The Writers Block Thread

Discussion in 'General Writing' started by Sapphire, Sep 21, 2006.

  1. Glen Barrington

    Glen Barrington Senior Member

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    No one is really cut out for this! Producing any form of art is damned difficult. I come from a photography background so I consider the case of Vivian Maier, a Chicago area nanny who spent her time off doing street photography, never telling anyone, or even expecting anyone to ever notice or care. Yet after she died, was "discovered", and is now something of an industry.

    The thing is, with art, you just can't know how things are going to be perceived at a later date. If writing massages a sore muscle in your soul, then keep doing it.
     
  2. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Have you considered taking a writing class? I've done several online and in person. I would say every single one was extremely helpful and I felt like I could see noticeable improvements by the end of each one. I highly recommend the Gotham writing courses. They are not cheap, but WOW did that little online course change my life and set me on the track for publishing. If you interested and look into it, I could recommend an instructor (if he's still with them, but I think he is). I had been writing for years, but I decided to take a beginner class because I did some research on the instructors and the guy I really wanted to study under was teaching the beginner class. I learned so much. I learned things I hadn't even thought about when it came to my writing. It opened my eyes and made everything I wrote moving forward a million times better. It was probably the best money ever spent when it came to my writing. I know not everyone is into taking classes or spending money, but I saw it as an investment in myself. I told myself I was worth it. I told myself my dreams were worth it. Sure, there's tons of stuff online and how-to books, but it really isn't the same thing, in my experience. If you're really in a slump, something like this could really help.
     
  3. labelab

    labelab Member

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    I live in kind of a remote area, so the only writing classes we get conflict with school times and are lead by those much older and more experienced than me. An online course, on the other hand, is something I'd absolutely love to get into. You're right though, they're not cheap! Maybe I need to scratch up some savings and give it a go ;)
     
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  4. Matt E

    Matt E Ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8 Contributor

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    There’s no such thing as someone who is made to be a writer, or any other skill really; being good at something comes through hard work and experience. You can be a writer, an artist, a mathematician, any of that, you just have to put in the hours and get good at it. It’s up to you whether you want to spend your time in becoming a really good writer, but if you want to, I say do it. It takes a while. You don’t have to go at it 1000% if you don’t want to. It’s like walking a mile. You can either run as fast as you can and get there quick, or you can walk at a slow pace and get there later. Just keep moving and you’ll get there eventually.
     
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  5. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    My advice--and there's no assurance that this is the RIGHT advice--would be:

    First priority: Write. Somehow, make writing happen. Sample rules:
    • X words per unit of time (Example: 300 words a day)
    • X time per unit of time (Example: For ninety minutes three times a week, sit down to write. Even if you can't make anything come out, don't allow yourself to do anything else. The premise is that eventually you'll be so bored that you'll write.)
    • X unit-of-writing per unit of time. (This is mine: One scene every three days.
    I would recommend demanding that these be NEW writing. Sure, you can edit your old writing, but if you stick to your new-writing quota, you won't get trapped into editing paralysis.

    Some people will argue that trying to write when you don't want to write will put you off writing. I'm not saying they're wrong, just that they're wrong for me.

    Second priority: Pick one thing to work on at a time. Or maybe two things. Or maybe three. The main point is NOT to try to improve all of your writing at once.

    Maybe this month you'll just work on forcing yourself to write dialogue--not necessarily even good dialogue, just dialogue, because maybe you've recognized that you tend to avoid dialogue. Or the opposite--maybe you've noticed that you tend to avoid action, so you force yourself to write silent scenes with no dialogue.

    The "second priority" above, of course, is likely to mean that you're writing a bunch of quite different things, things that may not string together. And that's OK; I sometimes worry about people who start with their Book Of A Lifetime when they haven't done a whole lot of writing. For a while, it may make more sense to write vignettes or scenes or other fragments.

    Also: Keep an eye out for what you enjoy. I enjoy having people read my stuff--some people may hate that. I enjoy editing--I know many people hate that. If you feel that planning is the logical thing to do, but you hate it, then let yourself just write what you want--it might work out. (It seems to be working out for me, so far.)

    There are going to be a lot of bits of writing that you don't enjoy, so indulge yourself in the ones that you do, even if it doesn't feel like the most logical or most efficient way.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2019
  6. Alan Aspie

    Alan Aspie Banned Contributor

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    OFF TOPIC


    FF? Mid format? Large format? Studio? Journalistic? Nature? Technical? Portraits? Art?
     
  7. Glen Barrington

    Glen Barrington Senior Member

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    Currently, m43s, Landscape, Nature, & Street.

