A List of How Writer's Block Will Eventually Find You
Your favorite author puts more of themselves into their work than you know... and is at least partially made of paper.
I knew it would happen sooner or later, but nothing can prepare you when it strikes. Writers probably already know what I'm about to say since this debilitating process come after any of us in whatever genre we write in: writer’s block.
Luckily, my ideas are flowing freely for my novel series; fingers crossed it stays that way. My problem lies in creating new blog ideas. Every five days or so I have the task of making a new and interesting add on to my blog, which is becoming more difficult as time goes on.
Sure I can talk about my life, but being a mom of two in a stable marriage has been covered by many blog post in every way possible. And to be honest, sometimes I like keeping my life private and all to myself.
There are those “helpful hints” blog entries that writers love to write, and I must confess I love to read, but with me being new to this process, I feel I should take a little more time figuring it out before I call myself giving out advice.
So that leaves my interest, thoughts, likes, and dislikes. I have no problem talking about them for the most part, but again, some of those thoughts are private.
Indeed.
Anyway, that leads me up to this morning and my search for a new topic to share. I came up with a big fat nothing, so in true “me” fashion, I started to research writer’s block and how to get around it. Apparently there are ten different types of writer’s block. After reading all ten different ways my brain will find to hate my creative process, I was ready to trade my coffee in for a glass of wine.
However, I deemed nine in the morning too early. So instead I decided to share all of the horrifying ways writer’s brains stall under a deadline.
The first thing I learned was that writer’s block wasn't all that bad if you found a way to pick it apart and tackle each problem separately. When I came across this, the first thing I thought was that sounds a lot like how we're supposed to tackle life's other issues. Who knew the process could be so versatile. Anywho, here are the top ten brain blockages to writing.
1. Not being able to come up with an idea.
As I said earlier, this is my issue with my blog for the moment. So I paid close attention to how to remedy the issue. I’ll come back to this a little later though.
2. Ideas are bountiful, but the writer is finding it hard to commit to any of them.
I've never had this issue, but I can't imagine having the beginnings of so many amazing ideas and then: crickets, nothing.
3. The outline is fleshed out but one part of the idea is stuck on stupid.
I actually had this happen to me once before and I combated the issue by picking the minds of others. It helps to have someone close to you throw out ideas to fix the glitch you’re having, but make sure they have a tough hide just in case you decide to go in a direction other than the one they suggested.
4. You're stuck in the middle and have no idea what happens next.
This reminds me of every island survival movie I’ve ever watched; stuck in the middle of nowhere with no idea how to get to where you want to be. Maybe it would help to make a friend to talk to like Wilson to see you through. Hey, it’s just an idea.
It worked for Tom Hanks.
5. Your story took a wrong turn a long ways back, and you only just hit a dead end.
This would be my worst nightmare. All I could even stomach doing at first is taking a break and coming back to it later to see if anything had changed with the writer's block. Eventually I would start fresh from where the story fell apart if needed. However, my husband would have to explain to my children why mommy was on the ground kicking and screaming like a toddler.
6. You're bored with all these characters that you’ve created.
Again, this didn’t cause me a block in my writing, but I have had this happen to me. I defused the bore-fest bomb by writing in a few exciting personality points for my characters into the overall story. It does take some back tracking and fact checking to make sure you didn’t contradict anything else in your story, but it’s well worth it; at least it has been for me so far.
7. You're paralyzed by all the ways people are going to hate your story.
As my husband always tells me, haters are going to hate. I’m not saying that what I have to write is going to be world changing, and it will be flawed as we all are, but at least the story in my head gets told. So a certain amount of self-esteem is needed to be a writer. Great, now I’m sounding like a public service announcement for therapy. Don’t mind my jokes I think we can all use a little time talking out our issue on someone’s couch. The last three blocks are:
8. Can't think of the right words for what you're trying to convey.
9. A cool idea for a story turns to mush after it’s on paper.
10. You finish your book and while revising your work, some of the blocks noted above come back to haunt you.
Now you can see why my earlier thoughts of wine therapy seemed like a good idea. There are so many ways the creative process can catch you up and have you throwing tantrums. There is a lot of good advice out there to fix your writing woes. Like anything else some things will work for some and not others. The main thing I learned from this is keep at it and something always works itself out. Also, never be afraid of change, even if it’s hard.
Now I can go back to the number one issue on my list and my initial problem of writer’s block, affecting my blog. I finally overcame the problem for today, hence a blog entry about writer’s block! So now the clock has been reset for another five days or so to come up with another interesting topic. Hopefully it will float in on a cloud and foster many other ideas to write from (fingers still crossed from earlier).
