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| Moving Through Hopelessness & Impossibility, 4 Things Before Breakfast đź’—
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August 28, 2020
Oakland, CA
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| | 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.
I’m faced with editing the next scene. It’s a mess. What was I thinking when I wrote the first draft? I don’t know. But the new reformed and revised story is different now, not too different, but different enough.
What this chapter was it is no longer. I’ve 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.
So what needs to happen next?
IDK, I don’t know... What’s a writer to do?
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.
You’ve heard this refrain. Maybe if you’ve even felt this way too.
I stare at this massive mess. It’s painful. This is why many people say they hate writing. But I don’t hate writing. I hate the pain of not knowing how to tackle the mess of a half-revised manuscript.
It’s uncomfortable, like cramps, like a stomach ache after eating too much rich food.
Is there an antacid I can take for the discomfort of not knowing how to fix the problems in my manuscript?
I could turn away from the book, to leave the work until another day or week or month. But I can’t.
I’ve fenced myself in — on purpose. I have a deadline. This book is on pre-order. (I chose this scenario, I remind myself.)
That is one way to force myself to deal with this discomfort, to make the hard decisions.
I have been here many times before. I know what has worked in the past. I know how to move forward.
Moving Through...
Perhaps these 4 tips will help you move forward if you’re stuck in your editing or your writing, even before breakfast. (Though I need my coffee before I apply them.)
1. Feel: I feel the feelings, acknowledge what’s going on. I feel the despair, the hopelessness at the impossibility of completing this book.
2. I breathe. I 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.
3. I’m back. I am capable. I have strategies that have worked in the past.
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.


Even if you’re working on your first book and don’t have strategies that have worked in this area of your life, you have accomplished difficult things in the past.
Note them. - Maybe you ran and completed a race.
- Maybe you finished a difficult degree,
- passed a hard test,
- gave birth,
- knit a sweater,
- raised a child,
- arrived at work on time every day for years...
You have something, or many somethings. I am certain.

4. Actions: Having just gone through what feels like hell editing the previous chapter, I know my main challenge in my story is about pacing and tension.
So I wonder if that is what is jamming me up with this next chapter.
I also know I want to put a direct confrontation between two characters next... 


My imagination and creativity are churning over options... yes!
I feel like I can do this now — I can face this next chapter and address what it needs, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph.
I feel the pain still, but now it's transmuted into the story, working for me, instead of destroying me.
Magic.
Feelings and creativity are magic. Use them for good, harness them for your creative work.
Your turn. How do you handle feelings of hopelessness, the feelings that it's impossible?
Hit reply and let me know. I'd love to hear.
Or you can comment on the post here:
♥
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| CONGRATS!
Congrats to my client, Jeri Lawson, who has just published her book, A Business of Healing: The Direct Experience of an Energetic Practitioner. (Kindle; print coming soon.)
Here’s what she says about the book:
"Jeri Lawson's intention is not to tell you how to heal, or what you should experience in a session, but to give you the confidence to let the energy guide you in opening to your unique abilities as you start your healing practice. What you think should happen and what actually happens in a healing could be very different things. The direct experience of your healing sessions is where you can discover the portal to that healing place where all possibilities exist -- the possibilities for you and your client."
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| More about Jeri Lawson and her work:
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| ♥
Have a happy and creative week!
All my best,
Beth |
| | PS. Need help perfecting your first chapter?
Then check out J. Thorn’s newest course: “How to Write a Scene” video course… instant, 100% free access. No registration required. No email address required. No payment information required. Nothing to download. Nothing to install.
http://bethb.net/scenejthorn
Just scroll down, and you’ll see the button for the $0 product, and that’s how you can access the course. That’s it! Now go make your scene great.
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| | Recent Posts on the Writer's Fun Zone Blog |
| | You have been reading the Creativity Sparks Newsletter!
Now in its 14th year, this newsletter is a service of my coaching and consulting business, helping genre fiction writers write, market, and publish their books through live and home study courses, a 12-month group program, and private consultations.
You may share this content intact and with no changes with this attribution:
c. 2006-2020 Beth Barany, Creativity Coach for Writers, www.BethBarany.com
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| ABOUT BETH BARANY
Beth Barany is creativity coach for writers, a teacher, workshop facilitator, and speaker, who helps fiction writers experience clarity, so that they can write and polish their novels, and proudly publish them to the delight of their readers.
Owner of the Barany School of Fiction, an online training hub, Beth takes great interest in how humans learn, create, and grow, and includes all her students’ life experiences, including the ancestors, into the moment.
Want a course to help you prepare to write your novel? Discover the comprehensive Plan Your Novel course here, co-taught with award-winning, bestselling thriller author, Ezra Barany.
She's also an award-winning novelist and writes magical tales of romance, adventure, and mystery to empower women and girls to be the heroes in their own lives.
Uncover her Henrietta series here (YA Fantasy) and her Touchstone series here (Fantasy/Paranormal Romance). And her new Sci-fi Mystery here.
beth@bethbarany.com
Barany School of Fiction
Writer's Fun Zone blog
Photo Credit: by c. 2018 Ezra Barany
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