    My Flickr account if you are curious
    [​IMG]

    Former professional photographer (in my youth). Trained by the US Air Force. Familiar and functional with view cameras, 6X6 MF, ran a portrait studio in the USAF, Pretty good I think. Technical photographer for a large electronics firm for a while before I went back to school
     
  8. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    Preach!

    OT: I love your photos, Glen. Really beautiful work.
     
  9. John-Wayne

    John-Wayne Madman Extradinor Contributor

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    It says your nineteen on your profile. so that means you have plenty of time.
    It's clear you like to write, and I'll say it now "Imposter Syndrome" is a pain in the ass. It happens to all of us... quite often. where we begin to doubt our abilities and talents as writers and think our work is crap. Even when other's have said it was good.

    Anyways, back to my point... my suggestion is to write for yourself. you can share it, of course, we'll help you out. write every damn thing down, who cares if it seems like utter garbage... that is irrelevant at this point. Then once it's all down, start plotting and refining the "Garbage" (I'm using it for metaphoric reasons)... to find the hidden gems or salvage within... then tinker and fix up that salvage... and before long you'll have something.

    I am currently 39, begun writing back in single digits of age, starting with crudely drawn comics, then around 13, I began writing stories via pencil and paper, plus the computer. and I will say this... while the concepts of the story are fine... the way I wrote from 13 till maybe 32 is utter and unreadable garbage. but the stuff from that garbage is what I salvage to rewrite the garbage I wrote.

    I had written a story back in 1998, decided to revise it in 2011, couldn't even read the damn thing it was so awful,. I stripped it down to the bone-structure and rewrote it... which was a million times better. however, I had been writing for myself. When I realized I was hitting a wall and something was off in my writing. I joined WF back at the end of 2017, got a real nasty sting in my ass when I shared a bit of my story. LOL.

    So I put it on the back burner and wrote a new one, found some good people here to share it with and they helped me improve my writing and I feel my current story is a hell lot better thanks to them and about a dozen rounds of editing. :p .

    so basically, don't give up, and just seek to write for yourself and improve your skills. I hope my rambling helped. :)
     
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  10. Alan Aspie

    Alan Aspie Banned Contributor

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    I raise my hat!
     
  11. Glen Barrington

    Glen Barrington Senior Member

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    Well, thankyou!
     
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  12. Glen Barrington

    Glen Barrington Senior Member

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    Again! Thank you!
     
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  13. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Nineteen and been writing for ten years? That is a helluva good start, but you have changed a lot in that period, and what you wrote in your early teens, or tweenage years, may not look so good now, with more experience. Be gentle on yourself, and what @jannert said. Write and don't look back, editing as I write the first draft is, for me, the story-killer, the beginning of second-guessing that will ultimately bring me to a halt. The hardest thing to write is the first sentence of your story. The second hardest is the last one. So go for the finish line first drafts are supposed to be horrible, otherwise they would be first drafts! Focus while you are writing on how good your story is.
     
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  14. labelab

    labelab Member

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    thank you for this!! i've realised from reading all these answers back that the key is writing whatever you want. don't filter it (yet).
    i feel like i'd just ignored the editing process completely; pretended like it didn't exist. but the possibility that whatever i write can be salvaged is, to say the least: exciting.
     
  15. John-Wayne

    John-Wayne Madman Extradinor Contributor

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    You're welcome. :) .

    The next thing to get used to is Feedback, :p . It's why I wrote for so long without sharing, I couldn't take critique when I was young.

    Not sure what you have so far, so it may not be ready for critique but if you would like to post a sample of your writing in the workshops. there's plenty of excellent writers here to help you hone your skills.

    ETA: Just to make sure, when I say salvage I mean the concepts or structure of a scene/story. When I did my rewrite, I didn't copy any of what I wrote and just stuck with the concept of what I wrote. I also gave my MC in that story Schizophrenia, though a light case since I didn't nat to explore it too deep.
     
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  16. Elven Candy

    Elven Candy Pay no attention to the foot in my mouth Contributor

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    You should see the first completed draft of my short story--it was enough to make anyone want to vomit. What it gave me, however, was the story structure and understanding of my characters. I knew what didn't work and what I really wanted to add. The second draft was tons better than the first, but still required quite a bit of revision. I now have over 20 different drafts of it saved on my computer (I save every draft of a story; a habit I highly recommend), including the polished, final one.

    Every story can be saved, though sometimes the end result is unrecognizable from the first. The funny thing is this has now happened to me twice--once with the short story I mentioned and once with my current WIP--and I don't even care. I love making the stories work and watching my characters' lives unfold.

