This sounds to me like mild depression. I fall into slumps where my interest in creative things and hobbies wanes. Sometimes I then slide into more recognizable depression, and sometimes I just stay in that thing that I might call "creative depression" until I emerge, often for no reason that I can put my finger on. There's a short list of things, some general and some specific, that seem to improve this sort of slump for me. My theory is that they're things that happen to increase my personal dopamine level. Another way to look at the pattern could be that it tends to be things that add "input" for my brain to process. - Seeing a play at a live theater. - Seeing a BIG, new-to-me, movie at a movie theater. - Online perfume sample shopping. (Obviously specific to me.) Shopping is known to increase dopamine, and shopping perfume samples can take a looooong time. (For very little money.) I'd bet that shopping for seeds, or eBaying for collectibles, or any other sustained, contented, puttery, list-making shopping would be similar. - Learning something new. - Forcing myself to read a novel that I haven't read before, even when I don't wanna. - Long slow bike rides through varying scenery. By "long" I don't mean a six-week bike trip; I mean an hour or two or three. I know this is a weird response.
My ideas come from reading other books and also going outside into events. Somehow I would get inspiration from daily life, while driving and specific events (regrettably from my grandma's funeral as well a year back) Chickenfreak is right to a degree. I am suffering depression and ideas have been really hard to portray and flesh out while you're stuck in there. Once you're out though, thing's will come back. Hope this helps Regards John Crawfordz
Hmm. @Johncrawfordz's post sparks another thought. @Mckk, sometimes when I have trouble writing it seems to be because there's something that my brain wants to write about, and I'm not writing about that thing. This was true around the time of my mother's death--I was having a lot of thoughts about my mother, most of which violated that whole "don't speak ill of the dead" thing, and I wasn't writing them. Writing some of them seemed to break me out of the uninspired period to some extent, but it's entirely possible that my continuing problem with writing fiction is about the need to write a whole bunch of additional negative things about my mother.
One of my problems is definitely that i don't know how to write what i know i want to write - namely a redemption plot, where the themes and characters' internal struggles are the main focus but wrapped around fantasy and action. @ChickenFreak could be right about the need to write a particular thing blocking the desire to write other things. I want to finish this WIP I have never heard of or thought of 'creative depression' - or is that just another term for a slump? I definitely don't have actual depression - i get excited just fine by other things and take much pleasure in going through my daughter's photos it's just my writing that's suffering. As for letting the WIP rest - but the last time i wrote for it was almost a year ago! How long am i supposed to leave it for!?
It is your choice to feel disturbed. It's a bit difficult to see with the small pic, but the dog has dreadlocks and red-tinted intelligent eyes - nothing sinister - it typifies how some feel as they lucidly look out at the world from an animal body, which they aren't. Any comments on my post?
I've been there. What cured me was ignoring what I thought would sell and just writing in the genre closest to my heart and way of thinking. I like science fiction and also like a good joke. Thirdly, I like to turn things on their ear to see what new ideas shake out. So once I realized it was okay to write tongue-in-cheek science fiction (like so many before me) I no longer have this problem. Do some soul searching. Find your oeuvre.
Not a helpful suggestion, just a question in general, OurJud has written many short stories but a full length novel is a different challenge. Would it be possible to write several related short stories and then tie them together into a full novel? I know that having an over arcing plot might be difficult and making it feel cohesive might be nearly impossible, but manageable chunks has an appeal for me. However there may be other aspects that I am totally overlooking. I have observed that many members remark that writing a novel is different than a short story but I have difficulty understanding what the difference is. A novel often comes across as a short story with a lot more detail than a short story, more character depth, etc. but the basics appear the same to me. Possibly combining a few short stories would result in a novel that has too many climax points, or the real climax might not be near the end. Juggling time with flashbacks is not appealing to me, as a reader they end up making the story hard to follow, so I don't see that as a good solution.
Out of the way of what, OurJud?… Out of the way of having to write them?... I may have mistaken the tone but it looks as though you're a gardener who just wants to get spring & summer out of the way already. “One week down, phew… only another 20 to go...” Why not slow down, take your mind off the destination, and try to enjoy the journey instead?
Write for yourself. Find a story that makes you want to find out what happened, why and how. That makes the writing and research fun. What sparked mine was reading a non-fictional history of ancient seamanship in 1995 and finding out that the Romans had gotten to the court of China and by 166 the Chinese emperor was corresponding with the An-tsin (Antonine) emperor. Wow! I wonder what that first trip would be like? How would they get there? What would happen? Who would go? What would they think of that world and its values so different from theirs? And that world of them? 240K words and 20 years later, I have the answer. And it was a fun trip, all the way. Another short story of about 30 pages: If Jesus came back to Pilate on Easter Sunday after his resurrection, what would they have to say to each other? I have always found the dynamics between those two in the Gospels most interesting. I don't think Pilate wanted to crucify Jesus, and Jesus in turn made it impossible for him to not do so. And of all who confronted Jesus that day, only Pilate got to have a conversation with him. Veritas, quid est? What is truth? That, too, was fun, but took only a week, rather than two decades.
This is basically what I've done. My basic story ended up being around 20K words, and I've been adding subplots and more character arcs, trying to get it to novel length. I've no desire to publish, so this is just a personal goal. With a full time job - that requires travel, no less - and a toddler, I can't write more than 1000 words a day (most days even less!) but I've been whittling away at it. It's not a race.
