What to do When Your Own Writing Bores You

The whip-dash-sizzle of a new story idea. Don't you love it? You scribble down a note to yourself, tuck away an image or a few words to explore later. You practically buzz with the wonder and promise of this new thing you'll create, and you can't wait to get to the page to get it down in all its glory.

You write a paragraph or a page or five pages into it, and then the whip-dash-sizzle goes...fizzle.

You've lost the thread, lost the magic, lost the spark. You can't make sense of the story. The metaphor that was so poignant now seems ridiculous, or worse -- clichéd.

You reread what you wrote, hoping to find your way back to the excitement.

But the story -- your story -- feels stale. The writing is flat. Your own words bore you.

What now?

It's a good question, and one I've been thinking about it for about a month, ever since a student in the last session of Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing asked me this:

I was working on a piece and started having trouble staying engaged enough. Do you have any suggestions on finding topics that have more connection? Maybe it's just me lacking passion, or finding the best way to tell this story? It can't be a good sign: If the writer loses interest in the story, it will never make it to a reader.

This is an issue I struggle with a lot. In fact, it's one of the reasons I'll avoid writing. I hate not being able to translate the awesome story in my head into words that retain heat. It's frustrating and baffling when it happens, but it's happened often enough now that I have a list of techniques to use to face it.

(A practical note: I mostly write essays, which fall into the genre of creative nonfiction. I tend to use the terms "story" and "essay" interchangeably, even though fiction writers might want to cut out my tongue for doing so. My essays aren't always even all that narrative in form since I write a lot of meditative and lyrical stuff, which further disqualifies them for the technical term "story," but I don't care. I'm using the term in a broad sense to encompass all kinds of creative writing -- nonfiction, fiction, and poetry alike.)

Here are some things I do when my own writing is boring me to tears.

Write something else. If one story is giving me fits, and another catches my fancy, I'll follow that energy. The path of least resistance isn't necessarily a bad thing. If I truly care about the first story, I'll come back to it later. (If-you-love-something-set-it-free and all that.) There's a time for perseverece (see below). But there's also a time to jump ship for awhile.

Gorge the page with details. Sometimes when I'm writing about a personal experience, all the details of that experience clamor to be told. I can't filter out what's important and what's not. I end up getting in my own way by trying to pin every single bloody detail onto the page. I get so bogged down in details, chronology, and the facts of what happened that I can't see past all this to story's shape or meaning. A personal essay or memoir isn't a journalistic report; not all of the details belong in the narrative. But sometimes I need to get a journalistic account down on paper so the details can live somewhere outside of my head. So I gorge the page with all those details, which eventually frees me up to think artistically about what's essential to the story I want to tell.

Purge the details. If I've done the step above and gorged the page with details, it's time to purge. If I've already tried to trim the fat and the writing still feels boring and flabby, I may have kept too many (or the wrong) details. I'm always tempted to put everything into my stories. Even thought I know better, I'm convinced I can make them all work. But I often find that I have to strip out juicy bits that were fun/cool/interesting to me, because they just don't work with the core of the story on the page.

Binge on details. Three points in a row about details? Well, you know they say that the devil's in them, and it's true. Sometimes my problem isn't that my mind or the page are too cluttered with details. Sometimes my writing lacks vivacity because there are no concrete, sensuous details to hold anyone's attention. My first drafts are often full of cerebral ideas and philosophies that need to be enlivened with the physical world and the five senses. I look for places where I can incorporate colors, textures, sounds, scents, and tastes. Instead of "flowers" I need to say "purple crocus." Instead of vague statements I need to drill down to specific examples and inventive metaphors. If the writing feels sterile, I pile on descriptions and details. I can always go back and purge later. 

Write fast and sloppy. Another thing I try when I'm feeling stuck in the boring muck of an event is to write really fast and without much context. This is kind of the opposite of gorging the page with journalistic details and facts. Instead of trying to capture every last bit of "what happened," I say "explanation be damned!" and let my mind make as many weird leaps and bounds from one thing to the next as it wants. The power of essays (stories, poems, etc.) often comes from these interesting leaps and unexpected connections. My goal with doing this fast and sloppy free-writing is to bypass mental blocks  and common sense to get my pure internal experience onto the page. The initial outcome usually won't make a lot of sense to another reader, but it can help me to find the more interesting bits to explore.

Prompt yourself toward meaning. Sometimes my stories fall flat because I have no imagination or sense of mystery about what happened. The result is a shallow essay that lacks meaning. One way to go spelunking for meaning and mystery is to use the prompt "I wonder..." or "What I don't know is..." I can use those phrases as starting points and let my mind roam freely. This can help me to identify rabbit holes of potential meaning.