    By the way, I, too, started out with every problem you mentioned (among several others), and through hard work and effort I've become capable of fixing everything my stories have thrown at me. Probably the one thing that has helped me the most in my 12ish years of writing is this writing forum. When I first found it, I read nearly every single thread I could get ahold of, including other people's stories and critiques in the critique section. I took the writing tips from this forum and applied them, one by one, to the drafts of my story, saving it as a new draft with each new tip applied in case I didn't like the end result.

    Keep writing, learning, and stop questioning your ability. I highly doubt you were any worse than me or many others on this forum when you started, and like us, you can get better.
     
  17. mrieder79

    mrieder79 Probably not a ground squirrel Contributor

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    TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER helped me a lot. I strongly recommend reading it if you are struggling with the craft aspect of writing.
     
  18. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    You will never become the writer you wish to be by avoiding the very thing you best get really good at--editing. There's much more to editing than simply fixing bad grammar and reworking clumsy sentences.

    There are some of us brave souls who do not move on to the next page until the current page is edited to our satisfaction. We'll still go back to it again and again, but it needs to be pretty well polished before moving on. Another benefit to editing as you go . . . it gives you time enough to think about the story; are you missing a hook, are your characters engaging the reader, is the dialogue all it can be, etc, etc. Don't be tempted by strangers offering you an easy out. Also, cut yourself some slack. Heavens, you're only nineteen!
     
  19. Writeorflight

    Writeorflight Active Member

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    “Nobody tells this to people [writers] who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” -Ira Glass

    Found this gem of advice in the youtube comments section.

    Everything you're saying is what I feel exactly - 110%. I think a lot of writers feel this way, they have a passion, but they know their skill level isn't quite there yet, and it's frustrating, oh so frustrating. A lot of my friends and family look at me crazy when I say my passion is writing, but I struggle so much to do it. It sounds ridiculous, but it's probably a lot more common you'd think!
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2019
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  20. labelab

    labelab Member

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    i'll check it out :) thank you!
     
  21. Elven Candy

    Elven Candy Pay no attention to the foot in my mouth Contributor

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    I feel the need to clear up a couple things here, the first of which is that doing all the editing after the first draft is complete is NOT an "easy way out." By the time that story's polishing is complete, it will have gone through as much polish as one that was edited along the way. The only difference between the two is that one method works for one type of writer while the other method works for another.

    I think most of us start out editing as we go. It's our instinct because we want our stories to be perfect from the get-go, and this is why I think labelab's self-admitted perfectionism is a problem. I had the very same issue when I started out, and I edited as I went. It took me years to realize that I needed to just write through the first draft, and years after that I finally managed to do it (perfectionism can be hard to conquer). Only then was I actually able to complete a first draft.

    For me, when I edit as I go, I lose track of the story and I start to bunny trail. Once that happens I start trapping myself into corners until I realize that half of my story doesn't work and needs to be rewritten. Since I had edited as I went, that was considerably more discouraging than a powered-through first draft would've been.

    Now that I don't edit as I go, when I realize I need to add a substantial scene or delete a large one (like 12 pages of the beginning, which I did have to do), it's really not a big deal. I simply figure out what needs to be done and do it, without worrying about perfecting it--yet. I absolutely love the editing stage because I can work on whatever part of the story I want to work on whenever I want to work on it. Is this character dry and boring? Hey, I'll work on them! That scene needs to be added? Nah, I don't feel like that today; I think I'll work on my sentence structure instead.

    It's a very freeing process, if it's the one that works for you.

    ETA: My love of editing is part of the problem I have when I edit as I go--I start editing to avoid having to write new material. Getting the story out is really hard for me, while editing is fun and a breeze. Easy roads are hard to ignore once we open the gate.

    P.S. @labelab, don't get discouraged if you're a slow writer--I'd never be able to follow Ira Glass's advice on completing a story a week! I'm lucky to finish one story in 2 years.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2019
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  22. labelab

    labelab Member

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    i have a thing... about editing as i go...

    i think this was the phase of my writing in which i produced absolute, utter garbage. and this isn't me just saying that it's garbage. it really was.

    anyway, not the point, the point is, i found myself editing sentences as i wrote them, which made the structure feel really awkward and squashed any possible flow i could have :(

    but, of course, this is just me! maybe i'm doing it wrong, or maybe it's just not my approach?

    thank you for the advice by the way :)
     
  23. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    I remember the first time landing a plane. Wasn't pretty. I got better. Same thing. You'll get better.
     
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  24. labelab

    labelab Member

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    oh wow, really? it usually feels like all writers know exactly what they're doing!!
     
  25. labelab

    labelab Member

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    oh wow, you seem like my kind of writer!! i really appreciate the advice, by the way, i didn't even realise editing could be loved. i'd always viewed it as a side-job, switching out some words for others, adding in commas etc. but it seems i still have a lot to learn ;)
     
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