Keep Working Through Roadblocks

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

It’s been a weird summer, hasn’t it?

I’ve managed to keep my head down and bulldoze my way through my usual writing goals, even upping my word count through a couple of writing challenges this spring and summer.

But I’ve had to outline three books during this period and sometimes felt like I was running into a wall.

My usual process is to brainstorm on a Word document until I get the story basics in my head. Then I use my outline template and fill it in. Ordinarily, I do this on my laptop and then save the outline. When I’m drafting the story, I tab back and forth on my computer between the manuscript and the outline.

This time, I really struggled to both brainstorm and outline on my Word documents. I had a hard time keeping focus and got irritated as I felt myself fall behind the schedule I’d set for myself.

Once I got past my initial annoyance with myself, I sat down and tried to figure out exactly how I could move forward with the outline I needed to write.

On a whim, I printed out the outline template and the few words I’d already written. You can see several of these in the picture above. Then I took out a pencil and started filling it in on paper.

This was a little scary to me for a couple of different reasons. For one, I’m sort of a backup freak. I back up my work quite a few places and I’m not wild about having something as important as an outline on paper where I could spill a glass of water on it, accidentally toss it into the recycling bin along with my newspaper, or have it eaten by a misguiden corgi. For another, I was breaking my routine. My routine is what keeps me as productive as I am. I don’t like messing with success.

But what if my previously successful method was now something holding me back? That was definitely the case this time.

There have been plenty of studies about the benefits of doing creative work by hand. Sometimes it helps unleash a spark that just stalls out on a computer.

With this method I now have three outlines ready to go. And I’m scanning the documents to make sure they’re backed-up properly.  :)

If you run into any writing roadblocks this year (outlining, drafting, promo), it’s worth it to take the time to figure out what might help you move past them.  Try different approaches and see if they work–you might surprise yourself.

Have you had trouble with focus or creativity and inspiration this year? How have you moved past them?