For most writers, just the mention of writer’s block sends chills down the spine. It’s a scourge, a plague, a deadly sneeze in a locked, windowless room. No one wants to catch it, but it arrives at inconvenient moments to stifle creativity. “What can I do? I’m just blank,” my students ask. I have a few ideas.
First, I suggest eliminating the following list, which I’ve compiled from books on the subject:
a) bubble bath ( I don’t care where or with whom…)
b) listening to your entire collection of music cds (nice for creating atmosphere, but usually leads to feeling emotionally battered)
c) drinking lots of scotch…O please
d) having an affaire (cheeky)
e) traveling to exotic settings (Paris, the deep woods, islands the size of bacon strips, no-fly zones) I will comment in detail at a later date.
f) filling pages with nonsense until you ‘break through’
If you’ve read those books and tried the above…I’m sorry.
The following list should get you going again. It’s made up of simple techniques you should already be using to keep your writing fresh, clear, and moving forward.
1) A Page a Day is a Book a Year
This statement was made by my friend and mentor Marilyn Murray Willison, an editor and author who knows how to handle words. You see, many times our ideas are large, and we become intimidated by the idea of writing 300 pages.
If you pull your thinking back to what you can currently see of your plot, you can record it and then relax. Maybe it’s a paragraph. Maybe it’s just an idea. Maybe it’s a dramatic scene, but it doesn’t have to be the whole book right now. Nor does it have to be the next consecutive page. Writing is nonlinear. You record what’s fresh and what has passion in the moment. Don’t worry about grammar or structure. Just write it down. Once your head realizes you are willing to capture whatever it serves up, you will have more, and it will grow from sentences to paragraphs to chapters.
By the way, a page is 250-300 words. You say more than that in an average phone call.
2) Print it Out
Have you printed out your draft and put it in a binder? If you write with a pencil, pen or other writing instrument, you probably have a nice journal, a legal pad, or white pages with the holes punched in them. You have more intimate contact with your work. If you are using a pc, blackberry or other electronic device, I suggest printing your pages and getting them into something colorful or dark or silly. Nothing is as stimulating as reading your own words. And, it’s wonderful to watch the binder fill up.
3) NOOOOOOOOOOOO Talking
Have you talked about your book project with great enthusiasm and then discovered you can’t get those wonderful words back–the ones floating around the very clear image you had in your head? Don’t do that again. Never talk about your work. Write it down first. Write the entire first draft without verbalizing (except to yourself). It takes the passion and spews it into the AIR. It’s premature you-know-what.
Writing is a private pleasure and pain. Writing is secretive. Writing is personal in the deepest sense of the word.
“But what about writer’s groups? Aren’t they helpful?” Well, read what comes from them and then run–run for your life.
4) Do Your Know Where Your Book Is Heading?
When you are writing a first draft, the easiest technique is to follow your characters around. If you challenge them with obstacles, they will respond, but they need consistency and plausibility. They usually know where they want to go. If you have plotted first, and then added characters, you might check to see if you’ve lead them in a direction they wouldn’t take if left on their own to choose. If you don’t have a clear idea of how the book will end, try writing the last page, scene or chapter. Giving the characters a place to go often lifts the block. Don’t worry if what you write doesn’t become the real ending. It’s just a directional tool–a place to head for and a space that needs to be filled.
5) When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun. Raymond Chandler
Ok, now you’ve written a few chapters, but nothing is coming up. The goal is there, but the characters won’t move along. Maybe you need to ask the number one question authors must learn to ask: WHAT IF? What if my character has an accident? What if someone inherits a goat farm? What if Aunt Phoebe dies in a forest fire but leaves behind a book about her adventures as a spy? What if the leading man gets shot in a bar?
Test ideas and see if you start percolating again. What If is a good way to see if you really know your characters. If you don’t know how they would react, maybe you can spend some time on histories and back story.
6) Grammar Nazis, Perfectionists and Other Nasties
Are you editing and rewriting? Shame on you! Don’t ever do such a thing to a fledgling novel. The first draft should be free of criticism. Write with freedom. Write with passion. Write with abandon. Write too much. When you are finished, you can make a nice editorial sweep. That will clean up the punctuation and the obvious grammatical errors. Then you will be in a position to really look at your sentences to see where adjustments are needed. The next time you read through, look for consistency. Make changes that clean up the flow. After all that, you can rewrite as needed. The original passion is now locked in, and you can tell when you accidentally write it out. Always save that first draft so you have all your imagery on record. Half of writers who are blocked in some form are people who insist on correcting as they go. They beat up their writing and wonder why their mind says NO MORE. Someone needs to be a lover of your words. It should be you.
7) Questions
Now you’ve tried everything else (maybe even the bubble bath) and you’re still sitting on the curb, no gas in the tank, no money for coffee and pie, and no idea where you are. Hmmm. Do you like the story you’re writing? Write down why. Do you like your characters? (Yes, write down the answer–that goes for all the following questions as well.) Why would a total stranger want to follow your characters around? What elements of your plot will readers identify with? Will they laugh? Will they cry? Will they have hope for something wonderful? Better? Satisfying? Do you have other ideas in your head–ideas for other stories you want to tell? Have you written those down and put them aside in their own notebooks? If not, do it now. Have you walked away and just lived for a bit to allow your brain to conjure up new chapters? If you’ve answered these questions and STILL can’t write…
Get Down To Business
Think about the business side of writing. Write an agent letter. Create a web site to market your book. Explore several of the social media options as a form of marketing. Look up conventions and dream about the day you’ll be there talking to buyers. Explore the world of self publishing. Talk to people in the area who write, and find out what their experiences look like. Write the fly leaf of your book. Have your author’s photo taken. Get exicted about the publishing part of book writing.
9) Caution…Go With Caution
Here’s a little list of activities that will stimulate. Careful!
a) Continuing ed course in self editing
b) Continuing ed course in grammar and punctuation
c) Continuing ed course in publishing
d) Have coffee with a group of writers who discuss craft ONLY
e) Study books on sentence structure and flourish
f) Wander the libraries and book stores in search of books on craft that will both speak to you and make you a better writer
g) Read in the genre you are writing in
Writing is fun, simple, painful and hard. If it helps to drink scotch and wear a beret, well, it comes down to choices. I personally prefer picking up my favorite pen and putting on the right outfit. But that’s another blog. Happy Writing!