Try the Pomodoro trick. Take a timer (your phone's app or a kitchen timer), set it for 25 minutes and commit that time for writing. During that 25 minutes, do not dally off, do not stand up and walk around, do not tab out and go on the internet. Butt on chair; hands on keyboard. Just sit down and write. And if you're not writing, that's okay too. You can be writing gibberish or stream of consciousness, whatever, but that 25 minutes you had set aside is sacred time for writing. Eventually, you can bump it up by doing two or three Pomodoros, which I'm currently doing. Make it a habit.
I'd like to read the story about Jesus talking to Pilate. Bet the Roman had some choice words for him.
If you want a really Machiavellian way to do this - stalk the #MSWL hashtag on Twitter and see what type of crazy stories agents are looking for (I've seen some seriously weird crap there).
Are there parts of it that you think of writing, but you find yourself saying, "Oh, that's too implausible, too angsty, too soap-operaish, too...." something? So that maybe your block is self-imposed but you aren't quite realizing it? Are you blocking yourself from writing what looks to you like it will be bad, or embarrassing, or embarrassingly bad, work?
But more seriously - have you tried pitching the WIP? If you've got multiple drafts, try to sell it and see what other people think or get good solid reviews. But yeah, what other people said on sparking the creativity. Watch movies or read novels in genres you aren't normally into (my new one is Nordic Noir crime dramas and my creative mind is going nuts on how to do one with a fantasy backdrop - I'm finally reading one in novel form and my brain is jumping up and down going, "I need to try this technique! I can do that!"). Engage with new kinds of stories. Use new brain seeds. And I've not yet been in the position of having a repeatedly rewritten manuscript and debating whether or not to trunk it, but that's got to be painful (I've done enough Hamlet acts just debating whether to finish my WIP or whether it's un-repairable). Although - and I usually do this to new writers rather than people who are ahead of me on the curve - but you were in on the whole Romance/Dune readalong so I consider you enough of a forum-friend to drop the trademark Lemming semi-inspirational tough-love video clip. This one is my new favorite - good metaphor for how we probably need to treat ourselves when we get too attached to a scene or a plot or whatever that doesn't work.
#MSWL is an acronym for "manuscript wish list" - literary agents use it to post "dream stories" they wish they got on Twitter.
Getting difficult to keep up with this thread now, so if you have addressed me directly and I don't respond, don't take umbrage, I've simply missed it. I sense my remark about your avatar offended you. It was just a joke. Sorry, I forget tone can't always be determined with the written word. I don't have anything specific to say, in reply to your post, other than to say planning a novel is not only difficult for me, it's actually detrimental to my writing, as it saps up all my enthusiasm and inspiration. Yes, I can see how that comment could be construed in such a way, but I just meant that the closer I am to some ball-park figure for a novel - let's say 100,000 - the closer I am to achieving my goal.
Eh...that remark makes perfect sense to me, because for me, the first draft of a piece is indeed something to get out of the way. It's like getting out the flour, butter, sugar--it's assembling raw ingredients and maybe doing mise en place. For me, the joy of writing, even when there is joy in writing, is in the second and subsequent drafts.
@ChickenFreak - actually, feeling like something is absurd and therefore not writing in that direction is exactly why I find it hard to flesh out plots But I'm not sure what the cure for that is? This is more of a general problem rather than something specific to my WIP. In terms of my WIP, it's mostly that I can't seem to figure out what my characters did that need redemption, fearing that what I choose would be deemed too horrific to be redeemed from, and since I don't know the event, I also don't know just what it would take to redeem them. Hmm... I guess this is the same as what you just said about self-blocking because I fear people's reaction towards what I'm writing... @Commandante Lemming - letting go of things you love? Done that already. You can't really have multiple finished drafts without having edited and changed events and deleted entire chapters etc. As for pitching those finished drafts - no way. They don't work, plot-wise. Two writer friends, one of them @jannert, have read my WIP - jannert having read a newer draft that I never quite finished, got about halfway. The other friend read a complete draft and that's the first edited finished draft, so perhaps my WIP in its most original form. Both friends have said my story has stayed with them in some way - in fact the friend who read the first original draft told me just a few weeks ago that she's rereading it (several years since I gave it to her!) and she's never forgotten it. She's actually re-reading my terrible draft. I know there's something there. I just... it's just been something like 10 years since I conceived of my story and 6 since I've been actively working on it. I'm tired. I'm bored. I've lost all hope it can ever make sense, therefore ever be finished And what the hell is the damn point of all that hard work if it never gets finished!?
Yeah I'm feeling that one after two years of writing - same exact frikkin' thing (although I did come up with this one 11 years ago so I have that time invested too)
You're making this way too complicated. You don't just sit down and write an entire book. You do it modularly. Just write a small amount every day for x number of days, then let yourself feel good as you hold it all in your hand. That feeling of accomplishment is what keeps me going. Just having a stack of printed pages of my own writing makes me feel great. A small amount of work over a long period can accomplish a monumental task. Most novels are 100,000 words long. That means if you wrote 1,000 words a day (a few paragraphs) you'd be done in just over 3 months. If you really were lazy and only wrote 500 words a day, you'd still have a novel in six months. Stop thinking in absolutes.
if you have nothing to gain from writing other than just being able to say that you did it then you might as well just not even bother
