WHEN THE WORDS DON'T WORD

Hey everyone! This is Katie stepping in quickly just to say hi. The amazing Aimee is taking over my blog for today! *insert applause and confetti* Her post is relatable and important and I just love her words so much. Don't forget to visit her blog afterwards to show some major encouragement, flailing, and love.

This post has been brought to you by that awkward moment when you're swapping guest posts with your amazing Katie Fren and suddenly realize that your inspiration is a big pit of nothingness lately and she's ever so helpful in letting you decide the post topic. (I love you, Katie dear, but thanks for nothing.)

Hi, I'm Aimee. You're probably noticing that I don't have any coherent words to say so far. That's okay.

Sometimes there aren't coherent words to say. And you feel kinda a bit like this.

If you're anything like me, the words don't... well, they don't really words 90% of the time. You sit down with a glorious mess in your head, an explosion of colors and story and awesomeness, but the moment you put your fingers n the keyboard your thoughts have deflated into a puddle of aw-heck-no and there is no coming back from that, especially not when Pinterest is calling. #thestruggleisreal

So what do you do when you want to art and the art says no?

This is an excellent question and I have no answers. Or very few answers. Who knows.

The problem here, at least in my case, is perfectionism. It's no "I want to write the thing", it's "I want to write the thing exactly the way it is in my head, with all its amazing character development and heartstopping scenes and plot complexities." And unless you're flawless, that's not going to happen. Your words on a page are going to be so much flatter than the vivid movie in your head. They're just going to be. Every time I go into writing a thing with the expectation that it has to come out right the first or second or third or even the seventeenth time, I'm going to fail automatically. I'm finished before I started. Our lovely little plot bunnies get too big for us, and then they refuse to come out right on paper, because writing is stupid and a long long process that never turns out the way we wish it would.

Just getting real and personal over here, folks. Sometimes the words don't word.

At all.

They're awkward.

They stumble all over the page or worse, they don't come out, and you get hit with "writer's block" that makes you want to slam your forehead against that block for a couple of hours.

If you can get words out, they suck. They're beyond awkward now. They're flat parodies of what you want.

Your commas are weird and there are too many of them.

You can't think of that one word you want.

Your dialogue is cheesy at best.

You throw the laptop across the room and drown your sorrows in chocolate peanut butter ice cream for about five thousand years because you're a failure of a writer and you'll never be good and maybe you shouldn't be doing this at all, ever again, and you've been lied to your whole life, and *insert random author here* is so much better than you, goodbye and goodnight.

Or maybe that's just me. Oops.

"What do you do, Aimee?" you ask. "What wisdom have you come onto Katie's blog to give to us today that will fix our writing and make the words flow with all the ease of our favorite poet?"

*insert that crying and ice cream gif again*

The best I can offer -- for me, personally, the awkward person whose words are never going to be very pretty and poetic in the first place -- is that we keep wordsing even when the words don't happen.

I know, I know, I'm wailing internally just typing it.

But. You. Keep. Doing. The. Words. Anyway.

Your words will continue to be awkward.

They will continue to be wrong.

They will be choppy, and cheesy, and your characters will be robots. It will be the equivalent of the earliest Doctor Who seasons ever, only without the humor. You will be #suffering the whole time. You won't enjoy it.

You won't feel like a writer at all, much less a good or decent one.

But you'll keep putting down the words. Over and over and over again.

I never just cure myself that way. Sometimes I can only force myself to put down a few sentences before it's overwhelming. But the more I put one word in front of the other, and then one sentence in front of the other, for as long as I can stand, I think I'm building myself up a little; I'm stretching those weird creative muscles with all the pain of a real live workout with no nice body to show for it right now.

One.
Word.
In.
Front.
Of.

The.
Other.

And now you have a sentence, and a page, and oh, look, you have a whole sucky awkward story in a few months. It's the furthest thing from perfect, but it's there.

And really all I can say about that is that it's a heck of a lot easier to fix horrible words on a Word doc than to fix and empty word doc. Even if it's ten times more depressing.

Keep writing the words. Even if the words don't happen in order.

(Aimee out.)

Aimee is a writer, creative person, sci-fi enthusiast, and maker of shenanigans who spends most of her time on Twitter and loves blue hair. Do not ask Aimee to do things. Do not mess with Aimee. Do not approach Aimee while she has headphones in.
Aimee was never here.

- - -

Katie again! I can't help but stare in awe every time Aimee writes something, because the words have worded well with everything I've read from her. xD Don't forget to go visit her blog and see all the awesome stuff she has over there. (you know, including my guest post. :P)