OK, so the metaphor is kinda lame.
Not a lot of news this morning (people still mostly talking about the #*fail discussions). So I’ll talk about writer’s block.
I am sometimes guilty of scoffing at someone else’s problems, easily thinking up two or three ready solutions and wondering why they can’t just fix everything. That is, until the problem hits me and I feel it first-hand. Then I understand.
I had been scoffing at the concept of writer’s block. If you’re a writer, then you can write something. Anything. If you’re overthinking it, stop. If you don’t know what to write next in your story, switch scenes, switch stories, write a blog post. Outline the chapter. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Allow yourself to suck. Etc. Get the machine moving and you can get the work done.
I also find that I am much less likely to be blocked when I have a deadline. (Although I know that doesn’t work for everyone, as was proven during a rather train wreck of an RPG book I coauthored several years ago. I delivered on time. My co-author hit a wall and didn’t write word one.)
I never run out of ideas. I’ve lamented with my friend Ursula about how we have too many, how we don’t have time to follow them all up, and how they just bug us as we’re working on other things.
And yet. I wasn’t feeling my best this past Sunday night. I knew I wanted to get back into wordcount, so I opened up War. I had outlined the chapter. I knew what was going to happen next. And yet I couldn’t write. Chalk it up to exhaustion or writer’s block, but the words wouldn’t come.
Yesterday I opened the same file and sweated out 600 words before I had to do some errands. I’m not sure they’re good words, but it’s easy to edit bad words than no words.
I know where I’m going. I’ve outlined. The path looks clear. And yet the effort to get every paragraph down feels monumental and exhausting. Is this writer’s block? I have no idea. But I do sympathize better now with people who suffer it. And, as always, what I need to do is take my own damn advice. Change scenes. Write something else. Just move on and allow it to suck.
And keep writing.
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It’s not something I’ve had a problem with until last week when I hit a similarly blank spot on the writing highway. Ground to a halt. I tried starting work on a couple of different projects when the main one refused to co-operate, but it wasn’t happening.
I ended up outlining another couple of chapters further down the line instead, so at least I managed to do something productive. I guess the trick is always have something on the back-burner to fall back on.
[...] I have found a wonderful graphic progress meter at Writertopia (http://www.writertopia.com/toolbox/meters), thanks to Mur Lafferty, http://isbw.murlafferty.com/2009/04/07/writing-1000-words-with-someone-elses-pen/ [...]