I try to keep this in very general level. I don't know if this helps you or suits your situation, but... Sometimes we protect ourselves from different things. Stimulus, changes, social interaction... And sometimes lack of inspiration = lack of inspiring stimulus. Do you have ways to seek things which could inspire you? Art? Music? Books? People? Nature? Youtube clips? Pep talks? Ted Talks? Something strange? Something funny? Something non-existing? Something familiar in new light? Something like... Knights? Marbles? Pipes & balls? Hexaflexaflakes? Skating without hockey sticks.
I just love watching the people who proclaim that they have a passion for writing and then spend all of their time making excuses for why they aren't writing. You don't find time, you make it. You don't search for inspiration, you just write. Writer's block is an illusion. You might be stuck on that part of the book. Write something else. It doesn't matter. Just write. It's all that counts.
I do love writing, but there are times when it gets overwhelming. It's like I love my mother, but some days I just can't stand to be around her.
Maybe it would be helpful to think of your first draft as a sketch. Like a painter will do on a canvas prior to actually starting with the paint. Just a general idea of what you want the finished product to look like. As an amateur painter, I can assure you the preliminary sketch often doesn't resemble much of the finished painting at all. It's just a general idea, to get the basic shapes in place—and even the basic shapes often change. As a painter you don't spend tons of time on one little area to the exclusion of others. You work the entire surface, rendering more and more detail as you go—but across the work as a whole. It's kind of fun to watch a YouTube 'painter' work. If you can get that sort of general-to-specific thing going with your writing, you might find it comes together better for you.
Sometimes, at least for me, 'writer's block' is simply the need for a new idea. That can be an idea for a new approach to what I've already written. Or a different kind of character. Or an event that turns the story in a different direction. Or something that connects a couple of elements of my story in ways I hadn't thought of at first. LOVE these eureka moments, by the way. They rekindle enthusiasm, which blasts through writer's block like nothing else. It's not always fear of failure that produces writer's block. It can be—but fear of failure has never been a huge problem for me. When I get stuck, it just means I need to do some thinking—the kind of thinking that's done away from the computer. It can take a while, but I don't get stressed about it. Thinking and imagining is also part of writing. Sitting and plugging away, churning out words isn't always what a writer needs to do to break through a block. As the old saying goes: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Ha ha! Okay, that's not a hole. That's a tunnel with both ends blocked. If you find yourself in one of those, definitely keep digging!
Yeah, I have found this to be true for me. Most of the times I have been stuck is not because I'm particularly stressed, or doubting myself, or afraid of failure, but because I simply need to figure out how to progress and fill out how the story. It's just filling in the lines between one moment and the next; the bits of dialogue, setting the scene, characters moving around. You get to a certain point and you know how you want the scene to go but you have to know all the detail and then put it down in words, and you just don't know what exactly to put. And when you start the next scene too, and you're not sure where exactly to start. As for doing some thinking, I have found what helps me especially is just imagining the scene in my head like a movie. When you're just sitting down and trying to write, you can get a bit detached just running through ideas almost mechanically about what to put, and lose the sense of imagination. If you just step away and focus on letting your imagination go, you can get all sorts of ideas. You might start picturing some part of the scene later on you haven't written yet because you're stuck, but once you start imagining that bit it's easy to start building it up and imagining more and more pieces to help string the whole thing together.
That's absolutely what works for me. I call it 'envisioning,' but 'watching a movie' is what I mean. I even scribble down bits of dialogue. Most of all, I can 'get' the feeling of a scene, if I do that.
It's easy to take that idea of sketch, painter and painting to rewriting, editing, polishing... 1. Shitty First Draft = Your sketch. 2. Supporting material you write = Extra papers where you test, sketch different parts of your painting before adding them to the main work. 3. Rewriting & editing rounds = You add layers. You don't try to finish it in one go. One round might be correcting grammar and writers voice. Another might be correcting subplots. One of the rounds might be correcting characters. Some of the editing rounds might focus on killing your darlings and mannerism... 4. You don't stop when it's perfect. You stop before that. You stop when you don't make it better by "correcting" it. 5. You don't focus on perfection. You focus on katharsis.
