The Hump

A camel has one. I’m told I get it at least once a month. Some roads have them to slow people down. None of these are the subject matter for today’s post.

If you have ever sat down to write anything of length, then I’ll wager you’ve experienced ‘The Hump’. I am not talking about writers block, which I consider to be a different kettle of fish. Writers block happens when you don’t know what to write. ‘The Hump’ happens when you know damn well what you’re going to write, you just-can’t-do-it.

Call it apathy, call it laziness, call it Irene, call it whatever the hell you like. It exists. Sadly.

Can I give you an easy way to get around it? No.

Can I give you a painfully horrible way to get around it? Yes. Why is it painfully horrible? Because it involves sitting your backside down – UNPLUGGING from the internet – TURNING OFF the TV and mobile phone and any other distractions and just fucking writing.

If you scream “I don’t wanna” at this point, then ok. I’ll give you a small respite. If it’s that bad, there is nothing wrong with taking a break. A short break. Two days tops. Why? Any longer and the apathy will make a nest in your brain and start breeding baby apathy creatures with wings but they can’t fly. The Apathy Dodo. You don’t want those, no matter how cute they sound. So, go take a couple of days off and come back to me. I’ll be waiting…

You done? Good. Go back and do as you’re told and sit down, shut off from the world and start typing. New sentence.

“Character X woke up, the first order of the day - trying not to sneeze. He’d been sleeping so long and drunk so much Dodo juice the night before that his bladder was at bursting point. The little fleck of dust on his nose had just reached the top of his list of enemies.”

Do it.

Go wake up your characters. They’ve been sleeping too long and they won’t thank you for it. Once you climb over that awful hump, you’ll find the nice slidey part the other side (shush ‘slidey’ is totally a word).

Happy writing.