Accept the fact of shitty first drafts. A lot of my first drafts are painfully boring. A lot of my second drafts aren't much better. Hell, the third draft might still be fair-to-middling. That's fine. No worries! First (and second, etc.) drafts aren't meant to be finished works. They are works in progress, and even really good writers start slow and clunky a lot of the time. I remind myself to accept this as part of the process. Acknowledge, move on.

Don't despair. Persevere. It's best to combine this technique with accepting the fact of shitty first drafts. I accept it and I keep on keepin' on. Sometimes I have to write and rewrite something many times before it goes somewhere as interesting as I knew it could. Sometimes I have to start something and step away from it for a few days (or weeks, months, even years!) before I'm ready to come back and find the heart of it. I'm working on an essay right now that I've been trying to write since last year. It's giving me a really hard time, but I know that the elements are interesting, and I know there's a good story in it. I just haven't figured out how to put it together in a worthy way yet. But I keep coming back to it every few months.

Write someone a letter. Instead of thinking, "Now I'm writing an essay," sometimes I pretend I'm just writing a letter to someone, telling them this interesting story. This eases some of the pressure to be "creative" and helps to infuse some life into the words. An alternate version of this is to use the prompt "What I really want to say is...." Filling in that blank often leads me to the heart of the story.

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I've never given up completely on one of my stories, no matter how surly it's being. I figure that even if I'm not able to make it come alilve now, eventually, with practice, I'll be able to do it justice. I think sometimes we uncover story ideas that we're just not ready to write. But I believe that if we're loyal to them and diligent about pursuing our craft, they'll wait for us to catch up.

Everything and nothing much

It's the wee hours of the night now. Lights are low. The Christmas tree still glows a soft kaleidoscope in my living room. The big cat snoozes, the little cat runs around crying because she wants us to go upstairs to bed, and my husband listens to soft piano music on his laptop. Outside the sky is clear as black crystal, and a fat chunk of moon hovers above the trees. The temperature is low, maybe single digits. If I look out of my kitchen window at just the right angle, I can see a distant neighbor's television. I wonder if they're night owls like us. Maybe they have insomnia. Maybe they fell asleep watching the news. Or maybe there's a crisis in their house tonight and the TV helps to remind them of the world outside their window.

A car just drove up the street. We live in a neighborhood with one way in and out. What do people do at 3:01am? Where are they going? You're probably sleeping. Are you sleeping?

My last few blog posts have felt small and quiet, as though I'm writing you little letters about everything and nothing much, all at once. I think it's the mood of deep winter. After so many days of holiday revelry, I've snuggled in at home, wanting nothing more than tea and books and twinkle lights. Jen Lee has a lovely post about the sacred quiet that we find ourselves in from time to time, more or less often depending on our personalities, I suppose.

Last night I dreamt that I was aboard a large ship, like a Navy cruiser, looking out a window at the nighttime ocean. In the middle of the dark sea a walled city appeared, a medieval marvel of stone and firelight. It wasn't an island exactly; the city was built on the water itself, which reached nearly to the top of the wall, sloshing just six inches below the stone window cutouts. I leaned in close to my companion. I knew we had witnessed something rare and beautiful, and I knew that this sea-city was in danger. Just a few more inches of water and it would drown completely. There was nothing we could do. The ship sailed on. The dream felt intimate and strange, even as it was happening. I awoke feeling as though I'd been handed a secret folded up in origami paper, too beautiful to deconstruct.

I'm not really telling you anything, I know. It's late, and the little cat wants me to go to bed so she can curl up on my left thigh, her favorite sleeping spot. I could make up some meaning for my dream last night, but I'd rather imagine who lives in that city. Who within those wet walls is awake at 3am?

Life Isn't a Calendar (an Everyday Essay)

It is not what you first think. There is no effort of will, no firm resolve in the face of this thing called living. There is only paying attention to the quiet each morning, while you hold your cup in the cool air & then that moment you choose to spread your love like a cloth upon the table & invite the whole day in again. ~"Invitation" by Brian Andreas

The Solstice snow has melted a bit since last week, but the world has stayed mostly wintry white. We finally cleared the driveway yesterday and then woke to a new coat this morning. The backyard trees cradle little pillows of fresh snow in the crooks of their bare arms, and the shaggy evergreens bear the heavy snowload with their usual sad dignity. Out on my back deck I can just see the top of the patio umbrella stand peeking above the fluff, and the table, which shouldn't be left out during the winter, looks like a tall brown cake topped with white icing.

The new year lurks around every corner now, whispering invitations to clean, organize, and beautify -- my home, my self, my life. There are closets to clean out, lists to make, exercises to be done, paintings to be hung, vegetables to be eaten, intentions to be set. The new year is a busy time of foraging and plumbing the worlds around and within us. We humans take every chance we get to make meaning and sense of things, and the annual calendar changeover is prime time for these endeavors.

