have enough momentum going by the time I get to wherever I am that I can pick up writing. Actually, what's probably happening is that my subconscious notices some things I've forgotten, or puts two or three things together, so that when I get to the working end, I see something I hadn't seen before, and can keep going.
If that doesn't work, then it might be that I got off the rails somewhere, hopefully not too far back. If I back up to the beginning of the previous scene or chapter, I might be able to think of another approach. Sort of like I took a wrong left turn somewhere, so I back up and take a right, and that gets me where I need to be.
If I still can't find the answer, then I have a time- and labor-intensive method I figured out one year while doing NaNo. It came about accidentally, but it can work really well. I was completely stuck on my project -- and had a deadline because NaNo -- so I started an e-mail to a writer friend. We were NaNo buddies for a few years running, chatting back and forth and helping each other out. So I started to explain to my friend, in the letter, what was wrong, hoping she could give me some suggestions. Of course, in order for her to be able to help me, I had to tell her what-all I'd written so far, with a plot summary, character descriptions, where I wanted to go, relevant worldbuilding details, everything. And just to save time, I also explained to her, in detail, what possible solutions I'd thought of already and why those approaches wouldn't work. So I was writing all of this, gathering every relevant detail about my novel and summarizing it, explaining what the problem was in detail, what I'd already thought of, and I was thinking of a couple more possibilities and explaining why they wouldn't work, and I got to one point (thousands of words later, seriously) where I was typing, "and then there's THIS which wouldn't work because..." and I couldn't think of a reason. I'd come up with the answer on my own, so I never sent the letter -- I just went back to writing. :)
I think that last one worked because you can only hold so much in the front of your mind at one time. If you think of the desktop of your mind, your actual conscious workspace, it can only hold a few things at once -- six or eight, usually, as a maximum. Usually when we're thinking about something and already have our maximum number of items front and center, bringing one more item onto the stage means the first one gets shoved off. So we're actually considering all the items -- things, ideas, characters, plot devices, setting details, or whatever else you might be thinking about depending on what you're doing -- semi-serially, because we just can't hold it all on our mental desktop at one time. Writing things down, though, lets you use your file (or a piece of paper, or a whiteboard, or whatever) as auxiliary desk space, like having a separate table in your office near your desk -- now you can spread more things out and still see them all. So writing my letter to my friend let me consider everything at once, for probably the first time, and I finally had enough data right in front of me that I was able to work out the answer on my own. I've done this a few times since that one NaNo year, but it takes a lot of work and I don't do it all that often.
For more info and tricks about how your brain works and how to make best use of it, BTW, check out Your Brain at Work, by David Rock. I read this several years after that NaNo year, and when I came to the part about how you can only hold so many things in the front of your mind, but writing things down lets you expand on that, I went, "Aha!" and recognized what'd happened with my unmailed letter to my friend. Seriously, this is a great book. :)
If none of that works, I just go work on something else. I have a few stories I haven't worked on in years, and might never finish. Usually when I really want to finish something, though, I can. But unless I have a deadline for a particular project, I'm happy so long as I'm working on something.
More common is project block, where I can write in general, but there's a roadblock on a particular project. How I handle that depends on whether I have a deadline for the project, or whether I just particularly want to work on it.
I rarely have deadlines -- and never for more than a short story if I can help it -- and my usual strategy for dealing with project block is to go work on something else. I always have a pile of partials on my hard drive, so it's rarely tough to find something else to work on. Or I might start something new, if a plot bunny has been jumping up and down demanding attention.
Sometimes just letting my subconscious work on something for a while is the answer. I'll wake up, or sit down to write, or be eating dinner or whatever, and suddenly Poof! I know how to get past a particular roadblock. I'll go back to that project and work on it until it's done or another roadblock comes up. This works often enough, that turning to a different project is, I'll admit, my go-to response to project block.
If I have to get something done, or just want to very much for whatever reason, I have a few techniques I can use.
