Or: Bargaining! (Get it? Like the five stages of grief/dying? Well, I thought it was funny.)
(Also. Sorry this is so late. My town's Christmas festival was yesterday and today and I've been gone most of today and I also forgot it was Saturday. So I'm writing this very quickly and hoping like heck that it'll be done before midnight because then it's still Saturday. Which gives me an hour and twenty minutes. LET'S GO.)
Sometimes the voice of one of my main characters will click and the emotions will be just right and the plot will be something perfect that I'm good at and the words will flow molasses on a hot summer day. (Is that a real expression? Sometimes I make up metaphors and they don't work. You know that book I talk about, Berserk? Book of failed metaphors. Seriously.) And that's lovely and good and all, but sometime they don't. Sometimes the writing is more like picking saffron one back-breaking thread at a time. (More metaphors!)
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, for me, it can mean that I'm not connecting with the MC enough, but sometimes that's just how the book or story or that part or whatever is going to go. But this can be really frustrating. So what do I do?
I bribe myself. Because bribes WORK. (Seriously. I bribe the kids at Storytime to be good listeners with stickers, I bribe the 8-year-old girl I baby-sit with stickers that will add up to earning a prize.) For SMN, I bribed myself with a necklace from Etsy if I finished the book. (Which is currently lost and I am very annoyed about, so let's not focus on that.) I also use smaller bribes than that, like a cookie for every 250 words. When I was working on my synopsis, I had a box of three Lindt Lindors and my reward for finishing the second draft of the synopsis was the last two Lindors - an especially good bribe because I hated writing that thing and I love Lindors. They're my favourite.
A little while ago, I also bribed my biffle/crit partner about finishing a revision of her book. I told her that if she finished it, I'd let her name a character in the book I was writing. (I thought it'd mostly be a shiggles thing, but I think it worked. You'd have to ask her if it helped.)
Okay, so, do you guys give yourselves writing rewards? If so, what?
Peace and cookies,
Laina