Exactly the process I meant. And I reckon you're right, too, about the 'perfection' thing. Something that is too perfect but has lost its initial enthusiasm in the process of getting there can feel flat. Keeping that catharsis is important. If you don't feel it, the reader probably won't either. I believe a sense of catharsis or enthusiasm is the HARDEST thing to insert into the story during an edit. It's best if that is allowed to flourish during the early part of writing, when you, the writer, are feeling it. It can always be cut back, if necessary, but it's not easy to put it there later on.
That is why I pay so much attention to alpha readers. If they give feedback only about they own physical responses to text and nothing about text itselff, you get direct feedback about how cathartic your text is or is not. It's easy way to stay focused to catharsis. I started a thread about it some time ago. I start to find it when I have time to do it.
At the very least, collar and arse Rick out the door. Tell him to go to the pub. And to stay there till it closes! I really like @cosmic lights 's anecdote about her grandfather. That's an interesting way to approach it. In other words, he was telling her, 'write for yourself.' Write the story YOU want to tell. That YOU would like to read. Just get it out there in any form you can, and stay enthusiastic while you do it. Don't censor yourself at all. If you want to say it, say it. If you want to tell a story you know other people (either specific people or just 'people) are going to hate—just do it. Nobody has to see this until YOU are ready to show it around. And that will take a while. Don't even tell other people you are writing at all. Don't put pressure on yourself to succeed. Just get that story out of you, and onto a medium where you can step back and look at it. Then is when you start to work on perfecting it. And that part is also fun, by the way! Because by then you know you've 'written.' There is no other feeling like that one. Whatever becomes of your writing eventually, you will know you've written a story.
Oh I've been told I suck at writing so bad that it's a complete waste of time for me, and so I might as well invest my energy in something else. I cried and cried at the time. Well that was what, 9 years ago. Still writing. Because as long as you're improving, that's all that matters, and that's all I decided all the way back then. You think I suck? What if you're right? Well, then I'll just have to keep practising and improving, won't I? and that means, you keep writing. (She was wrong, by the way. I might not be Shakespeare but I'm a damn good writer) Just 'cause you're bad right now doesn't mean you'll be bad forever. And at the end of the day, I write because I love it, not because I want to be published. I do want to be published but that's more of a bonus to me. I'd write regardless because it's just fun.
Here's an excellent article on the writing/editing diversion. I think it addresses your dilemma, @labelab . https://prowritingaid.com/art/911/edit-with-empathy-for-your-reader--.aspx?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=readerempathy&fbclid=IwAR3UN95NefiZRKuNfPVRVmKRqi8QbGxWx-lsNQ3HBLSUjHIryuQYRnlJUz0
oh dear, another really good article. you need to stop, @jannert ! otherwise i'll never get anything else done!! (but a very sincere thank you, you've helped me out with so many issues and you're unwillingly my writing parent sorry about that)
i've been getting in the swing of a new writing method lately. most days, i sit down with my laptop at sunset, turn off the lights, put on my writing playlist and write whatever. so far, these have been 1000 word stories, max, nothing crazy, nothing i'm in love with- but the process of doing it really is so rewarding. just being able to write without any barriers is so refreshing, and i really think this thread did help. the same advice i keep getting is to write for myself, and to sort of just let out whatever i want. and, hey, it seems to be working! as for rick, he's... still there. he's still spitting on my work and biting me in the middle of a piece, but the big thing is, i'm writing. i can't tell you the amount of nights i'd spend staring at a computer screen for hours and ending up with nothing. not a single damn word. but, hey, 1000? that's a hell of a lot for me! there's still a lengthy road to go, of course, and i'm nowhere near done, but it feels like i'm starting some sort of journey. and for that i'm happy. thank you, again, for the advice and putting up with my persistent all-lower-case aesthetic. i have never been part of a more helpful and kind and wise community. you guys are angels )))
If you keep writing, you get some momentum to back you. And after some time that momemtum starts to help you. It is important to shake all the monkeys from your back. That is the way you get your thing to become your thing again.
