You need to remember that the first draft you write is not the final version of what you will have. It's going to be improved during editing and revision, but if you don't finish that first draft, you'll never have a final draft. The only thing you can do is sit down and press on despite the doubts. In the end, what do you have to lose, but time and effort? Because there is no guarantee of success (however you want to measure it) at the end of the exercise (creating the best story you're capable of). The one thing you do have as an advantage over writers in the past is that self-publishing is a viable option, if your initial goal is to find a trade/traditional publisher and it doesn't work out). As little as a decade ago, that wasn't as viable of an option as it is today. So press on, knowing that your first draft isn't going to measure up to someone else's published final draft.
Thank you for your response! I'll take you up on that offer! You've offered some solid advice there, I need to just keep writing and not over thinking everything...at least until the editing phase, which I've never, ever gotten to lol
I've just read the first chapter, I see what you mean. That's helped me A LOT. Thank you. Hahaha, yeah you've got a point. I supposed it's like that theory that if you question that you're crazy then you're probably not.
I perceive writing more as an editing process. I make a start by throwing some words down and then try to sort out the mess that I've made. You're not writing in stone. The first draft of anything isn't going to be good, or even good enough, but that's okay because it doesn't have to be. You have a long editing process ahead of you and what matters in the quality of the final draft. So don't worry about making mistakes, life is full of mistakes. The trick is, knowing which ones to keep.
Haha, quite right. I used to say I suffer from a permanent writer's block. Now I can admit I'm too scared to start anything, let alone finish them. There's always a reason why we do or don't do things.
I've been a member of this forum for close to eight years now. I used to spend hours here and in my word processor writing. Even when I was in class I would write. I wrote until my hands hurt. I wrote like the words were going to disappear. Then, one day, they did. I'm not sure why or how it happened, but it seemed like the words just dried up and blew away. I found that no matter how hard I tried, even after hours of staring at screen or a page, I could not make the words happen. So I stopped for years. Now, years later and well into adulthood, I long for it. Have any of you had a similar experience? Were you able to overcome it and write once more? If so, how?
I had a year where I wrote very little. I'm not sure what happened. It was about three or four years ago - oddly enough my cure was to join this site. I had come to a point in my writing where I needed to talk to authors, get and give some feedback and start holding myself accountable for my creative time spent. It really did the trick. The first two weeks I had to wait to post something and I didn't want to post any of the crap I was working on. Starting with one small vision that I thought I could never turn into a story - I just started writing. My focus was more on getting something done than how amazing the story could be. Just pantsing. No plotting, no figuring things out just letting it flow. That lack-of focus helped steer me away from doubt about plot points and rather focused on dumb manageable things like - is this comma right? Total first draft ( story-wise ) mentality. That really helped. Since then I've kept up my writing partly because it's fun again. I like to post and share and read other people's work.
I can't tell you how many times I've started writing a book only to quit a few weeks later swearing off the written language. For once though my determination to finish isn't deteriorating. Now my problem isn't that I won't produce, it's that I just can't. I have about 19 pages of snippets, parts of the story I want to happen, and that individually seem very solid to me, but bringing the story together as a cohesive unit seems equal parts impossible/improbable/unreasonable. I tried an outline but that did little good. I tried just producing more and more, fleshing out characters in hopes that the uninteresting 'in-between' parts would write themselves, but that was no good either. Anyone else ever in the same boat? If so, what did you do?
What's the core idea? I've written disjointed before but never without an idea about the story or characters.
If you get stuck, open up a text file or get a notebook. Once you have it, write down what's bothering you, write down what you want to do on that particular scene, write what's in your mind and try to converse with yourself, find a solution to your story. This is what I did on my very first draft on my novel. I discovery wrote it, which means I did not have an outline to begin with. Whenever I encountered a wall or a stifling fear, I opened a text file and just wrote what was on my mind. So it's basically self-talk. Eventually I talked myself into a solution to my problem. Once I have it, I go back to my manuscript and write out the scene. Writing out what's in your mind is better than floundering in your thoughts.
