I used to privately sneer at people who had writer’s block. I teach a workshop on how to avoid it and how to deal with it, for cryin’ out loud. I used to believe that it didn’t really exist, that people who were “blocked” were simply afraid or lazy or making excuses.
Until I got blocked.
It doesn’t feel at all like I imagined.
For a long time, I was in denial. I told myself that I’d worked my fanny off finishing up a trilogy (true) and that I needed a little time off to recharge (possibly true). But a week or two should be all that’s required, and, let’s see: It’s been two months. I also tried to hide my lack of productivity from other people. But now the truth is out.
It is a strange feeling, sitting in front of the computer, file open to the last thing I worked on, and nothing comes to mind. I tell myself that I need to do more pre-writing (possibly true). I know that books write easier for me when I have a clear idea where I’m going and have at least some major plot points worked out. So I go back and forth with ideas. I jot things down. I do interviews with my characters. I research. I read great authors in hopes of absorbing some shred of their genius.
Still, I don’t write, at least not with any regularity.
Maybe I should put this book aside and start another. Sometimes a story benefits from sitting on the back burner for a while. But, while I can’t get worked up about this book, neither does another idea hold any more appeal. I’ve tried changing locales, changing the time of day I write, getting up earlier, going to bed later. Nothing works. Even my husband, who is always so supportive, is starting to get that impatient look and probably having nightmares about having to support me and my high-flying lifestyle. (Anyone who knows me is laughing right about now.)
I am, however, seeing glimmers of hope. A week ago I wrote five new pages, and on Wednesday I finished a synopsis. I’m starting to feel that familiar tug of excitement near my heart, that happy suspicion that maybe this book really is good. I even thought of a title I like. I find myself thinking about the story when doing other things, and even wishing I could be at the computer when I’m not. It feels like I have some hideous disease, but the symptoms are abating, and maybe it will go into remission.
Friday (the last day I wrote) I wrote one new scene and revised several pages. I worked for two solid hours without watching the clock or obsessively checking my e-mail.
It’s probably too early to tell, but I believe I’ll get through this. Perhaps, though, if I practiced saying, “You want fries with that?” on a regular basis, or put on a pair of pantyhose and heels for an eight-hour stretch, the block would dissolve a lot faster.
No related posts.
Scary, isn’t it?
I’m not blocked. I just suck. Every sentence I’ve written in the past few weeks is subject-verb. Subject-verb. Subject-verb. So-and-so did such-and-such. I look at it, and all I can conceive of to fix it is to stick “, and” between two of my horrid sentences, creating compound horrid sentences.
Makes me want to cry.
It seems to me like it’s a different thing for everyone. For me, I don’t get Writer’s Block…except when I’m depressed.
Writer’s Block is one of the first signs that I’m slipping into depression. 
It’s a Red Flag. It means I need to stop and deal with the depression or I’ll slip further down. Once the depression is headed off, the Writer’s Block miraculously vanishes. 
Kerry–
Well, I’ve gone through stages where I’m writing but I hate everything I write. Maybe it’s some form of writer’s block. Compound sentences are a start! Maybe try using introductory clauses next. You know, “Entering the kitchen, she spied the mysterious package.” (I’m great at telling OTHER people how to fix their writing problems!)
Kimber–
Eh, well, depression is certainly a factor for me. But I’ve had serious depression in the past and was still able to write. (It’s just that what I wrote was really, really crappy.) It will be interesting to see if I write today.
Oh, Kara, I so feel your pain. I looking at 67 pages — not a single one of which doesn’t need major work — out of the 200 I need, and I’m six weeks to deadline.
It’s one thing to say “A bad page can be fixed”, another thing entirely when there’s nothing to put on the page to begin with. When you can hear the wind whistling through the cavity where your brain used to be. When you grit your teeth and force out the words (literary constipation, I call it), and at the end of the day you’ve got two pages. Maybe. And they suck.
For me, it’s like cooking — I know I do some things very well, and I love doing them, and I know people enjoy the results…but there are times when just the thought of going into the kitchen makes me want to scream. I want a break, want to eat somebody else’s food, want to NOT be responsible for making sure everybody’s fed. When I don’t get that break, I shut down. Or at least have to work on overcoming resentment at being in the kitchen.
Being at least reasonably prolific is virtually a requirement for an genre author, but particularly in romance. What happens more often than any of us like to admit, however, is that sometimes those gushing waters when the well’s first untapped dry up…or at least slow down (yeesh, nothing like using two metaphors in one post, huh?
).
Of course, for some very blessed writers the stream never dries up
. But for others, we have no choice but to either dig deeper, or wait until the dry season’s passed.
At the moment, I’m digging (under contract, haven’t got much choice). And I know I’ll finish this book, just as I have all those that came before it. I’ll probably even like it. Still…I’d sure love to feel that rush of excitement again that used to have me thinking faster than I could type. This One. Word. At. A. Time. stuff is for the birds.
When writers block hits, I just let it go, and don’t fight it. I find I’m better off. I’ll stay away from writing anything for awhile, then go back. It is scary. That little method works for me, but it also is time away from my project, which puts me behind. My fear, that someday I simply will never go back…
Karen–
Yes, you describe it perfectly!
Lee–
I’ve tried staying away from writing for a while. I’ve busied myself with other creative pursuits and done lots of things to refresh myself (trying new activities, meeting new people, reading out of genre.)But now I either have to get down to business, or find some other way to make a living. God, I really don’t want to do that!
Kara, I think several issues feed into the resistance (see, I’m here instead of bringing up my file — bad Karen
), stuff that not only isn’t visible to the non-writer, but which a lot of writers don’t fully understand, either.
