Sometimes writing is easy. On those days, even when you’re not writing, your mind is awash with book possibilities, and when you actually sit down to the keyboard, the words just flow like someone is dictating the story and you’re just writing it down. Days like that are amazing. It’s like being in a movie montage with a power anthem playing in the background.
Other days, though, the opposite is true. Everything that you type is atrocious. The descriptions are cliché, the dialogue sounds stilted, and (in the case of erotic romance) the sex arouses… no one. I have it on good authority that everyone goes through these horrible writing days, and even the best and most prolific writers sit down at their keyboards convinced they are never going to write anything ever again.
Since I started getting book contracts and, you know, started actively trying to make a living out of this, I’ve had to learn to push through these terrible days by just writing anyway. Yes, sometimes I need to rewrite everything from those bad days, but more often than not, it’s not nearly as bad as I remembered. I’m learning to write even when I don’t feel like writing. It isn’t always fun, but I keep telling myself it’s what separates amateurs from professionals, and I buckle back down again.
And then, thankfully, it eventually gets easy again.
There are parts of writing that I just love. Sometimes I start a scene without a clear idea of where it’s going to go, and I find myself wandering down some little path of description that suddenly reveals all this information about a character that I never thought of before. The scene might not make it through editing, but the information does. I love those moments! And sometimes I have no idea how it’s all going to wrap up, creating this generalized low-grade anxiety thrumming below my skin as I keep barrelling toward an uncertain conclusion, but then suddenly I’ll be typing a scene and bam! The resolution just hits me, and the anxiety dissipates. Well, until the next book.
I’m working on the sequel to Purely Professional right now. I’ve been away from Bridget and Max for a while, and I’m enjoying getting to know them again. I love them and want to do their story justice, but there are challenges for them to face on the way to their happy ending.
Speaking of which, I’ve been away from them long enough just typing this post. Cue the 80s power anthem.