Sometimes just asking myself, "Okay, what's the next line?" will do it. Focusing on what the next line, the next sentence, should be, without worrying about the scene or chapter or whatever, can get that next line out. Then I do it again. And again, and again, and eventually I'm past the block and words are flowing again. This takes some focus and discipline, but it can work well.
Another technique is to go back to the beginning of the story and start reading. Sometimes I'll have enough momentum going by the time I get to wherever I am that I can pick up writing. Actually, what's probably happening is that my subconscious notices some things I've forgotten, or puts two or three things together, so that when I get to the working end, I see something I hadn't seen before, and can keep going.
If that doesn't work, then it might be that I got off the rails somewhere, hopefully not too far back. If I back up to the beginning of the previous scene or chapter, I might be able to think of another approach. Sort of like I took a wrong left turn somewhere, so I back up and take a right, and that gets me where I need to be.
If I still can't find the answer, then I have a time- and labor-intensive method I figured out one year while doing NaNo. It came about accidentally, but it can work really well. I was completely stuck on my project -- and had a deadline because NaNo -- so I started an e-mail to a writer friend. We were NaNo buddies for a few years running, chatting back and forth and helping each other out. So I started to explain to my friend, in the letter, what was wrong, hoping she could give me some suggestions. Of course, in order for her to be able to help me, I had to tell her what-all I'd written so far, with a plot summary, character descriptions, where I wanted to go, relevant worldbuilding details, everything. And just to save time, I also explained to her, in detail, what possible solutions I'd thought of already and why those approaches wouldn't work. So I was writing all of this, gathering every relevant detail about my novel and summarizing it, explaining what the problem was in detail, what I'd already thought of, and I was thinking of a couple more possibilities and explaining why they wouldn't work, and I got to one point (thousands of words later, seriously) where I was typing, "and then there's THIS which wouldn't work because..." and I couldn't think of a reason. I'd come up with the answer on my own, so I never sent the letter -- I just went back to writing. :)
I think that last one worked because you can only hold so much in the front of your mind at one time. If you think of the desktop of your mind, your actual conscious workspace, it can only hold a few things at once -- six or eight, usually, as a maximum. Usually when we're thinking about something and already have our maximum number of items front and center, bringing one more item onto the stage means the first one gets shoved off. So we're actually considering all the items -- things, ideas, characters, plot devices, setting details, or whatever else you might be thinking about depending on what you're doing -- semi-serially, because we just can't hold it all on our mental desktop at one time. Writing things down, though, lets you use your file (or a piece of paper, or a whiteboard, or whatever) as auxiliary desk space, like having a separate table in your office near your desk -- now you can spread more things out and still see them all. So writing my letter to my friend let me consider everything at once, for probably the first time, and I finally had enough data right in front of me that I was able to work out the answer on my own. I've done this a few times since that one NaNo year, but it takes a lot of work and I don't do it all that often.
For more info and tricks about how your brain works and how to make best use of it, BTW, check out Your Brain at Work, by David Rock. I read this several years after that NaNo year, and when I came to the part about how you can only hold so many things in the front of your mind, but writing things down lets you expand on that, I went, "Aha!" and recognized what'd happened with my unmailed letter to my friend. Seriously, this is a great book. :)
If none of that works, I just go work on something else. I have a few stories I haven't worked on in years, and might never finish. Usually when I really want to finish something, though, I can. But unless I have a deadline for a particular project, I'm happy so long as I'm working on something.
Angela Benedetti
Yes. :) The boys are being stubborn right now, but I have about 25K words of the next book done. At this point, I'm still poking around, trying to figure out what to do. (No, it's not usually this hard. Like I said, they're being stubborn. [side-eyes the guys]) But yes, there'll definitely be more.
Angela Benedetti
Write. Write a lot. Read. Write. Take a class. Write. Read a book about writing. Write some more. Finish a story, send it out or indie pub it, and start another one. Until you have a substantial body of work (like twenty or more stories published) marketing is a useless waste. If you really enjoy blogging or tweeting or whatever, and would do it anyway, then do that fun thing because it's fun, but don't do promo stuff just because you think you should. And the worst thing you can do is publish your first book, then take the next year off of writing to "promo." Don't do that.
