Quick breaks

[Garren Jacobsen]

So, I am going through a substantial read through and rewrite of my Blood Iron Novel. And I get kind of bored with it sometimes. Which means I take on a side project. It can be world building or writing a chapter. This has got me curious if any of you do that when doing a tedious thing for your writing. Or, am I a crazy person? Curious as to your thoughts about this method of sanity saving and if it works for you and if not this then what.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes, I do this. I read an interview with George RR Marten and he was saying that is why he likes having so many POV's. He may be writing Tyrion for a while, and then he gets stuck with Tyrion, and gets sort of bored, and finds he wrote maybe 4 sentences in four hours, so then he moves on to Arya for a while. After a few days of working on Arya BAM! he will have a solution to the Tyrion problem, or be inspired to go back to him again. I was so happy to read this because I do the same thing. But I actually find taking breaks (like editing another part of the story, writing a character bio, writing out a very detailed, lush description of a setting, writing a poem about the romance between two characters etc) actually helps me with the story in the long run. I find I end up creating more depth and reality in the actual work when I go on little break tangents.

 

[MineOwnKing]

It takes me too far out of the story to start another project.

A little bit of Shakespeare is the equivalent of drinking a Red Bull for me.

Men are hardwired to seek out visual stimulation. If the words are boring you, your imagination might be reinvigorated by taking a few moments to soak in some eye candy.

There is a plethora of really cool Fantasy art on Pinterest, sword and sorcery kind of stuff.

Victoria's Secret models are inspiring, kind of like a muse. At least for me, they don't take on that sexual aspect that can be too distracting, they are just beautiful in a sort of far off, demi-god way.

I'm not sure what women authors do, probably read about unicorns and rainbows or something of that nature.

 

[Heliotrope]

Lol! I'm a woman author, and I detest unicorns and rainbows. I draw my inspiration from real life. As terrible as it sounds I get inspired by looking at images online of historical tragedies. I love looking at images of the great depression, or the dust bowl, or chernobyl, or heroshima. I look at the images and let the true feeling of tragedy wash over me. Imagine myself in that position, holding my babies on the streets in the cold. I know, sounds very sociopathic of me, but I find I can transfer those feelings over to my writing at it makes for better writing. I also like looking at fantasy art… boris vallejo mostly. I don't mind using a good muscular woman in a bikini as muse, I'm not so 80's feminist that it turns me off. Though typically I find I use much weaker characters in my writing… disabled children, withering old men, mothers still weak from childbirth, people who suffer from mental illness, that sort of thing. It's those real people who inspire me.

I find reading also very helpful. As I tend to be more character driven in my writing I like books that are written this way. Shakespeare for sure is great, so much emotion! So much tragedy and comedy and conflict wrapped into one! King Lear, so weak and frail, and his daughters so ready to slaughter him. Othello, the Moore, who finally finds true love in a kingdom that doesn't trust him because of his skin colour… Oh, such beautiful stories!

 

[skip.knox]

Yeah, if it's a chore ... well, first of all, it's a chore, so I do it. But for relief I deliberately do not-writing. Playing music is good. Walks. Anything that does not involve that awful exercise of laying one word down after another; or, worse, revising those words, which is rather like trying to rebuild walls while living within them.

But, try them all. Any trick that works!

 

[BWFoster78]

I've heard an applicable motto used on another site:

A change is as good as a break.

 

[JCFarnham]

People think I'm crazy for having a different project to switch to, but I have them for situations exactly like this. I can slow to a crawl on one, jump to another and get that finished then be revitalized for the original project. Maybe that's not 100% useful for "finishing what's started" and all that advice, but I find having that change every now and then helps me write more depth.

I also advocate playing music or watching something on tv of a similar genre to your wip.