Friend, are you in the doldrums? Has your idea factory shut down? Have you been working on the same scene in your WIP for six months with the end result being 500 fewer words than when you began?
We’ve all been there. Even me, despite being more or less a genius and one of those prolific assholes who routinely writes 3 books a year just to be smug about it. Although, it hasn’t happened to me recently; the last time I had what could be described as a Doldrums Moment was about two decades ago, a protracted period of emptiness where I couldn’t even get a short story going. It was one of the most frustrating and terrifying moments of my life.
Because, as I’m sure you all know, there’s the fear that whatever weird chemical imbalance in my brain or specific experiential weirdness that unlocked this creativity might go away. The mysterious spark that makes me able to tell stories and invent people and build worlds isn’t under my control, after all. I was born with it or it was baked into me by forces I was most certainly not directing at the time. As a result, it might disappear at any moment. We’ve all read a new book by an old favorite author and thought, well, that was disappointing and then watched in horror as every new work by that author also disappoints and you realize they’ve lost it, whatever ‘it’ gets defined as.
That could be me, and it could be you, and so the Doldrums terrify us. If we’re not working on something that feels good and strong, the possibility that we wrote our last good piece yesterday starts to loom.
I got out of my doldrums twenty years ago and have prevented them ever since with the application of two things. One is constant work—writing a story every month, always having a file open somewhere. That keeps things percolating. The other crucial step is shaking things up.
Crisis and Opportunity
Shaking things up can mean different things to different writers, but fundamentally it calls for forcing yourself to work and think differently, either temporarily or as part of a fundamental shift. When I feel a little stale, I try any or all of the following strategies:
- New implements—write a novel in longhand? Why not. Write a short story by dictating into my phone? Might work! The point is, force your brain to forge new connections by working with novel mechanics.
- New genre. If you’ve been writing nothing but noir detective stories for 20 years, the effort involved in writing a comedic fantasy might be just what you need to shock your creative battery into new life.
- New experiments. I personally get very fixated on finishing things—which I regard as, overall, a superpower for any writer, as you can’t sell/publish what you don’t finish. But, sometimes getting away from that and just writing scenes or dialogs or fun little bits is a tonic.
- New projects. If the fiction writing starts to feel like heavy lifting, I’ll start a new creative project, which doesn’t have to be writing. I compose and record songs for my own amusement. I started a podcast this year. Sometimes I create book covers just for fun, or cut trailers for my stories using free stock video. Rechanneling your creativity away from writing lets your brain do some subconscious work in the background.
- Change in schedule. Grinding can get work done, but following the same routine day in and day out can make writing feel like a chore. Take a day off, then pick a new time to write, see how it goes. You can always go back, but the disruption might be revelatory.
None of these are guaranteed to work, but so far they usually do. And you can always go back to your original schedule or process once you’ve gotten past your doldrums.
Did I forget to mention alcohol? Because yes, sometimes the best way to shake it up is to drink a bottle of bourbon and wake up in a dumpster wearing a funeral suit.