A biggee is, especially for a genre writer, isn’t necessarily running out of ideas but of ways to express those ideas. The more books you’re written, the more challenging it becomes to find new ways to phrase something (without sounding like you’re reaching), or even new plot devices. Can’t tell you how often I’ve thought “Aha! I could have them do…drat, I did that in Book X already.” I mean, one of the big criticisms about our books is that they all sound the same, so ideally we want to take each story at least *partially* into new territory. Not easy.
Doubt demons, of course, are the other major bugaboo. You’d think, after enough books, they’d finally either go away or at least shut up. But no. Because there’s always something in the backs of our brains to feed the nasty wee beasties. If our last book was panned (or heck, even got one bad review which some kind soul felt obliged to shove under our noses), then we’re worried this book won’t be good enough, so our career is over. If our last book was praised as “our best ever,” then we worry that this book won’t be good enough, either, and our career is over. Because then we think, ohmigod, what if this doesn’t live up to those readers’ expectations? What if I let them down? What if they hate me?
Nasty voices, those. Because right after the ‘What ifs” come the sly suggestion that it would be so much easier to just…let it all go. Not put ourselves out there anymore.
That we’re not good enough.
I’m convinced that fear, through whatever words it seems to take in our thoughts, is behind at least 95 percent of writer’s block. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking stupid, fear of being rejected, fear of criticism.
Our choice is to either give in — in which case, it’s won — or stand up to it. Tell it to shut the hell up. Or better yet, send it packing with a one-way ticket to nowhere, which is where it came from to begin with. After all, nothing or no one can stop us from expressing the talents we’ve been given, or keep us from telling the stories we have in us…no one except ourselves.
That’s not to say we don’t need breaks, or opportunities to recharge — the writer who doesn’t live is quickly going to run dry, since we don’t create in a vaccuum. But if we’ve done that, if we feel our lives are in balance otherwise and the words still aren’t coming, then we really need to examine our thought, see what’s *really* holding the words hostage, and then kick it to the curb. With steel toed boots.
Karen, off to take her own advice, grrrrr….
Kara, I know just how you feel. When I’m teaching freshman composition, I tell my students that writer’s block is what happens when they don’t know what it is that they want to say. As a writer, when I hit a wall, my reaction to my own preaching is, “Yeah? So? I don’t know what it is I want to say! That’s the problem!
Karen: exactly what I needed to hear this morning. Thank you.
Nora’s on my shoulder, chanting “There ain’t no muse. If you sit around and wait to channel the muse, you can sit around and wait a long time.” (http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=roberts2)
Back to work…
Do you mean watching the clock constantly and obsessively checking e-mail is writer’s block? I thought it was just the way I worked.
It doesn’t really sound to me so much a case of writer’s block, Kara, as just that you needed more time off than you acknowledged. Writers being the fearful creatures we are (Karen T…. you so described a writer’s constant refrain… what if I’m really no good, what if the market has changed, what if…) you probably projected writer’s block out of writer’s exhaustion. You’ve now had the break you needed and your mind’s getting back to work.
So say I, who firmly refuse to believe in writer’s block… probably because the idea scares the bejeebers out of me.
I can’t imagine the frustration of it. I do have days when I don’t know where I’m taking a story next or can’t find the right words but I never can’t write at all. Knock on wood. Keep ploughing on. Sometimes I go to the bookstore and let the fragrance of all those new books inspire me.
Karen–
Yup, there’s definitely fear involved. Not fear of rejection–I have hundreds of those suckers. The prospect of one more doesn’t faze me. Certainly not fear of success. Whatever small tastes of success I’ve had only motivate me. I want more, I can handle more! Really!
But it’s … fear of something. Whatever it is, my brain just refuses to do the hard work required. It exhausts me even thinking about writing.
Kacie–
Not knowing what I want to say … yes, that’s one way of describing it!
Donna–
I used to say the same thing, and it is scary. Part of it is, if I’m not a writer, than who am I? My identity is so wrapped up in writing. I’ve been a full-time writer for about twenty years now.
Susan–
I do love the smell of books, even old ones.
Thank you all so much for your comments–this really is helpful. (At least it’s a good way to put off writing.)
Kara
I’ve been blocked since about Christmas or so, so massive empathy.
Every now and then I can force out a few hundred words, and I did a few thousand with a lot of help, encouragement and nagging from a friend, but there’s nothing which seems to work regularly.
I came up with a great technique the first time I did (and won, yay!) NaNoWriMo, and thought my blockage days were over. No such luck. I tell myself that it’s a matter of applying seat of pants to seat of chair and doing the damn work with no whining, but that doesn’t help either. I’ve tried just ignoring it for days (weeks, months…) and no joy. I’ve tried working on something else instead — only a temporary fix, and I couldn’t finish the “something else” either.
[headdesk]
I don’t know. At this point I think it’s just a matter of accumulating enough techniques that you always have something new to try. Maybe once the list is long enough, either 1) something will work eventually, or 2) trying this, that and the other thing will take long enough that the spell of blockage will fade on its own. I can deal with either solution; I just wish one of them would turn up soon.
Luck, hon! [hugz]
Angie
I got burnt out.
Took the entire last week off
(with my tight deadlines – not good).
I thought my mojo was gone forever
(that Fat Bastard – any Austin Powers fans? any?).
But nope.
My mojo simply needed a vacay.
It is back in full force
this week
and I’m happily writing again.
Angie–
Hang in there.
Kimber Chin–
You give me hope!