As Ray Bradbury said in his essay, "How to Keep and Feed a Muse," stuff yourself--with plays, with poems, with stories, novels movies. Keep your muse well-fed and you can overcome all.
One thing helps me is to write a scene with my characters that may or not have anything to do with my story. I let it go anywhere. Sometimes I can use it in the story sometimes it just gives me an idea of where I could go. Never fails to help. Also, always have an ending. Somewhere where the characters have to get to. Too many times we get too caught up in the journey and lose sight of the destination.
Just keep writing. Even if you have no idea what you are going to write, sit down and don't get up until you've written at least 1000 words. Sometimes those are the days when your characters tell you where the story has to go. And yes, it happens to everyone. There always seems to be a point where you run out of ideas and enthusiasm, and the only solution is to just keep going regardless. That's one reason why no agent or publisher will even consider an unfinished book from an unknown writer. There are an awful lot of unfinished books out there.
try writing a single short story [pick one idea and ignore all others] and make yourself keep at it till you get to the end... if you can't do that, either, then being 'into' writing may not be enough to make you a writer, sad to say...
How to stay enthusiastic. I have a very hard time finishing my work. The problem is normally not that I run out of ideas or that I'm too busy, it's that I lose interest in my characters/story. I usually go through a great deal of work developing my characters and my plot, etc, and I write a few chapters. But after those first few chapters, I simply lose interest. I go through an anti-creative funk where I get no ideas, and then sooner or later I get a "better" one. I've heard advice to just "write the better ideas", but I really do want to commit to my current idea, I just end up becoming careless about it. I feel like I just abandon my characters that I'd worked so hard to develop, and they're in my subconscious saying "Uh, Trezzy! Hellloooo? What are you going to do with us?" *excuse cheesy analogy. I was wondering if anyone could share how they stay enthusiastic about their ideas, and not "ditch" their characters, so to speak. I know that maybe if I lose interest in my characters/story that's because it wasn't good enough to begin with, but I just work so hard only to lose my enthusiasm and I would love to hear if others experience this problem and what they've done about it. Thank you! EDIT: Sorry. I hadn't realized this was already a thread, and tried to create a new one. My apologies. :/
Here's how I do it. I always write an outline. Each point in the outline is a brief description of what I want to achieve in the story but not how it should be written. This way I'm always motivated until the end.
Everyones advice was suprisingly helpful. It's not that I lose interest in writing, I just lose interest in that particular story. I always come up with something else that seems new, fresh, and just plain more fun. I wonder if I could somehow encorporate those new ideas into the current story in order to keep my interest. I do not believe for even one moment that I'm not meant to be a writer. I may never become rich or famous, and I am okay with that. It is my goal in life to publish a book. That in itself would be successful to me. I find Midnight's take on the situation particularly interesting because I have never considered just stopping and picking up a book. This may just be the key to my problem. Thanks so much everyone for welcoming me to your forum.
This is when you need to stop and ask yourself whether you want to finish the book or move on. This happened to me only once during my last novel, and when it did, I found writing down the other, new, idea, along with what inspired me, and then putting it from my mind to focus on my current story got me through it. Writing a novel isn't always fun - sometimes you need to slog through it, until you find the problem and fix it enough to move on with the story. For me, the interest picked up again, even though at the time, it felt like continuing was the last thing I wanted to do. So your choices are, slog through the rough bits, or stick to shorter stories that you will be more able to finish. Or, of course, write a few hundred more story starters. good luck
what do I do when 'writers-block' tries to force itself upon me. Google... try to find some new wikipedia-sites about something mythological.. follow references to other sites.. before you know it you're browsing an ikea site or something^^ I keep on browsing.. It's my brain telling me I should work out my decorum more.. I take two random characters out of my flock and make them start interacting about thongs, lame boybands or something else completely trivial they normally would invest their time in talking about.. it's fun^^ but it keeps me sticking to my characters. (I'm the god of my realm of characters.. I can make them do the hucklebuck if I feel like so, or let them compede into a miss universe contest *concidering most of my casts are male..*) I think up cheezy names for sub-chapters.. I work on my backgrounds.. how much more am I able to torment my Mc or side characters. (maybe I'll put them in pokeballs^^, the agony of claustrophobia^^) I doodle (mostly when i'm in my zone-read: trance caused by emptying my brain.. sometimes music works-the loungy instrumental new age stuff works best for me) before I know it I drew a completely new character who might appear as a deus ex machina, obstacle, mild nemisis, sidecharacter, page filler or merely a sexy toyboy... or something yet to discover..(maybe all of previously mentioned) I Put myself in a certain mood.. thrue music.. if I have already created a fysical shell of a character.. than decide whether it will be a depressed part of me or a happy part of me I (maybe an evil part of me*diabolical laughter*) I love to experiment.. maybe something trivial as discovering a new plant-species on the top of some never before surfaced part of the landscape at hand. I think what I'm trying to say is when you feel the signs of a 'writers-block' coming up do something.. even if it looks so lame or dumb, nevertheless if in service of your story. it might maybe even turn out to be just the thing you've been looking for (after you have cleaned the doodle, scribble or draft up) talk to your characters!! maybe they'll try to help you^^
