Posts Tagged ‘writer’s block’

Four More Reasons Today Is A Good Day To Write

Posted: February 27, 2013 in inspiration, writing
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Show me your war face.

1. You’re sick. I feel you. Hard to get up to motivation when it feels like your own body is a battleground between the White Blood Cell Army and the Invading Green Goblin Hordes. No sleep, no energy, no anything.
There is nothing I hate more than being sick. I’d rather be injured, because at least then I usually did it to myself and learned something from it.* Being sick is like having time stolen from me. If I could find the thief, I would cheerfully crush their skull beneath my boot. If I had the fucking energy.
But as long as you’re stuck sitting around anyway, you might as well do something more productive that build used-tissue temples to the God of Daytime Television. Fuck, you might even have a day off work for this. Use it.
And, as an added bonus, nothing makes me feel better when I’m sick that ruining a fictional character’s life. Channel the hate, lads and ladies. Get something useful out of it.

2. You’re tired. Aren’t we all. Two pieces of advice: One, take care of your body by feeding, resting, and exercising it properly instead of acting like a coke-addled eighties club rat. And, two, suck it up, you mewling twit. The world does not wait for you. You’re tired? Fine. Be tired. Get shit done anyway. Or own up to your excuse and stop pretending it’s anything else.

3. You’re having a bad day. Trust me when I say I speak from experience on this: the worst thing you can do for a bad day is nothing. Indulging in bad habits and laziness is easiest when we’re at our lowest, but it only makes things worse. So make the effort. Drag yourself to that keyboard and do something. Even if you just write out why you’re having such a shitty fucking day. Or, an exercise I find myself using, write about one good thing about that day. Just one. It can be that you managed to put your panties on the right way around on the first try.** Anything to get you going.

4. You’re uninspired. In a magnificent, chaotic mess of a world like this? You’re not trying.

*Even if it’s only “pay attention to the sidewalk when you run”.
**Sidebar: not something I managed to do today. Harder than it looks.

Previously: Five Reasons Today Is A Good Day To Write

 

 

A Dozen Things To Do Instead of Write

Posted: November 14, 2012 in lists, writing
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Procrastination Meter

Redlining yet standing still. (Photo credit: Emilie Ogez)

…That I may or may not have done this week.

1) Clean. Because you know how you hate doing that shit at any other time. Besides, you’re wired to the gills on caffeine. Might as well used that crack-like high to do something productive. Like strip the paint from the walls.

2) Cook. Because right in the middle of a tense scene is a great time to try out that new recipe for braised short ribs. That takes five hours. And intense prep work. And a last-minute grocery run.

3) Exercise. Totally not running away from the story. Just… being healthy. Outdoors. In November. In the sleet.

4) Figure out what’s making that weird noise in the corner of the kitchen. Answer: not a monster. A very old heating pipe. Subdue disappointment and put away monster fighting gear.

5) Finish nearly all of your Xmas shopping. I can be ahead on at least one thing. Now to send them out before next year.

6) Doodle a bunch of character sketches. It’s kind of like working on the story, right?

7) Watch every Gangnam-style video made. The resulting brain haemorrhage will be a merciful death.

8) Re-watch Firefly. Because why the hell not. Also, I could watch that guy get kicked into the jet engine all fucking day.

9) Meaningless personal grooming rituals. Re-dye hair. Give self manicure. See if I can use a Sharpie to connect my freckles into something interesting. (So far: lots of triangles.)

10) Read articles on how to avoid being distracted when writing. Refuse to acknowledge the irony until it just starts to feel awkward and goes away on its own.

11) Conquer the known world. Save unknown world for next week.

12) Finally admit that you have the attention span of a three-year-old on pixie sticks. Get more coffee. Holster up the battle ovaries. Get the fuck back to work.

…I may have some catching up to do.

You Don’t Have Writer’s Block

Posted: May 11, 2012 in writing
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Writer's Block 1

This the guy you want to be? (Photo credit: OkayCityNate)

Stop saying that. You know why you don’t have it? Because it doesn’t fucking exist. You might as well say you have Chupacabra Warts. Actually, I’d rather people said that, because at least I’d get to hear the word ‘chupacabra’ more often.*

Writer’s block is a myth, perpetuated by generations of romantics and slackers. I get the draw. It’s easier to say, “I have writer’s block” than to address the actual causes of a lack of production. You can look tormented. You can put on Tragic Face™ and sigh as you stare longingly out a window.

coughcoughWANKERcough**

Sorry. Something in my throat. Let’s take a look at what might be slowing you down:

1. I don’t know what to write. Happens to the best of us. Sometimes you’re out of ideas. That’s when you hit the writer’s prompts (just Google it, you’ll find them). Or I’ll write first lines. A dozen of the fuckers. Some are crap, but occasionally I get a new story idea from them. Or, my favourite, check the submission guidelines. Anthology calls, magazine listings, journals, whatever. If there’s a deadline and the promise of cash, you’d be surprised how many ideas you come up with.

