I’m a very bad blogger!

I’ve been busy, but really what’s been happening is that I’ve been giving myself a hard time for not meeting my writing goals, and blogging about writing would have meant having to openly deal with that.

Well, no escape today! I had to take my turn on the group blog, after getting out of it the last time I was due to post!

And surprise surprise, I discovered maybe I don’t need to beat myself up so hard for not writing after all.

Here’s what I wrote, cheatily reposted so I can pretend I blogged here too!

I had this long complicated essay of a post planned about what I’d been learning about writing. All chock full of references to the books and articles about writing I’d been reading, and learning theory.

Then I read Jo’s lovely, heartfelt, simple, and oh-so-true Friday post , about it sometimes being necessary to stop reading about writing and just write. Ain’t that the truth!

I do wonder when I’m in one of my “studying writing instead of writing” phases if it’s a displacement activity to avoid writing. I intended to comment on it in the post I originally had planned. We can get very skilled at kidding ourselves we’re writing when we aren’t. I think it’s called parawriting- all the stuff that goes on around writing that isn’t actually writing.

It feels so safe when I do it. I can tell myself “Yes, I’m writing, kind of. ” It can be character development and pre-writing plotting. It can be doing worskhops. It can be reading books and articles about writing. It can be blogging and jouranalling about writing. It is writing, or “kind of writing” , at least. Writing, but without the word count. Writing with no worries about putting myself out there with a submission. Writing with no risk of nasty hurtful rejections. So safe. So comfortable.

I’ve been beating myself up for doing it this last month. I was going so well. I had all these writing goals plotted out for the entire year, and I was right on target with my SuperRomance rewrite. My word count was clicking up impressively. It felt sooooooo good. Then I won a critique. Wonderful! Except for one little thing- I couldn’t write any more on the story while waiting for the critique to come back. Definitely couldn’t sub the partial. Six weeks later, I’m still waiting!

In the meantime, I looked again at my New Voices story, decided I quite liked the idea and would finish it. So that meant time spent on character development and working out some real conflict. Then I heard about a SuperRomance contest and worked up an idea for that. Then today I had a whole new idea. I’ve been reading, and reading, and reading, and thinking. But how many story words have I written? Not one. Not a single word. In six weeks. My fabulous goal sheet may as well be torn up.

So I questioned myself. Questioned my motivation. Do I really want to be a writer, do I have what it takes to be a writer, when I can go so long without writing?

Reading and musing on Jo’s post gave me the answer. I have been writing. Just in a different way. It’s not avoidance. Not right now, anyway. It would be if it went on for too long. Like more than a couple more days.

What it is, is part of my process. Part of the way I learn and do things. Writing doesn’t come naturally. Everyone has to learn. It’s just that some of us learn faster than others!

We all have a unique learning style, a way of doing things that works best for us when we are developing a new skill. Some of us want to jump straight in and try it first with no information at all, some need to know all about it before doing anything, some will have a go with a bit of information then see how it goes. Just like some of us are plotters, some pantsers, and some a hybrid who do a bit then stop and think before doing a bit more. I think our preference there might link very closely to learning style!

There are four basic types: an ‘activist’ (who is enthusiastic and motivated), a ‘pragmatist’ (experimental and practical), a ‘theorist’ (logical and objective), and a ‘reflector’ (thoughtful and analytical).Whenever I’ve done the learning skills questionnaires I’ve always come out a mix of activist and pragmatist. So jumping in and writing away on the hint of any idea comes naturally to me. Problem is, I wrote like this for years, knew I wasn’t getting it right, but couldn’t work out why. If you are interested in finding out more about how you approach things- there’s a questionairre here.

I realised there has to be another stepbesides just writing, writing, writing. And there is.

No matter how we prefer to do things , there are definite stages in developing skills. There’s a cycle to learning. Like this (lifted from here)-

Just doing isn’t enough. We also need to look at what we did. What worked. What didn’t work. What could we try differently next time, either in another story or a rewrite of this one. Without going through the complete learning cycle, we may find it hard to devlop past where we are right now. Without stopping to think and reflect on what we’re doing, we can get stuck in repeating the same mistakes, wondering why it’s not working but never knowing why.

We need to write. Then we need to look at what we wrote. We need to learn what worked and what didn’t work in our writing. We need to read other writers talk about what works for them. We need to make a plan for what we’ll do the same and what we’ll do differently when we write next. Then we need to dive back into the cycle by writing again.