Some really great posts ... Thanks everyone! You never know when a 'bad' idea (or at least part of it) will bring about a great idea - there are 100 bad ideas to ever good one. Sometimes it is a question of 'overdrive' and you just need to get away from it - I like to read during these periods; it helps to be an optimis though: if it turns out to be a bad book you can smile and claim you can do better and why/how; and if its a good book then you can get some ideas how to be equally good. Sometimes you get WB (sounds like a virus ) because there are other things on your mind and maybe you've been trying to supress them and in the process you created WB. I know no one lives 'care-free' life, but it is about how much something bugs you and if its toom much I sugges dealing with it and not ignoring it - if you can deal with it if not, then its gona take time I find its a good practice that on those days when the muses are all around you make the best of it even if it means jotting a ot of stuff; then on those days when the muses are on strike or holiday or absent for whatever reason yu can go and fill in the gaps - I find filling in the gaps to a good idea much easier then coming up with the idea in the first place. Hope it helps
I've been told that there are various ways of dealing with writer's block. 1. Just write as much as you can for a certain amount of time non stop and then go back and see what the quality is like. Just get something down. 2. Listen to a song, and from that write what happens next or what the song is about. 3. What if? Think of personal situations you've been in or a friend's situation and think 'what if this happened?'. 4. Try some fanfiction maybe. 5. Try writing in a style you don't usually write in. There are more solutions, but writer's block is common so wouldn't worry too much about it.
I disagree with the idea that a writer's block is laziness, and that other activities don't get blocked. There are a lot of activities where a person can get "blocked", and my view is that the block is usually about over planning, and fear of flaws (where the definition of "flaws" can expand to "complete garbage"), and determination to follow a course of action that isn't working because the usual course of action is the "right way" to do it. It can happen with perfectly simple things like house cleaning. (Blocked housekeeper: "I can't do the dishes until I sanitize the sink. I can't sanitize the sink with the sink full of dishes. Maybe I'll put them on the counter here while I sanitize the sink. But the counter's not clean enough. I need to clean the grout between the tiles. I need a toothbrush to do that with. I need to go to the store to buy the toothbrush. I can't drive the car to the store when it's such a mess. I need to clean out the car and vacuum it. Where's the Handi-Vac? This Handi-Vac is filthy. I need to empty it out and clean all the crevices. I need a toothbrush...") So I think it's about fear. Mistake phobia, flaw phobia, perfectionism. Some people can merrily put in a few hours on a task knowing that they're probably going to throw out the product. Some people, for whatever reason, have to fight themselves tooth and nail to make themselves do something when they don't have a high assurance of success. I'm effectively just starting with the fiction side of writing, so I don't have any long-established habits that I'd be scared to break, or any success that I fear failing to live up to. So I just write. If I get a thousand good words and one interesting scene out of ten thousand words and a dozen scenes, that's fine with me. If I don't have anything meaningful to write I'll, for example, give a character one of my hobbies and depict them babbling on in excruciatingly boring detail, and depict another character being bored by them. I'll probably throw it all out, but maybe I'll learn something about the characters and their relationship. And I'll have a hunk of writing to look at and edit a month later when it's gone stale enough to evaluate. All of which is a good thing. Now, the fact that I'm not getting more written _is_ sheer unadulterated laziness, because I'm not sitting down to write. I wrote my fifty thousand words in November for NaNoWriMo, and I resolved that I'd make a permanent habit of at least five hundred words of fiction a day permanently, and I didn't do it. But that's not a block, that's my lack of discipline. I have no fear of garbage (that is to say, there will be garbage, and I do not fear it), so I have no excuse. ChickenFreak
I don't know if anyone else would find this useful, but when I get WB, I just concentrate on dialogue, writing it as though in play form. It keeps my momentum going, and I can usually go back and write around it later.
Dear writers block = laziness/hackery supporters, please get off your high horse, you sound really pompous and helping your not anyone. Writers block is caused when you set expectations for yourself that your are not ready meet yet (at least that's how I define it), but don't fret the fact that you set these standards is a very good thing. Writing is all about constant improvement and growth and if your writing "comes as naturally as breathing" or "just comes easily because I'm not a hack" then your not trying hard enough. I view writing just as I would an activity like running or weight lifting, its easy to start and talk about but hard to master and they are also fields where you must measure success against yourself not others. The block comes when you set your standards to high because you see someone maxing 250 when you can do only 175 instead of realizing that you could only do 125 when you started and Mr. muscles over there has been maxing 250 for months. Writing is simple, writing well is a long grueling road filled with hardship, critics, failure and lots of blocks that many so called "real writers" will tell you to give up on but don't because anyone worth the ink in their pen knows that the road has no end.