The second worst thing you can do is let other people put limits on what you write. If you want to write a sequel to your last book, then write it. If you want to write something completely new, do that. If you want to write a story in a new subgenre, or a new genre, then do that. If you want to try something that sounds crazy, go ahead and try it. Don't write something just because you think others expect it of you, or NOT write something because you think some people might not like it. Write what you want, and worry about where to publish it after. (While you write the next thing.)
If you go tradpub -- submitting to editors and waiting for acceptance or rejection -- you'll probably be getting a lot of rejections for a while. Maybe for years. This goes with not letting other people limit you; if you want a tradpub career, keep writing and studying and writing and learning and writing and trying. If you still think a story that's gathered a dozen or twenty rejection slips is good, then indie pub it and let the readers decide. There are people making a living off of their indie pubbed books, and plenty of genres and subgenres the big publishers decided were dead are blooming again because there are readers who love them, and indie publishing is reaching them. It might be that tradpub editors don't think your work has enough of a market, but there might be plenty of readers to support indie pubbed book in that genre or subgenre or tone or form.
Or if all you have is fifty or a hundred form rejections, maybe your craftsmanship isn't up to par yet. Keep working, studying, writing.
Keep writing. (Can't say that enough.) Writing is like any craft -- mastering it takes hours and hours and YEARS of practice. Writing is the only craft, the only art, where popular wisdom says that Baby's First Project can be polished up to professional standards if you just keep reworking and reworking and reworking it. Imagine getting your first trumpet lesson ever, and learning to honk out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and going immediately out to the park to play your song with a hat at your feet for tips. Or getting your first set of oil paints and doing a painting of your mother, then working on That One Painting over and over, scraping and repainting and adding and scraping and repainting, until you find a gallery willing to take it. :P That sounds dumb, doesn't it? But a large chunk of the writing community (not counting most of the published writers, but a lot of the unpublished writers and way too many teachers) encourages exactly that, the idea that Baby's First Story can be rewritten and rewritten, and polished-polished-polished until a paying market will accept it, if you just work hard enough and focus on perfecting that one story. Don't do that! Write something, send it out, write something else. You'll learn MUCH more from writing six stories than you will from writing one story and rewriting it five times. That path leads into the pit of doom! Write new words regularly -- every week if not every day. Especially if you're just starting out, learning and improving your skills should be your main goal, and you do that by writing lots and lots and LOTS of stories.
(And even when you've been at this for a while, you should still be learning and growing and improving. It never stops, you'll never have learned all there is to know, or max out all your skills.)
Schedule your writing time first. Writing means writing new words. Editing is not writing. Research is not writing. Submitting, or formatting and making a cover is not writing. Marketing and promo are most definitely not writing. Protect the writing first. If you have five hours free per week to work on your writing, spend at least four of them actually writing. All five is better, especially if you're just starting out.
Once you've got your writing time locked in, find some more time to read and learn. Read a lot of books, a lot of stories. Keep up with the genre(s) you write in, yes, but also read stories in other genres, and from other times, and from other cultures; they'll give you new styles and new techniques and new structures. Read non-fiction; it'll give you more things to write ABOUT. And schedule time for learning, for taking a class or reading a how-to book. If you want to indie pub, figure out what you need to learn -- setting up a business, formatting, designing and making covers, writing blurbs and other marketing copy, bookkeeping and taxes -- and schedule time (and money when needed) to learn each thing. Spread it out; if it takes you a year or two or more to learn all the basics, that's fine. Make a reasonable schedule based on your life and your finances. Keep writing, but acquire the skills and knowledge you'll need to be a good businessperson. Note that things like setting up a business and keeping your books and doing taxes apply to people who only tradpub, as well as indie pubbers; make sure you don't get blindsided by the IRS, or whoever your local tax authorities are!
