Last month, I blogged about the creative urge: that deep, fluid, irresistible drive to make something new.  When it’s flowing—oh, baby—writing’s like sledding down a perfect snowy hill….effortless, exhilarating…sheer joyous momentum.

But sometimes…you hit the metaphorical equivalent of a gravelly patch, and get thrown headfirst into a snowbank.  Have you been there?  You’ve got slush down your neck, a gash in your snowpants, bloody knuckles, and your only option is to hoist the darn sled on your back and slog it back up the *&%$-in’ hill.  And you can’t imagine why you ever wanted to be out there in the first place.

How can writing be so easy, and also so freakin’ HARD?

When I blogged last month, I was smack in the middle of NaNoWriMo, trying to pump out 50,000 words in 30 days (without losing my job or having my kids call Child Protective Services for feeding them nothing but canned spaghetti for weeks).  I succeeded, by the way, and I keep telling friends, “NaNoWriMo was a fabulous experience.”  Which, as I recall, is also what I’ve told them about childbirth.

I’ve got to say, after the intensity of NaNo, I see the link between writing and childbirth in a visceral new way:  the same nausea and vertigo, the jolts of panic, the overwhelming exhaustion, the desperate desire to quit right in the middle (because there’s just no way I can possibly, possibly do this).  And, of course, the constant terrifying sense that major organs I might really be needing later were about to be violently expelled.

And I would have quit NaNo.  Except that the lovely folks at the Office of Letters and Light (who bring us National Novel Writing Month each November) kept sending along pep talks from well-established, published writers, like the wonderful Tamora Pierce, Lynda Barry, Gail Carson Levine, Peter Carey, and Robin McKinley.  And do you know what every single one of them said?  WRITING IS HARD.

These are people who’ve written a lot of books.  Good books.  Books that slide effortlessly into your brain, and make you believe they were written in one silky-smooth sled-ride.

Not so, say these writers.  Writing novels, they confess, is as grueling as Olympic marathon swimming, or trekking alone through the huge, empty, venomous-snake-filled middle of Australia.  Just like us amateurs, they get gobsmacked by the conviction that every word they’ve written and every idea they’ve ever had is utter garbage.  As Robin McKinley put it, “on bad days, someone will have to scrape you off the floor with a spatula.”

Yikes.

Where’s the free-flowing joy?  The irrepressible urge to create?  Where’d that darn Muse fly off to?

Well, apparently, sometimes Muses have to be lassoed.

What I learned from NaNoWriMo is that you really, truly, absolutely can’t wait around for inspiration to strike.  You just have to sit down and slog through the bad times, and force one awful, uninspired word out after another.  Set a timer if you have to, but do the slog for at least half an hour.  When the timer dings, if your mojo’s still not workin’, try one of the following:

-Take a walk, or a shower, or better yet, go walk in the rain, or jump in a pool.  Something about movement and water, preferably in combination, unlocks deep imaginative wells.  (In a pinch, drink a glass of wine.) 

-Research!!  You may learn some weird little fact that gets your juices flowing again.

-Read a favorite passage by your favorite author.   (I broke through a really awful block in one NaNo chapter just by glancing at the spine of Joanna Bourne’s Spymaster’s Lady and asking myself, “What would Joanna make happen now?”  More peril, I thought.  Bingo–instant naval battle!)

- Read a truly wretched passage by a writer you think is awful.   If nothing else, you’ll feel better about your own writing in comparison.

-Commit to doing your three least-favorite household tasks.  Tell yourself you won’t stop to do ANYTHING else until they’re done.  (If you’re like me, you will suddenly feel very inspired to do ANYTHING else…hopefully, write.)

-Dream up a new minor character who will cause some trouble, or at least be really, really annoying, for one of your major characters.  (Alternatively, kill off a minor character, give your hero a new phobia, have your heroine lose a personal object she can’t bear to be without, or toss in any of the following:  an explosion, an intercepted letter or email, a blurted secret, a spontaneous kiss, a slip on the ice, a lightning storm, the return of a rival.  Make it an escaped rhinoceros if you have to–just give your characters something unexpected to respond to.)

-Start a new file called “ABSOLUTE GARBAGE I WILL NEVER USE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES” and write your next scene with zero pressure.

-Nap!!  Seriously.  Toni Morrison keeps a couch in her writing room, and when she hits a creative wall, she lays down and lets her subconscious work things out.

-Have a Diet Coke.

-Sit your butt back down in that chair again.

Yup, there’s just no alternative to butt-in-chair.  Paradoxically enough, I’ve found that if you slog long enough, the creative flow comes back.   Something starts to emerge on the page that has life in it again.  All of a sudden, you remember why you liked writing in the first place.  You remember why you can’t imagine your brain without it.

So go out there and slog, friends!  Your Muse awaits!

I’ve got to go write something else now, but I’ll leave you with my favorite tips from the NaNoWriMo pep talks:

From Gail Carson Levine:  “When you’re not happy with how things are going, turn off the screen and keep typing.  Don’t turn it back on until the crisis is over.”

From Lynda Barry:  “When writing by hand, when the story dries up temporarily—as it always does–try keeping your pen in motion anyway by writing the alphabet a b c d e f g in the middle of the sentence a b c d e f g h i j k until the sentence rolls forward again on its own.”

From Kristen Cashore:  “Breathe. Be kind to yourself. Don’t panic. Take risks. Make messes. Decide every day that in your writing toolbox, next to the fear and self-doubt, you are also going to keep at least one tiny little seed of faith. That’s all you need to keep going—one mustard seed. Keep tight hold on that faith, and keep writing.”

How about you?  What little tips and tricks and attitude-adjustments do you have to get over those wretched gravelly patches, and dig yourself out of the snowbank?