The difference between plotters and pantsers is that panters start with the writing itself, while plotters start with the planning. But we all go through something resembling the same cycle before we come up with a polished piece of work, no matter where we begin.

Now some people can do this whole cycle as they go. Some people are very good at what’s known as reflection in action, so much so they may not even be aware they are doing it. It can look like they are just doing, doing, doing, and doing it right, too. I’m so jealous of those people. If you know one, don’t compare yourself to them. If you are one give thanks to God for blessing you that way!

Many people need to stop completely, take time to think about it. If we’re this type, without reflection on our writing somewhere in our lives, we can’t grow and develop as writers. Pushing ourselves to keep writing can be counterproductive.

The opposite is also true, of course. If we spend all our time reflecting and planning and not doing, we don’t learn and grow either! But I realised what I’ve been doing is okay. It’s part of my cycle. I’d been doing a lot of writing, now I needed a time of stopping to think about it. As long as I don’t get too comfortable and stay here, kidding myself I’m writing when in fact I’m stuck revving my wheels, it’s okay

I’ve been thinking about another learning cycle. Not so much things we need to do to learn, but personal stages we go through as learners.

Now, I doubt very much any of us are at the stage of unconcious incompetence, or we wouldn’t be here reading this blog. This stage is where we know our writing is just perfect. We have nothing to learn. Anyone who criticises us must be wrong, or stupid, or both. People in this stage don’t have a clue why they are getting rejections. They take it as evidence that the publishing system is corrupt. They swear publicly at people who give them negative reviews, They write nasty emails to agents and editors who reject their writing. They just don’t get it.

Well, hopefully I got over that stage when I was fourteen and got my very first rejection letter! Most people do realise maybe the problem is with them and not everyone else, and move painfully into the stage of conscious incompetence. This stage hurts! We know we aren’t doing it right, but we don’t yet know why, or how. When we do figure out why and how, then we need to work out how to fix it. I think I’m in this stage, still. Maybe on some things teetering on the edge or even right there in concious competence. This is where we can do it right, but have to really think about it and work at it.

I’m thinking maybe a lot of us who are still waiting to be published are in this borderland. Writing, or at least doing it well, isn’t easy! We can get some of it right, but not all of it. We might be in competence for some aspects of our story, but not others. Writing strong characters but not digging deep enough into the conflict. Writing gorgeous description but with too much telling not showing when it comes to character emotions. Strong on external conflict but not quite there yet on the internal stuff. And of course, it’s not enough to just be competent on it all to make it as a new writer with Harlequin and many other publishers. We have to be beyond competent!

Anyway, slowly, often painfully, we’ll make it. Get into the stage of doing it right on everything we need to be doing with our writing. Yippee! Keep doing it long enouygh, and we’ll reach unconscious competence. Lovely place to be. This is where it all flows, all the time. Where writing is effortless. Where it happens without even needing to think about it. Sounds like bliss!

None of us are there yet either, but this is where those writers are who’ve been writing the same sort of stories for years are. This stage is comfortable, but also dangerous. Because it’s unconscious, no thought involved, it’s so easy to not realise when we aren’t doing it right any more, when we slip into the next stage- back to unconscious incompetence. Readers may not want to read the exact same hero and heroine just with different names doing the exact same thing for the fortieth time (Barbara Cartland, whose writing I devoured in my teens comes to mind). Or the genre may move on, and the story type that was once perfect just doesn’t work any more.

So the cycle begins, all over again!

Anyway, I think my point is to respect where you are on the learning cycle right now. Don’t beat yourself up for the things you are conscious aren’t working how they should be. Give thanks that you are conscious of them! It’s a huge step forward just to be self-aware.

Don’t beat yourself up if you seem to be spending more time thinking and reading about writing than actual writing. Reflect on it, sure. Work out where the limits are, when that stage is going on too long and you really need to make a plan then dive back into the writing again. Remember when you do reflect on your writing that recognising what you did right, what’s good there, is just as important as seeing where you went wrong. It’s too easy to get this strange tunnel vision that only zooms in on our mistakes and totally overlooks celebrating our strengths.

Above all, be honest with yourself. Then you’ll know when you’re procrastinating, getting too comfortable, getting stuck. You’ll know when it’s time to move again, take risks, stretch out in new writing or rewriting.

You can do it.

Well, looks like I did get the learning theory in after all.

Here’s some eye candy for reading this far- my latest hero. The boy-next-door best friend, who turns out to be so much more!