How to Get Past the One Third In Block

26th June 2020

So, there I was with 30,000 words written of my first Rom Com novel when a series of practical events prevented me writing any more for three months. I thought about it every now and then and knew that I should get back to it but didn’t. I even read through my own old blog posts about putting my writing first, making a timetable and sticking to it. That didn’t work. I did spend a lot of time doing online research about my new writing career, and day by day I actually began to forget what I’d written in my novel. How terrible! When friends asked how I was getting on I replied, ‘My creativity has left me’, driven out by the demands of the modern world.

Procrastination

I made appointments to attend webinars by publicists, established writers and literary agents. I actually watched some of them. I spent hours trying to teach myself new online marketing skills, pulling my hair out in the process and trying to get support for problems via ‘Help Chats’. I wasted hours each day looking through the dozens of emails I had signed up for about potential jobs only to realise that I would always be missing some crucial set of skills that would mean I’d have to do another course to even apply.

I was trapped. The longer I left it the harder it was to even think about going back to my novel. I did manage to look through all my old photo albums and momentos, reliving my past life, enjoying seeing all the smiling faces. I even managed to talk to old friends, catch up with years of news and sympathise with health and wealth problems. I had a few of my own to deal with, teeth that were painful and glasses that needed upgrading. I helped a friend do some gardening and even managed to make some wine for the first time in about ten years. Hmmm… 

A ray of light

There was a pattern emerging. The longer I didn’t write the harder it was to start writing. I began to forget that I was a writer at all. Then one day something caught my eye. One of my emails was advertising a webinar with three newly published authors who were doing a Virtual Publicity tour for the Virtual Launch of their first books. I clicked on the link for more info and was taken to a website I recognised. It was being organised by the people that had put on the day I’d attended about finding a literary agent for my Childrens’ book. I signed up, paid up and wrote the date in my diary.

The three women authors were all very different, had written three very different books but were all telling the same story. All three said that they had mostly been solitary writers, not wanting to be disturbed, not brave enough to show others their work. They told their stories about finally getting to draft three or four before their novels were in a fit state to send off to an agent and the familiar tales of rejections and re-submissions. I noticed that one name came up a few times and this was a Literary Agency that ran writing courses, that they said had been a great help.

Finding a good course

I googled the agency and found the courses web site. As if by magic there was a six week course called “How to write to the end of your book” particularly aimed at writers who were stuck a third of the way into their novel! Thank you universe! I paid up and started the course more or less straight away. It consisted of pre-recorded videos, transcriptions, extra resources and a forum. 

After the introductions the tutor talked about how it was very common for authors to dry up about a third of the way into a novel, and not just the first timers either. I’d read that a first novel should be about 80-90,000 words and I was 30,000 words in so I listened very carefully. There was some general advice, some useful tips on how to avoid common pitfalls and then a couple of tasks, one for yourself and one to do and post to the forum. Each week was the same format and although I was a little anxious to start with I soon began to love it.

We all had five days in which to post our completed tasks to the forum and then receive feedback on the 6th or 7th day before the next weekly instalment became available. After I posted my first task I noticed that a few other people had already posted theirs. As I read through them I also noticed that it was possible to post comments and several people had done that. The other writers on the course were making positive and encouraging comments along with a few constructive criticism style suggestions.

Oh dear…. What on earth would they make of my efforts? I’d never shown any of my writing to anyone else and I was nervous. As it turned out I needn’t have worried. The other writers were very kind and supportive. I had never been in a situation like this before and so made a concerted effort to read the other writers’ tasks and make comments myself.

Week by week this process grew on me so that I was eager to get on with the next part of the course. Sometimes we were asked to write a completely new piece on a given topic but other times we were asked to supply or edit an extract from our own unfinished novel. I realised that the course had very cleverly got me back in touch with my novel again and eager to write. In week four I suddenly felt a burst of creativity and instead of settling down to watch a film after dinner I went upstairs to my laptop. 

Progress

I would like to say the words came pouring out of me as they had in the excitement at the beginning but that would be untrue. In fact it was hard work getting the words onto the paper. Bugger! Maybe I wasn’t a writer after all, maybe I’d just been messing around in some spare time. Why was it so hard to write? Luckily the tutor told us that this was perfectly normal. Our writer’s muscles had become slack during our absence from the keyboard, they needed to be kept in shape. Write something every day, no matter what or how long. Exercise your writer’s muscles every day. I remembered hearing that before from various sources. How many times would I have to be told that before it sank in? 

I persevered and after about five days days looked at the wordcount – 40,000! Really? How could that be? It felt like I’d been wading through treacle but there was the proof on the screen. Ok, I knew without doubt that I’d have to go back and knock it into shape but the tutor had already said that in this crucial part of the process the main aim was just to get the story down on the page, in whatever shape you could manage.  

The other writers were all saying the same things were happening to them. That was encouraging, not to feel alone, to know the others were fighting the same battles. The other encouraging thing was that as the other writer’s regained their confidence they started making suggestions about each other’s extracts. ‘Maybe that character could be more forceful’, ‘maybe that storyline could go off in another direction’, ‘I was a bit confused about the plot at that point, could you make it clearer.’

Write something every day

I started to feel very attached to the group and as the end of the course came close felt sad that it was going to stop. In the last week we all shared our contact details and some will hopefully stay in touch. The magic has worked and I find myself writing a bit of my novel each day. The middle section is a different animal to the first third where introducing the characters and describing the world was fun. The middle is where things start to go wrong for the characters with more subplots to manage and, to be honest, I still keep forgetting what I’ve already written!

The tutor said that she felt we’d all done well on the course and was impressed by our literary efforts. She encouraged us not to lose heart in the final third, also notoriously difficult, and just to keep on writing till the end. I’m looking forward to it now, in fact I’m putting off all those practical tasks so I can sneak back upstairs and into my RomCom world. 

This is the link to the course site

https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk

I highly recommend it. No commission involved.