2. I don’t know what happens next in my story. Check your outline. Don’t have an outline? Ask yourself, “How can I raise the stakes?” What’s going to make your characters pull their thumbs out of their butts and act? Gunshot wound? Ominous noise in the dark? Letter from an old friend? Chupacabras at the door? Whatever. Do that. If it doesn’t work, you can always take it out later. But I’ve had great scenes come from this kind of Plot Spackle. (Good old Plot Spackle. I love that shit. I’ll do a post on this on Monday, so stay tuned.)

3. I’m waiting for my muse.  …Seriously? Go read this post, and then come back. I’ll wait.

…Done? All right. If you’re going to wait for inspiration, you’re going to have a lot of blank pages, my friend. Inspiration is great, but sooner or later you’re going to have to do without it. Those days, you just have to go out and find your muse.

4. I’m scared. Of screwing up the story. Of discovering you don’t have what it takes to write. Of being found out. In my opinion, this is the real cause of most ‘writer’s block’. Uncertainty and fear, the twin demons of a rather boring hell. Easiest way around them is to face them. Be honest with yourself about what’s holding you back. Understand that you’re scared, and that’s okay.
And then crush those bastards under your foot like a prehistoric cockroach. Feel them crunch. And wipe their splattered guts off your shoes before going back to writing. It doesn’t matter what you write at that point. It can be crap. It’s just a zero draft. Just write. Don’t let those crunchy little bastards win.

5. I don’t want to write. Then don’t. Go do something else. Surely to God your pantry needs cleaning, or your collection of stuffed goat heads needs organizing. Something. Unless you’re on a deadline, no one’s making you do this.
Or suck it up and write anyway. I often find my best work comes on days that I did not want to write. It was all in my head anyway; I just had to get it out. The only thing in my way was me.

So ask yourself: what’s in your way? And what are you going to do about it?

*If you say it a bunch of times in a row, it sounds like you’re summoning an Elder God: ChupacabrachupachabrachupacabraCHUPACABRA.

**”Wanker. Noun: one who wanks.” -Garth Ennis

Unripe Ideas

Posted: March 23, 2012 in writing
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Frozen durian fruit in a grocery store in Canada

Actually, my ideas are kind of like Durian fruit. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I mentioned before, I’m bouncing between a couple of different projects at the moment, this blog being one of them. But one thing that I don’t have on board at the moment is a Big Project. Oh, I have a short story that I’m picking at, but it’s at the bottom of the pecking order at the moment. And I have an idea file that I’m chucking all kinds of things into, including a couple of ideas that will eventually, if they live to maturity, become Big Projects. But most of my energy at the moment is going into editing something that’s already written.

And there’s nothing wrong with that: things need to be edited. But it’s unusual for me not to have a Big Project on the go, Big Project being defined as something long enough to sink my teeth and brain into (50,000 words or over). Usually I’ve either got an idea that I’m seriously working on, fleshing out and doing pre-writing research, or a novel in the manic first-draft stage.

So why don’t I have one now? I’ve got ideas, as I mentioned, in the little Running Man arena that is my idea file. Quite a few, actually. I may need to start some elimination matches to thin their numbers, lest they escape and run amok.

It’s simple: none of those ideas is ripe yet. Their time has not yet come. Oh, they’re good, some of them, and there’s a few that make me want to set a few things down and devote all my time to them. But I’ve learned the hard way that doesn’t work for me.

A while back, I had a period of about eighteen months where nothing I started turned out right. Every novel idea, every short story, every everything…they all fell stillborn from the keys. Sometimes it was late, sometimes it was early, but they all failed. Even the ones I eventually typed The End on were fundamentally broken. Lifeless and gutless, that particular run of prose will never see the light of day. I did the digital equivalent of burying them in the backyard at midnight, hiding the evidence of my failures. Or at least hoping they wouldn’t spread their problem to anything else.

