As a writer, over time, I've only gotten weirder. I've gotten to the point where I can't finish any draft I start and have now resorted to writing my novels on Post-It Notes just so I can have the story organized and out of my head.
I discovered this idea from reading Roz Morris' novel, Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish with Confidence. I have to say, so far it's actually working! I'm about half-way finished writing up all the different scenes and snippets I want to include in my first draft. Half-way! That is so big for me. It's odd, but I really feel like I'm writing the manuscript already, even though I'm not literally doing that, yet. But, composing a cohesive, viable story is half the battle.
What I love most about this little tactic is that I can add and remove scenes so incredibly easily. I'm figuring out what works and what doesn't long before any prose is being typed up in "stone" on that computer. I realize I have a huge dislike, or dread for trying to find something I wrote within a sea of literally thousands of words in order to axe it, add to it or move it around. Of course, this has to be done during every author's editing phase, but at least I can do some of that axing, adding and moving before those scenes ever gets lost in that abyss known as a Word document.
Life made easier! That's progress for me. I've been in a horrible writing slump lately and this is really helping me to move past it. I never thought I'd actually be writing an entire novel on Post-It Notes, but now I can see myself doing this with every story I write from now on.
Have you ever tried anything off-beat or bizarre in order to get out of a writing slump?
