Natasha Fondren

Have I been whining lately? I feel like I should make a point of saying how much I love writing. Even when the words are coming out slow as molasses, when I’m spending all day tilting the bottle just so, when my arms are aching, waiting for the slow, slow, slow descent of the stubborn syrup, I love it.

I’m grateful that right now, knock on wood, I don’t have any looming deadlines. I can plug away, day by day, making progress, no pressure. It’s really nice. Such a relief.

This period should last for at least the next… two or three weeks.

Meanwhile, I’m (as always) struggling with the research. I’m always impatient to get the words on the page, and “just researching” makes me nervous. But onward I trudge.

If I’d just focus on the research and allow the book to come to full boil before trying to write it, I wouldn’t have to delete so much.

Same goes with reading. I want to read a book a day. I need to have a bigger understanding of the YA genre, so I need to read a ton more books. But again, “just reading” makes me nervous. Even though the work is fun, for sure! I think that’s why I feel guilty.

So thank you, universe. I like this time I have. Even if it does make me nervous. I constantly feel the pressure to write faster, to produce more, because I don’t want this opportunity to pass me by.

Do you struggle with patience? With nervousness when you have time to take your time? With guilt over reading, even though it’s part of the job? And how are deadlines treating you, at the moment?

I keep skipping the work that makes me feel lazy. Problem is, there’s no skipping it. If you skip it, you don’t move ahead. If you skip it, you don’t get the story done.

So why can’t I do the lazy work without feeling massively guilty and unproductive?

the research

I once researched espionage for about ten months (one six-month stint and one four-month stint) over two years, before I realized that writing a spy thriller was not going to happen anytime soon.

So now, doing even a day of research freaks me out and makes me feel like I’m wasting time. I think I’m afraid that if I do research, I won’t write the book.

But, um… I can’t nail the book until I do the research. *sigh* I’m stuck!

The Simmering

Usually I set a story on simmer in my imagination while I’m writing the story or two before. Ideas percolate, the characters get real, and scenes start to bubble up to the surface.

But when the simmering process is incomplete and you don’t have another, mindless job to make you feel useful while your imagination is simmering…

…you have to watch the watched pot that feels like it will never boil.

I mean, it doesn’t make me feel like a productive member of society when I go, “YES! Finally! I dozed off and was in my story world!” Or even worse, “I DID IT! Days of imagining my story have paid off: I’ve finally had a dream in my main character’s point of view!”

And, to steal an example Laurell K. Hamilton recently cited: “I’m ROCKING now! I just put on winter coats in ninety degree weather because it’s winter in my book!”

Tangible Progress

Counting the words you wrote for the day makes me feel like I’ve made progress. Research doesn’t feel like progress. Thinking doesn’t feel like progress.

But it has to be done.

So how do you manage it? How do you not feel guilty when your word count doesn’t go up? Is this just my problem?