What did the past year bring us? What did it mean? Where are we now? What do we wish for the year ahead?

You're probably pondering the same things.

I'd chosen a group of words as my theme for 2012: harmony, rhythm, flow, alignment. I feel a bit sad now when thinking about these intentions, because I fell short of my expectations. I'm still seeking each one of these. Does that mean 2012 was a bust?

We cleared the driveway yesterday, and today it's covered again. The snow melts a little and falls some more. Eventually spring seeps through the cold and flowers bloom. Rhythm. Cycle. Flow. First one thing and then another, round and round it goes. We don't claim that the summer has failed us when the green leaves turn crimson.

The calendar days are tidy squares lined up in orderly rows, everything numbered to provide a false sense of linearity. It tricks us into thinking life is this way. Choose a word, set an intention, make a goal. Move forward, declare accomplishment. Make another list and tick it off step-by-step. But life is not a calendar or a list or a ladder you can climb rung-by-rung. Life is the ebb and flow of ocean tides, the sunlight and dappled shadow of forest paths, the contrast of white snow on evergreen boughs. Life is the overcast sky of winter that blurs the line between day and night, and the long June days when golden light seeps well into the night. Life is now. It's the driveway that needs shoveling, the dishes that need washing. It's the candles you light, the books you read, the tea you drink, the people you kiss. It's the lists you make and the ones you forget. One step forward, two steps back, and three to the side for good measure.

In three days I'll turn the page to another year, but I'll know that this is just one way of keeping time. There are other ways to make sense of things, to pay attention to what matters.

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About Everyday Essays: At least a few times a week I jot down notes about something -- usually a small moment, detail, or thought -- that I want to write about. Most of those ideas stay frozen as notes and never bloom into essays. Everyday Essays is my new writing practice to allow some of those notes to move beyond infancy. I've decided to share some of them with you here, even if they're still half-naked or half-baked. The word "essay" (as is almost always noted when the form is discussed) comes from the French verb essayer, which means to try. The essay is a reckoning, a rambling, an exploration, an attempt. Think of these Everyday Essays as freewriting exercises, rough drafts, or the jumbled, interconnected contents of my mind, which may or may not take root and grow into longer (deeper) essays.

Light is the Great Priestess

Light is the great priestess of landscape. Deftly it searches out unnoticed places, corners of fields, the shadow-veils of certain bushes, the angled certainty of stones; it can slink low behind a stone wall turning the spaces between the stones into windows of gold. On a winter's evening it can set a black tree into poignant relief. Unable to penetrate the earth, light knows how to tease suggestions of depth from surface. Where radiance falls, depths gather to the surface as to a window. The persuasions of light bring us frequent mirrors that afford us a glimpse into the mystery that dwells in us. Sometimes in the radiance, forgotten treasure glimmers through 'earthen vessels.' ~John O'Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

The snow falls, lofting the ground to the color of winter sky. Today on the darkest night of the year I welcome the snow. White reflects light, brightening my windows. On this late afternoon I can sit in that soft reflection and delay the lighting of the electric lamps. A black crow lights in the maple tree and flies off again, her talons threatening the earth below, shadow in motion. The bud scaled branches of the pear tree point up and up, arrows true. Sunset is coming, this I know, though I haven't seen the sun all day. This is winter solstice, a day to acknowledge the dark, a night to dwell in mystery. This is the day that the world does not end. This is the world, and though the day ends, so will the night. Tomorrow the earth begins another slow slant back toward the sun, a promise that the light will return, that the darkness will not overwhelm us.

A *Lanterns* Sale

Lanterns Holiday Sale: Save 15% plus receive free priority shipping upgrade (order by 12/19/12)

Lanterns: A Gathering of Stories is a curated collection of prose, poetry, and black & white photography by seven women writers, artists & photographers.

Each page offers up nuggets of wisdom and candor about life, friendship, and creativity.

This beautiful square gift book is handcrafted, professionally printed, and thoughtfully created, making it the perfect gift for your girlfriends, your daughters, your mothers, yourself.

It is a gift of hope, inspiration, and the reminder that creativity and community walk alongside each other, hand in hand, a string of lanterns lighting the way.

Lanterns is a celebration, an encouragement, an invitation.

A portion of the proceeds of sales are donated to Girls Write Now, a NYC nonprofit that helps teenage girls develop their creative, independent voices and explore careers in professional writing.

Contributors:

Darlene J Kreutzer
Liz Lamoreux
Jen Lee
Jennifer McGuiggan (editor)
Rachelle Mee-Chapman
Lisa Ottman
Jena Strong

Quantities are limited of this small batch, limited edition book. Once the copies on my studio shelf are sold, they're gone. Please order by Thursday, December 19 for priority mail delivery in time for Christmas.

Full details, including an audio recording of me reading one of my essays from the book, are available over here.