Basically he's a villian who is just terrible at it. The genetically modified rats he released to destroy the city ended up optimizing the sewer system, practicing good hygiene to stop disease, and implementing a very strict recycling program. Hmmm, not a bad idea. I guess that's sort of what i did with this post...
Sometimes the best solution isn't more writing time, but more thinking time. Don't feel pressured to write if you're not ready. Especially if you just end up producing disheartening drivel. Wait till you're really excited about a scene or an idea. It'll flow better then. BTW, I'm with @Tenderiser on this one. Your idea is a cracker! I'd love to read it. It's very original.
I second @jannert's thought. I sometimes think the worst thing to do is to jump into a writing project before you're ready. I'm starting on a project now that's been fermenting for nearly 40 years. This, I admit, is a rather extreme example. But the thing is, good ideas take time to develop and they never really go away.
I remember reading something Stephen Kind said, around the lines of: "Don't bother with inspiration, real writers just write." This doesn't seem in line with what most people think in this thread, but I still agree with King. Real writer's block, as I imagine it, would be when you're a successful writer (in the sense that you've written novels or large collections of poems etc.), and you're physically unable to write because of the pressure. The pressure would be so large that you can't look at your work without feeling nauseous, or as if someone parked a car on your chest. Writer's block is serious to me, and I think amateur writers blaming their state of "non-writing" on it, are just looking for excuses that sound cool. After all, if you're not writing, are you really a writer? Then again, I haven't encountered one of these blocks. For the sake of discussion, I'd be glad to hear how wrong I am
Writer's Block does exist. I had it myself. I went through an emotionally devastating time in my life when I was a teenager (I don't want to go into detail here... there are things best left unmentioned), and it led me to giving up on writing because I was so broken that I just couldn't do it anymore. I wasn't able to. But... thing is, even when I had that part of my life behind me, I still couldn't write. I just couldn't. I tried, but I couldn't. My constant inspiration and passion for creating people, worlds and stories, the things that filled my life once, were gone. I just couldn't bring my ideas and emotions to paper (or screen) like I once could. Sure, I could've just continued anyway, but... it didn't feel the same. Nothing turned out the same. The things I wrote... it was all so empty to me, not at all like it was before. I didn't see myself in my stories anymore. What actually brought my deep passion for writing back was... well, reading another story. It's called Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, a mystery / thriller / horror / tragedy visual novel. Reading it changed the way I think about some things in life... reading it changed me. And, for a reason I still can't exactly point my finger at, it brought my passion for writing back. It was like a wildfire inside my head and heart - it was like back then. No, it was even more intense, I just knew, and know, that this is what I need to do, that it's my purpose, my meaning of life, to write. To create stories. So, in the end... it's very dependent on the situation and person. For me, it was a story someone else wrote that touched me so deeply that it changed me as a person, and managed to defeat my yearlong, seemingly never-ending writer's block like it was nothing - hell, like I said, it reignited my passion so strongly that it's now what I want to do for the rest of my life. For someone else it could be something different, that's my point. When someone has writer's block, but truly wants to write, then that person has to look for inspiration. Something to find the lost passion again, and find out all over again what it is they love about writing. One just has to look for it... anyone can overcome it. I'm certain. Greets, AniGa
It depends on your definition of writer's block but, as I understand it, I don't believe it exists. I sometimes sit down to write my novel and find it very difficult to write that day, usually because I'm tired but sometimes for no obvious reason. On those days I might not write because why force it? But at work, where my income depends on writing? Yeah, I can always write. I might sit there and bitch to my colleague that I'm finding it really hard to write today and I wish I didn't have to, but I can always do it. It's like any other job - some days you're just not feeling it but you don't get a doctor sitting there going "I have surgery block today, send them all back to the ward." You just get on with it.