When I'm thinking, I have so many thoughts I really want to write down. When I hear them in my head they sound perfect. But as soon as I get to my computer, or to paper, I blank out. I can't grasp them. They aren't concrete and they become a big swirling melange of thoughts. This is really debilitating because it happens all the time for almost everything. I think of what to say, what to write, but when I try to put it on paper it doesn't come out. Does anyone else experience this?
No. Sounds like something that will get better with practice, though. Kinda like running; at first it sucks and you hate it, but you force yourself to cuz you know it's good for you & will get easier in time. Before you know it you're all skinny & trippin' on a grade-A runner's high.
Couldn't agree with Forkfoot more. Practice is all it takes. Barely even think about whether it's bad or not when your writing, deliberate after. You'll start to pick things up over time
From a plain scientific standpoint, human speech is roughly 365 words per minute during normal conversation. Human thought is something amazing. It speaks too, at around 365 words per minute, but it also says things at the speed of chemical transfer, which to you would seem almost instantaneous. When you are writing, the dialogue that you are thinking should be said slowly, as to represent properly the process by which you derive such thought. You are of course capable of commenting on what you are writing at great speed and can change what is printed easily. Nuance and subtlety will come straight from the gut. By no means am I saying this is not a mental process, but during periods of intense writing your muscles will begin to mimic the functions of the machine. In NASCAR drivers, this interaction is said to happen around the two hour mark, at which point the necessary chemical channels have "worn in" enough to be taken as part of unconscious memory. This same unconscious memory is what will drive what you write into the ground or throw it into the air, how deep and how high are options which you are confronted with when editing. Editing is a crucial part of the writing process. As a poor example, I write poems for fun, rarely spend more than an hour on one and consider my own wordplay inventive. After I post I re-read the poem too many times to count, and make equally countless corrections. Sometimes errors appear to me the minute after, sometimes the hour, and with great pride damaged, weeks or months after I've initially posted. You must sometimes abandon a work for weeks only to rediscover it later and find what, if anything, you would change. That and more you'll look forward to in the exciting world of wooooooooord plaaaaaaaaay.
Here's a quote from Anne Lammott. I've written it out and posted it on the wall above my desk. 'Get it all down. Let it pour out of you onto the page. Write an incredibly ****ty, self-indulgent, whiny, mewling first draft. Then take out as many of the excesses as you can.' I keep that in mind and whenever I find myself vacillating over word choice or character actions or whatever, I tell myself, "It doesn't matter. I'll rewrite it later." So maybe taking the pressure off of yourself will help you let the words flow.
Yeah, this sounds like one of those situations where the best advice is "Just write." Get the mess out of your mind by writing something. Don't expect it to be good. Just write it and get it out of the way, then start over again when you have an idea how to continue in a way you like.
This happens to me all of the time. Every time I write. I get these vastly imaginative and descriptive scenes in my head, but I can't seem to recreate my imagination on paper. Its kinda frustrating, but it is for sure a practice makes perfect thing. Ever since I've been writing I've noticed some improvements mostly due to WF, trial and error, or reading a bunch. Unfortunately, like the running analogy, I'm still a little overweight and running in skate shoes. Soon enough I'll be buying some Nikes. Keep on writing!
It happens to me a lot. I keep a little notebook with me most of the time and I will jot down what's in my head, little snippets of dialoge my characters are having. An action scene I'm seeing. A plot twist that suddenly comes to me. Sometimes I incorporate them into the story, sometimes I don't. But I know how frustrating it is to have it slip into your mind and then just go away ... so jot it down as soon as you think it, save it somewhere to be used or abused later
Yes, I have experienced it. A writer's job is to put the ideas in the head on paper.... so, you have to first admit to yourself that there is something lacking in you as a writer. The reasons can be anything.... in my case, lack of vocabulary was one of the main reasons. I just don't have the words (I know... horrific). I identified my weakness, worked hard on it (still working on other problems) and I am much better off now while I write. Your reasons can be anything..... inability to develop concrete plots, storyline, characters.... or it can simply be lack of writing disciplines. So, read articles on writing and take part in discussions in forums such as WF, you'll be able to identify your problem..... once you've done that, you can work on fixing it.
Just throwing it in there, but if the words in your head are coming out faster than they can be typed, maybe try a recording device/program, or a diction typing program (if they exist, I am horridly ill at the moment and don't know how much sense I'm making)... I personally don't use either a recorder or special software, and the solution is usually to write now and reflect later, practice makes perfect/better etc., however experimentation with the process might bring out a way that suits your style. BUT if you decide to look into these try looking for a freeware/shareware version, because on the whole they can be a waste of time/money if you find they're not working for you.
blockage Try writing letters about a fictional adventure you had to random people and turn it into a short, critique it and rewrite it until it is a short with developed characters. Don't take it too serious, though. Nobody will ever see it. Hope that helps...
