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Writer’s Block

We all (as in all who indulge in creative writing) run into it on occasion: an invisible wall oriented somewhere within our brain that deadens the imagination and stops the hands from typing.  It can rise up abruptly when you’re trying to figure out the next chapter, the ending of the book, or the ensuing project, but suddenly, you’ve just come to a full stop.  You’re staring down at the keyboard, and the only thing that comes to mind is “who the hell came up with the QWERTY arrangement for those keys?”  

It can be a dark time…if you let it.  It can build on self-doubt (we all have it), making you wonder what the hell you were thinking, writing a story let alone a book.  Depending on how big a part of your life writing is, a block can throw you into depression, and that’s no good for you, your friends, or your family.  So, I’ll offer some of my own thoughts on writers’ block.  Maybe it’ll help.

I’ll start by making a distinction that might not seem like much of a difference: a wall where your few ideas crash-and-die versus a desert where there is just a whole lot of emptiness, a wasteland devoid of thoughts.  The wall, in my experience, is much easier to overcome.  On the few occasions when I found myself in the desert, I took a vacation, and that seemed to help.  Other than that, you’re on your own.  So, my comments below are more geared towards helping you break through – or climb over, tunnel under, or teleport past – the wall.

First, don’t force it.  Part of the problem, often, is that you are trying too hard, putting too much pressure on yourself, and by forcing it, you just add to that pressure.  And end up producing some really embarrassing crap in the process.  Get back to basics.  Remember, you are writing for an audience of one: yourself.  You really have no control over publication and money and fame.  The only thing you can control is writing a story you love.  If you are writing for fame and riches and not yourself, it’s not surprising you’re blocked.

Inputs, inputs, inputs.  Watch movies.  Read books.  Check out internet videos on anything that interests you.  Write some e-mails.  Writing is construction, piling one block on top of another and then another and then another, but to do that, you need to have some blocks to play with.  Get ideas coming in, and something is going to catch.  

Spread out.  If you’ve got a wall in this direction, trying going a different way.  Work on something else.  Short story, character profile, that barely started novel you set aside, anything as long as you’re writing.  Journal entries can be useful here, but I would advise caution. Too often I find writing in journals to be a substitute action, wasting time filling a secret diary rather than working on a real project.  I’d suggest telling your journal about the problem you’re having with writing.  It will keep you focused on the main issue and like talking it over with a friend, you sometimes can hear yourself say something profound.

Scribble it.  One of my most useful tools is to open a file called “Scribble”.  I assure myself that nothing written in this file is ever going to see the light of day, let alone a reader’s eyeballs, and with that assurance to ease my fears of the voyeuristic world peering over my shoulder, I feel liberated to just start throwing down “stuff” in any order it comes.  Snatches of conversation, neat phrases, random sensual descriptions (what do they smell, what do they hear in the background?), or a hard-hitting action scene…even when there’s no action sequence there.  On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself renaming the file from Scribble to Chapter 7, simply because it all came together when the pressure was off.

Make sure you’re getting enough sleep and eating (somewhat) properly.  Like any other endeavor, your mind needs your body, and six cups of coffee and a dozen Ho-Hos aren’t going to produce the Great American Novel.  An invigorating walk would do no harm either.

So relax and keep at it, confident that the steady pounding of the sea will inevitably wear down any rock.  Just remember, every author who ever touched pen to paper has wrestled with blockages, whether it’s Dickens or Hemingway or Stephen King.  Well, maybe not Tolkien.  When you have elves and hobbits dancing around the whole of Middle-Earth, there aren’t enough walls in all the world to completely fence them in.  

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