Practice. Keep writing. And don't let anyone tell you that you should write this or shouldn't write that. If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. :)
The second worst thing you can do is let other people put limits on what you write. If you want to write a sequel to your last book, then write it. If you want to write something completely new, do that. If you want to write a story in a new subgenre, or a new genre, then do that. If you want to try something that sounds crazy, go ahead and try it. Don't write something just because you think others expect it of you, or NOT write something because you think some people might not like it. Write what you want, and worry about where to publish it after. (While you write the next thing.)
If you go tradpub -- submitting to editors and waiting for acceptance or rejection -- you'll probably be getting a lot of rejections for a while. Maybe for years. This goes with not letting other people limit you; if you want a tradpub career, keep writing and studying and writing and learning and writing and trying. If you still think a story that's gathered a dozen or twenty rejection slips is good, then indie pub it and let the readers decide. There are people making a living off of their indie pubbed books, and plenty of genres and subgenres the big publishers decided were dead are blooming again because there are readers who love them, and indie publishing is reaching them. It might be that tradpub editors don't think your work has enough of a market, but there might be plenty of readers to support indie pubbed book in that genre or subgenre or tone or form.
Or if all you have is fifty or a hundred form rejections, maybe your craftsmanship isn't up to par yet. Keep working, studying, writing.
Keep writing. (Can't say that enough.) Writing is like any craft -- mastering it takes hours and hours and YEARS of practice. Writing is the only craft, the only art, where popular wisdom says that Baby's First Project can be polished up to professional standards if you just keep reworking and reworking and reworking it. Imagine getting your first trumpet lesson ever, and learning to honk out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and going immediately out to the park to play your song with a hat at your feet for tips. Or getting your first set of oil paints and doing a painting of your mother, then working on That One Painting over and over, scraping and repainting and adding and scraping and repainting, until you find a gallery willing to take it. :P That sounds dumb, doesn't it? But a large chunk of the writing community (not counting most of the published writers, but a lot of the unpublished writers and way too many teachers) encourages exactly that, the idea that Baby's First Story can be rewritten and rewritten, and polished-polished-polished until a paying market will accept it, if you just work hard enough and focus on perfecting that one story. Don't do that! Write something, send it out, write something else. You'll learn MUCH more from writing six stories than you will from writing one story and rewriting it five times. That path leads into the pit of doom! Write new words regularly -- every week if not every day. Especially if you're just starting out, learning and improving your skills should be your main goal, and you do that by writing lots and lots and LOTS of stories.
(And even when you've been at this for a while, you should still be learning and growing and improving. It never stops, you'll never have learned all there is to know, or max out all your skills.)
Schedule your writing time first. Writing means writing new words. Editing is not writing. Research is not writing. Submitting, or formatting and making a cover is not writing. Marketing and promo are most definitely not writing. Protect the writing first. If you have five hours free per week to work on your writing, spend at least four of them actually writing. All five is better, especially if you're just starting out.
Once you've got your writing time locked in, find some more time to read and learn. Read a lot of books, a lot of stories. Keep up with the genre(s) you write in, yes, but also read stories in other genres, and from other times, and from other cultures; they'll give you new styles and new techniques and new structures. Read non-fiction; it'll give you more things to write ABOUT. And schedule time for learning, for taking a class or reading a how-to book. If you want to indie pub, figure out what you need to learn -- setting up a business, formatting, designing and making covers, writing blurbs and other marketing copy, bookkeeping and taxes -- and schedule time (and money when needed) to learn each thing. Spread it out; if it takes you a year or two or more to learn all the basics, that's fine. Make a reasonable schedule based on your life and your finances. Keep writing, but acquire the skills and knowledge you'll need to be a good businessperson. Note that things like setting up a business and keeping your books and doing taxes apply to people who only tradpub, as well as indie pubbers; make sure you don't get blindsided by the IRS, or whoever your local tax authorities are!
Practice. Keep writing. And don't let anyone tell you that you should write this or shouldn't write that. If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. :)
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