When the Muse Is Bad
Make Hay While the Rain Pours
Today I had an important business meeting with my lovely colleagues in which we discussed and reached a consensus that we are, to a one, “over” this rain and, if we don’t see the sun soon, we will all lose our minds. That does not stop me, however, from paraphrasing “Only Happy When It Rains,” by Garbage, one of my favorite 1990s bangers, although Shirley Manson is talking about the news being bad, not the muse. Anyway we’ve had a lot of rain, that’s why I was thinking of it. And also I got some baggy jeans at Target and I’ve reverted to a goth sixteen-year-old circa 1996. I still have that CD in the basement somewhere.
I was telling Joy I had to write Shelf Life and I had a deadline for it but I had no ideas and nothing to write about so he suggested I write about how to find an idea and write about it when you’re on a deadline and you go nothing, so here we are. At the end of today’s article, I’m going to link some related Shelf Lifes because I’ve written on this and adjacent topics several times before—but don’t worry! This isn’t a montage episode. I’m just sharing some recommended reading to go along with today’s offering. That’s why I’m putting them at the end.
Sometimes you just have to write something. Maybe you have a self-imposed deadline coming up, or you owe your accountabilibuddy or critique partner some text and they’re glancing pointedly at their watch, or there’s a contest submission window closing any day now, or you just haven’t written anything in a while and you’re beating yourself up about it.
First, don’t beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself. It’s always easier to accomplish something when you feel good than when you feel bad. Do you want to run a marathon with the flu or without the flu? Without the flu, right? Second: Don’t run a marathon, running is awful. Third: Regarding the flu. . . .
Seriously, though, I don’t recommend trying to make yourself do something when you are feeling bad (in general or about that specific thing) because you will have a bad time and it will be harder to make yourself do it next time. You’ll form an association between the activity and feeling bad. Also, heck feeling bad.
Anyway, back to: Sometimes you have to write something. For whatever reason, you need to sit down and crank out some text. Like I do, right now, because in a matter of mumble mumble hours all (checks notes) three of you will be looking for Shelf Life in your inbox and wanting to read it. And sometimes you have nothing. Nothing on deck. No creative idea. You’re sitting in front of a blank page and you’ve got zilch.
That was me half an hour ago but now I’m 500 words into a Shelf Life so clearly I know a thing or two about getting the words flowing when your bucket is scraping dry ground at the bottom of either the well of ideas or the well of motivation.
It’s not that I don’t have ideas for Shelf Life articles, I have a folder with eight fully formed article ideas waiting to be written (and I just added two of those while writing the first 500 words of this one). But sometimes none of the ideas I have on deck appeal to me and I can’t get excited about any of them. This happens with my fiction, too. Right now I have (let me count) sixteen short stories outlined and ready to draft plus a handful of longform (is-this-a-novel-or-is-it-a-novella?) ideas planned out but sometimes I just can’t get into any of them but I know I need to make myself write something.
For me, motivation is more the problem: Motivation to write at all, or motivation to write a specific thing (because the thing just isn’t lighting my fire right now). I realize ideas can be an issue, too, so in the writing-life hacks that follow I’ll include advice for both those who have ideas lined up but aren’t motivated to write them and those who don’t have any ideas about what to write right now.
Throw a Dart
Not to repeat what I just said but maybe you have a pile of ideas sitting around but none of them is grabbing you and begging to be written. Maybe you want to write something but you don’t want to dig into your pile of ideas. Maybe you don’t have any ideas on deck. Whatever the case, you can employ the dartboard method: Set yourself a target word count, let random chance pick your idea for you, and then write that randomly chosen idea to the word count you set.
Let’s say I’m in a rut and I want to break out of it so I sit myself down to write a flash story. Flash fiction is anything up to 1,000 words; it’s sometimes considered anything 500 to 1,000 words with anything below 500 categorized as microfiction. Whatever. I’m going to write a flash story, so my target is 1,000 words (or thereabouts).
Fun fact: The fastest I ever wrote a complete story was during a 25-minute writing sprint using a writing prompt (more on sprints in a moment). The writing prompt was: “Think of someone you used to know and imagine what they might be doing now, where they are, and with whom.” (I’m paraphrasing because I no longer have the exact prompt saved.) I wrote a 900ish-word piece to the prompt during that 25-minute sprint—which became the story “Assistance.”