The thing I am having a hard time with of late is that I can't find the drive to write everyday. I think about my writing every day, I develop my story in my head every day, I read on this board everyday, I even work out little documents with all the traits and information about my world and characters almost every day, and yet still, when I open that only word document that really matters, it can go two ways: 1. I get into it, but since I work a full-time job and my weekends are mostly filled with social responsibilities, time is limited, and before I know it the clock says 11PM and it's time to hit my pillow if I don't want to feel like having slept in the woods at work. 2. I stare at my page for 15 minutes, type some sentences, then think "nah, this isn't it". I then hit that cross in the top-right corner of my screen in despair and watch a movie or read some news sites, ridden with guilt. What I find strange is that it wasn't always like this. I used to race back from work and get going, loving every minute I spent editing sentences or letting it just flow out from my keyboard. I feel disconnected, and it's a terrible feeling. It feels like a part of me that I love and I know I need to develop is slowly fading away. Perhaps it's analysis-paralysis that has taken a hold of me. Perhaps I think too much about this all instead of just doing it and thinking about what matters; my stories. I guess it might just be a stage every aspiring writer goes through at some point, but right now I feel hopeless and detest myself for being such a procrastinator (I know I'm not, but it feels that way). Have you ever experienced something like this? And if so, how did you handle it?
Yes. Two things you can do, in my experience: 1) Take a break from writing, including all the associated activities, and re-charge your creative batteries. The risk here is you don't know how long it will take and you could end up feeling worse with every passing day. My last break lasted four months but man, I was hot on writing when I came back. 2) Write through it. Just sit down and type for however long you decide without reading anything back or worrying about the quality. Churn out as much unintelligible crap as you can in your time limit. More likely to get you back into good-writing mode and you might even get some useful work out of it. Often when I feel like I'm writing absolutely rubbish, when I read it back it's 10x better than I was expecting.
I have to say I have felt this a couple of times, it's not quiet writer's block it's just... ehhh I personally think it is the way our brains are naturally wired, to write fiction is a big mental effort, and to carve that out whilst working a full time job is really hard. What I did to beat this was to take one day off a week, on a weekend or something not an official day off. Throughout the entire week I'd jot notes of what I would write and then in that day I would aim to get 10,000 words done. Doesn't have to be great quality I can spend odd moments during the week editing it and making it just how I want it, practicing my craft. However that one day a week, it a marriage between myself and the book I am writing, the creation I am carving. On that one day a week, even for 5 or 6 hours of that day, that is the most important thing and comes first. Hope this helps -Del.
Thanks Tenderiser, these are some helpful tips. The first might be worth it, although I fear it will separate me from my beloved project for too long and all the information I have stored in the back of my head will vanish as well. Still, if all else fails, I will do this. The second one; I will definitely try that. I'm not that person though, and perhaps that is my problem really. I'm too much of a perfectionist when it comes to this. I've never been the one that writes "first drafts" in a matter of weeks (or months, even). I can easily spend 2 weeks writing one chapter and then spend 2 months on perfecting it in the way I feel is best, but it's never enough. I need to let go of this internal break, or I will never complete anything. And now that I think of it it's funny, because the moments I actually did let go, these were the moments in which I produced the stuff I so frantically edited and perfected later on. But in the end, these were the only moments in which I actually produced something. Yeah, now that you mention it, working full-time and making up this whole thing really is hard. Before a couple of months ago (when I got a promotion at work, plus a load of responsibility and headaches) I would be able to just "float" through the day, planting stickers at products and shipping them off to God-knows-where on an automatic pilot while thinking of my book and writing notes all day in between. But now I just can't do that anymore, and its having its toll. Now, I need to focus all day, and I realise all that time "floating" was really useful. I'm going to try your advise for a couple of weeks, see if it helps.
I used to be exactly the same. Like you said, it was only when I let go of that that I actually got anywhere. And, funnily enough, my writing got better. I don't really have any advice for how to get there - I just had a 'light bulb moment' one day and got it - but give it a go!
We all have our styles. I write by scenes which are essentially chapters and I skip around. I was having a hard time with a village scene but as soon as I skipped over it to one of the later scenes, I'm happy again with how it's turning out. I still have to go back to the village scene, but I know it will be easier after a break from it.
