{"id":23357,"date":"2020-08-27T13:19:47","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T20:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=23357"},"modified":"2020-09-03T13:03:47","modified_gmt":"2020-09-03T20:03:47","slug":"moving-through-hopelessness-and-impossibility-4-things-before-breakfast-by-beth-barany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/27\/moving-through-hopelessness-and-impossibility-4-things-before-breakfast-by-beth-barany\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving Through Hopelessness and Impossibility, 4 Things Before Breakfast by Beth Barany"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Moving<\/a>This post is about: moving through hopelessness and impossibility in you writing, four things before breakfast.<\/p>\n

Beyond the hopelessness we may feel about what’s happening in the real world (and I feel it,) there is also the hopelessness at the impossibilities in our writing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m faced with editing the next scene. It\u2019s a mess. What was I thinking when I wrote the first draft? I don\u2019t know. But the new reformed and revised story is different now, not too different, but different enough.<\/p>\n

What this chapter was it is no longer. I\u2019ve moved things around. What had happened in Chapter 23 was moved to happen sooner. I cut a subplot, added in a new one. Oh boy.<\/p>\n

So what needs to happen next?<\/p>\n

IDK, I don\u2019t know… What\u2019s a writer to do?<\/p>\n

I feel frozen, flattened by the prospect getting my novel done. The massiveness of all the rest of the 10-plus chapters to revise jutting up in front of me like a sharp mountain range rising at the horizon.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve heard this refrain. Maybe if you\u2019ve even felt this way too,<\/p>\n

I stare at this massive mess. It\u2019s painful. This is why many people say they hate writing. But I don\u2019t hate writing. I hate the pain of not knowing how to tackle the mess of a half-revised manuscript.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s uncomfortable, like cramps, like a stomach ache after eating too much rich food.<\/p>\n

Is there an antacid I can take for the discomfort of not knowing how to fix the problems in my manuscript?<\/p>\n

I could turn away from the book, to leave the work until another day or week or month. But I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve fenced myself in \u2014 on purpose. I have a deadline. This book is on\u00a0pre-order<\/a>. (I chose this scenario, I remind myself.)<\/p>\n

That is one way to force myself to deal with this discomfort, to make the hard decisions.<\/p>\n

I have been here many times before. I know what has worked in the past. I know how to move forward.<\/p>\n

Moving Through Hopelessness<\/h2>\n

Perhaps these 4 tips will help you move forward if you\u2019re stuck in your editing or your writing, even before breakfast. (Though I need my coffee before I apply them.)<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Feel<\/strong>: I feel the feelings, acknowledge what\u2019s going on. I feel the despair, the hopelessness at the impossibility of completing this book.<\/p>\n

2. I\u00a0breathe<\/strong>.\u00a0I am alive. I feel the earth, my body, the moment, the flow of the evanescence that flows through us, that we flow through. My heart. My gut. My limbs. My lungs. My breath. Always back to the breath.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0I\u2019m back<\/strong>. I am capable. I have strategies that have worked in the past.<\/p>\n

One of the most powerful is to bring the feelings of the moment into the story, usually into the point of view character, as honestly and directly as I can.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re working on your first book and don\u2019t have strategies that have worked in this area of your life, you have accomplished difficult things in the past.<\/p>\n

Note them.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n