Let’s talk about how you can let Lady Luck choose what you’ll write. I already mentioned writing prompts, and you can get those anywhere. The internet is full of writing prompts. I just found a writing prompt bank recently with more than 1,000 prompts you can sort by genre. Squibler.io has a random plot generator and will time you while you write to the prompt it offers (you can choose the time you want to write).
Got ideas to tackle but none of them is calling you? Write the ideas down on slips of paper and pull one out of a mason jar.
Or, try making your own random plot generator. Make three stacks of color-coded cards or paper (you could use colored paper or use a marker to color-code plain paper). Let’s say red is a character, blue is an event, and yellow is a genre or type of story. Next, write down as many of each as you can think of. Write a character on each slip. These can be things you make up—“a plucky young librarian working with limited resources”—or characters you borrow from existing fiction. If you pull from existing fiction, don’t do it by character name (eg, “Ellen Ripley”) but by describing the type of character (eg, “a no-nonsense warrant officer”).
Do the same for events. These do not have to line up with your characters. For instance, “a traveling circus is held up by highway robbers” or “an unmarked mass grave is discovered” or “an annoying but harmless alien gets loose among an unsuspecting population.” Then do the same for genres and types of stories: “Thriller” “comedy” “sci fi” “historical fantasy” “fable” and so on.
Now shuffle each stack of cards and draw: One or two characters, one or two genres, one or two events. Figuring out how to turn that random assortment into a cohesive story will get the creative part of your brain going.
Do Some Sprints
I mentioned sprints in the previous section and, before that, I mentioned marathons. I hate running. My body hates running. My body hates running so much that each time I have tried to cultivate a running habit my hormones go bananas and I end up with the most obscene acne you can imagine. I have created a negative association. You will not catch me running even if my life depends on it.
Now, writing sprints, those I can do. For me, this is the most effective way to get myself writing when I don’t feel like doing it, I’m in a slump, I’ve got no motivation or inspiration, or what have you. Here’s how it works: You do, essentially, a Pomodoro Technique and write for 25 minutes without pause, then take a 5-minute break, and repeat.
The real clincher? I do this with other people so we can all hold each other accountable. Once a month my writing group meets at my house to do writing sprints together (we usually do three or four): We do 25 minutes of focused writing then take 5 to 10 minutes to check in with each other on how it went, how the project is progressing, and so on; and then we start again. Also once a month I do this virtually with my writing buddies who are not local.
If you have writer friends, see if they’re interested in an in-person or virtual get-together to do some writing sprints. No writing friends? No problem—Shut Up and Write! has you covered with hour-long in-person and virtual writing events. Events are free to attend.
It really motivates me to know I’m going to have to talk about my progress at the end of the writing sprint. I don’t want to have to say, “Actually I was doomscrolling twitter the whole time, my bad.”
Freewriting
My friend Jamie cites Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption/The Shawshank Redemption (depends upon whether we’re citing the novella or the movie) when she talks about this concept, and I usually reference a faucet in an old house. As in Shawshank Redemption, sometimes you have to crawl through a river of, uh, excrement to come out clean on the other side. In the faucet metaphor, I say sometimes you have to turn on the faucet and let the brown, dirty water run for a few minutes before clean water starts coming out.
I know this will sound a little new age-y but I’ve found this to be true: Sometimes I can’t write anything good because there’s too much garbage in my head. I have too many thoughts jumbled up in there: Everything going on at work, what I’m going to do about dinner, whether I can make it to the post office by 5:00 since I missed the mail carrier’s rounds, when will I get a break to walk the dog, and did I take a shower yet today? All those thoughts take up brain space. I’ve only got so many neurons.
A great way to clear all that extra junk out of your brain and make room for creativity is to start freewriting. Again with the new-age, woo-woo stuff but for this exercise I find writing with pen and paper works better for me than typing (your mileage may vary). I just start writing down all the random thoughts in my head, free-associating and following my train of thought wherever it goes till it runs out of steam and stops. That gets me in a writing mode and empties my brain of all the extra noise so I can focus on writing something worthwhile without distraction.
If freewriting doesn’t sound appealing, or you try it and it doesn’t work, my other go-to strategy for clearing all that extra noise out of my brain is to take a walk outside. The outdoors leach all that extra noise out of my brain and I leave all the random thoughts along the way till I get back with my brain empty and ready to go.
Before I sign off, here’s a handful of related articles you might check out if you’re having trouble coming up with ideas, or having trouble making yourself write.
On Ideas and Generating Them
On Making Oneself Write
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