>What to do in a slump

Apr 29

Posted by


>Osiyo!

Has it been a month since my last post? Really? What a BAD, BAD writer I’ve been!

But hopefully some great stuff has come from my time away. I set aside the wip I was working on and pulled Tobi and Tanner back out, with the official writing title of “Healing Whispers” tagged on it. I set my wonderful critique group on it to help me tear it apart and get it ready for an agent/editor pitch in June. We are having our every other year FAB Summer Heat Mini Conference again this year, and I can’t wait to polish this baby off and get it sent to a publisher to hopefully meet the real world. (That would be all of you reading this!)

So I got edits and crits up to chapter five back from the girls, and hit a slump last week and have gotten very little done on it since.
I think it’s because I have another book to get written by summer and that one is not cooperating in the slightest for me! I have a tentative premise, a tentative hero (first name only), and his father’s name (again, first only). I have the heroine’s mother’s name (yep- you guessed it- first name only) and that’s about it. I do have a possible town in mind. All that’s left of the town today, I believe, is the cemetery. I need to research more on that whole idea to solidify it.

In the meantime, that story is giving me fits with HW! I need to focus!

What do you do when you have one on the burner gumming your concentration, and the next in the prep stages NOT eating away at you, so you end up getting very little of anything accomplished on either one? I’d really like to know.

Donadagohvi

About Calisa Rhose

I'm a mother of three daughters and wife to a wonderful man of 35+ years. I'm also an avid seamstress, polymer clay artisan and die-hard crafter, always coming up with things to make with, and for, my six granddaughters and two grandsons. Check out my craft site https://lisasfancifulallure.wordpress.com/ when you have a moment. I'm also a small online business owner of Okie fLips on Etsy and Poshmark (eBay/Merkari coming soon), https://www.etsy.com/people/cmselfridge and https://poshmark.com/closet/okieflips I'm a published author of sensual romance. I write about stubborn men and women who don't take no for an answer, and there's always that golden HEA. Cowboys and first responders are my favorite contemporary heroes to write about. My light paranormal heroes are strong men ready to protect their women--not that they need protecting, since they are capable of caring for themselves.

Posted on 04/29/2010, in Pen of the Dreamer. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.

  1. Calisa | 04/30/2010 at 11:13 AM

    >I'll try these. Thanks. I was hoping someone would have some suggestions to help me get this going. Lists of 10, I never thought of that.

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  2. Delilah Devlin | 04/30/2010 at 10:46 AM

    >If it's a matter of being stuck, I jot down a list of 20 plot changes I make to the story.If it's because I'm intimidated by the work, I carve it into tiny bite-sizes and put those bites on my schedule. Then I seek partners for sprinting to keep my butt in the chair.

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  3. Riley Quinn | 04/30/2010 at 10:14 AM

    >Something I learned from DD and Elle – make a list of 20 possible conflicts for the hero and heroine both and 10 conflicts for each secondary character. Even if it's a little crazy, write it down. You'd be amazed at all the ideas that come flooding in. When I do this, I usually get whole scene ideas pop into my head. Hope the muddle clears up for you soon!

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  4. Calisa | 04/30/2010 at 10:01 AM

    >These are great…usually. For some reason this new one is just not coming to me at all yet. Elisabeth-I do that too. But that's not my problem with this new one. It not coming to me is what's distracting me from edits on the first one. lol I HAVE to have a first draft by summer and I've got NOTHING! big sighThanks for the comments.

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  5. GPS | 04/30/2010 at 8:02 AM

    >That's kinda what I'm doing now. I'm polishing up a first draft and book 3 is in the back of my mind. Whenever I get a brainstorm for 3 I jot it down and go back to what I'm working on. By the time I really get into 3, I should have qutie a bit settled.

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  6. Elisabeth | 04/30/2010 at 5:23 AM

    >When I get an idea for a new manuscript, I write down a few things about it and then moved back to the current. That's usually enough to get the new one to behave, so I can move on and work on the current. If that doesn't help then I take a couple of days break to clear my head and that helps.

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