Writer's Block

I think there are several degrees of writer's block. Some are minor, some are career threatening (!), many fall somewhere in between. This blog is not meant to be all inclusive, but hopefully offer hints for those times when panic hits and you can't seem to write. I'm going to corral a very complicated subject into three stages:

First is the block that happens when your writing is going along well until you write a scene and everything seems to fizzle apart. The scene is good, entertaining, etc., but heaven help you, what in the world comes next?

From experience, I have found there are two methods to cope with this.
1. Write the scene that comes after the one stumping you. I know many of you have heard this antidote, but I recall once needing to get a young boy off of a sailboat unseen. I just couldn't think of a clever way to do it. It stopped me for a year. That poor kid, alone on the boat, probably got hungry, but I just left him there. Nothing worked until I wrote the scene with him walking up the dock AFTER he found a way off. All of a sudden I understood that the method of disembarking wasn't that important to my story. In the end, the transition ended up being a couple of sentences.

2. Nowadays, this one happens to me several times during a book, and keep in mind, I write a pretty thorough synopsis before I ever start. I believe it also happens to Eli who is afraid of writing a synopsis, so there you go. Anyway, what I have discovered is that if I cannot think of what to do next it means I just did something wrong. I made a misstep, so to say, painted myself into a corner, sounded a wrong note. This is not always obvious. I'll take a day or so off and try to go back and it just cowers there like a bullied kid. Eventually, I'll figure out I let the tension drop and if I go back a ways and rev it up, presto, I'm off again.

If your book comes to a sudden halt, see if one of these things has happened. Don't leave your character adrift but don't make life too easy for him, either. And keep the tension high.

The second kind of block is a little more serious. You can't make yourself sit down. You can't concentrate, you can't believe in yourself, you can't write. The result is you spend less and less time at the keyboard, commit yourself to fewer hours, let story plots fade. Pretty soon, writing is not a passion, it's a hobby, something you toy with and think about with a sense of loss.

1. Perhaps you are letting what Barbara Samuels calls "The Girls in the Basement" get the better of you. These are evil creatures that I'm afraid we all host to some degree. They lurk in your subconscious. They feed on your fears. They remind you that your work isn't important, it isn't good enough, you'll never be famous, why do you knock your head against a wall? Someone was talking the other night about the spell check corrections that run automatically as you write, correcting things or flagging things as you go. I turn this feature off. Why? Because all those corrections are like yummy hot fudge sundaes to my particular "girls." They just gobble them up and in doing so, yank me right out of creating and force me to remember I am just putting words on a screen, not love or hate of fear. Just words. Misspelled words at that. "Hey, you crank, can't you even spell?" they scream. To hell with them. They don't DESERVE ice cream.

Being a perfectionist can also be an undoing. There's a reason writing a novel is an art and not just a craft. Art is not perfect. I would argue that the imperfections, in fact, make the art what it is.

2. Perhaps your problem is time. Woven into not having time is the concept that you deserve to have time. Yes, you have to feed the kids. But you can also take time for yourself. It's not selfish to feed your soul, to nurture your muse. If you make no money, if you never sell a blasted word, if you are a writer, you NEED to write. If you love someone, a child or a mate, do you not want for them a life with true meaning? Then want it for yourself. Do you realize how many people spend their lives wishing they could do what you CAN do if you allow yourself the opportunity?

End of pep talk.

The third and final writer's block is the one that cripples and maims. I speak from experience about this one for I have endured it twice. Number three blocks are to number one blocks block what a tsunami is to a rainy day in Oregon.

Let's face it. Life can be hard. You can get sick. Your children can suffer terrible heartache. Your parents can die, your demons can surface, you can go from a writer to a non-writer in a blink of an eye. Mine have both been precipitated by emotional upheavals which you can't completely avoid unless you spend your life in a coma which makes writing really hard anyway.

The first time, I went from finishing a book to full blown "I can't remember how to type," seemingly overnight. It was like being a musician and suddenly not knowing how to read music or hum a tune. It was devastating and it lasted months. Toward the end of it, I flew to Connecticut to take weekend training to teach writing as my career was OVER. When I got back, I sat down and wrote a book called THE BABY SEASON which marked a spurt of writing growth for me. I quit teaching after a month.

The second time it happened, it lasted even longer but wasn't quite as severe. I could hum a tune, I could even catch snippets of lyrics. Eventually, I could write the lyrics down but the writing was stilted, like newborn baby steps, cautious, ungainly. Two books came out of that block, MY SISTER, MYSELF and DUPLICATE DAUGHTER. It was the first time I signed a contract for two books at the same time, another growth in more ways than one as the books are different somehow, more complicated perhaps, at least to me.

It almost happened again this winter after I'd sent the last book off. Caused by illness this time, I just shut down. But this time, I didn't panic. Well, not much, anyway. This time I kind of knew it would come back if I was patient. And it did.

Three stages for something that really has a million, all as varied as the writers they have an effect on. My solemn wish is none of you ever experience any of them. But remember if you do, there are ways out 99% of the time. Be nice to yourself, ask other writers how they have coped, have faith in yourself, evict the naysayers that lurk in the deep dark dungeons of your psyche, eat chocolate…be happy.