And the problem was that I hadn’t waited. I’d picked those ideas too early, before they had a chance to fully mature and grow into something really fucking good. They were like those early pears you get in January up here: hard, bitter, sour, and, ultimately, something I regret eating. In extreme cases, the regret is done from the bathroom, and takes some time. But every now and then, I see them in the grocery store, all shiny and promising, and I think, What the hell. It’ll be fine. They might even taste good.

But they don’t. Same with ideas. When they’re not ripe, they don’t go anywhere for me, except the toilet. Those ideas back in the Great Blight? If I’d let them mature in the idea file, maybe get a few wins against lesser ideas, then maybe they would have had a chance when their real fight came up. But I sent them out too early and unprepared, and they choked. Or I did.

So this time, I’m waiting. Working on other things in the meantime, keeping my game sharp, putting in the time. And just waiting for one of those ideas to jump up and grab me by the throat and say, “This. This is what you need to do next. So put on some coffee, and cancel your life for the next six months. We’ve got work to do.”

And when it happens, I’ll be ready.

My Brain Is A Tricky Little Bastard

Posted: March 9, 2012 in writing
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Sometimes, when I sit down to start work on my current project, I hit these…speed bumps. I suppose you could call it a kind of writer’s block, but it’s less of a block and more of a whiny, annoying distraction.

“Hey brain,” I say, “Let’s get going on this. The characters are in the middle of something. Now, they’ve got the shotgun, five chickens, and some lime jello powder. What next?”

And my brain replies, “You know what’s awesome? The trailer for The Hobbit. Or Fark. Or the huge collection of newsfeeds you follow. We should totally take a five minute break and go check those out. Then I’ll get to work, I promise.”

But it doesn’t. Because my brain is a liar.

Of course, I used to only realize this three hours later, when I’d looked at more hilarious mug shots than  anyone should and read articles on everything from spider reproduction to solar flares. Interesting, but not terribly useful, unless I’m going to write about one of those. And then any chance of getting real writing done that day is usually well and proper fucked, because my brain is clearly not interested in what’s going on in the current project.

So lately I’ve been using a new system for getting around this mental short circuit. I got the idea from reading about Asimov and goggling at his productivity. (Seriously, does anyone besides me wonder if he was a robot?) I’ve started keeping several projects active, all of which require different things from me. For example, at the moment I…hang on, let me check my desktop….right, I have four projects open. One is a story idea I’m fleshing out and researching, adding bits to as they occur to me. One is a short story in the rough draft, vomiting-the-contents-of-my-brain-out-on-the-page stage. One is a longer fiction project that’s being edited and seriously rewritten. And one is this blog project, which I’m starting to think of as a ‘between the words’ dump. When I start to lose steam on whatever I’m working on that day, I flip over to this and start working on the next entry.

And, yeah, this makes me a bit of a project slut. But sometimes one project just doesn’t fill all my needs. I need more, man. Don’t judge me.

This way, I have something I can work on no matter what kind of brain I have that day. Creative brain? Story time. Research brain? Outlining. Analytical brain, armed with a gutting knife and a sewing needle? Editing and revising. And anything else, including whiny, can’t-think-of-anything-to-do brain? Blog.

I have to read my brain and figure out a way to make it productive, or I would waste all my time reading articles on Fark. And it doesn’t make it easy; my brain never wants the same thing two days in a row.  But I’ve got its number now. Oh yes. And it will not hide from me.

And thus do I defeat the whiny and incredibly boring demons of writer’s block. Because they are fucking lame.

Anyone else have any dirty tricks they play on their own head?

Getting Started

Posted: March 5, 2012 in writing
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Oh, the irony. I’m having trouble getting started today.

This is supposed to be a writing blog about the grind. Specifically, my grind, and the ways I get it done. The day in, day out push that comes from working at something you love, every day. Even on days you don’t want to. Especially on days you don’t want to. And, let me tell you, today I don’t want to.

Now, I could very easily blame this on a couple of nights of crap sleep. I’m getting over some kind of weird alien death cough which I think might be the precursor to an invasion (territory conquered: my lungs). Or I could go the armchair psych major route, and say it’s fear of starting something new because, like, new things are hard, y’know?

Honestly, if I worked at it even a little, I’m sure I could come up with all kinds of reasons not to write today. It’s Chore Day, and that laundry isn’t going to do itself. Oh, and I haven’t worked out yet today, so I should get on that. And wasn’t I going to clean out my desk sometime soon? Get rid of all the bent paperclips and old cell phones and half-finished drawings that are preventing the drawers from opening properly?

Funny, this is the most creative I’ve felt yet today: coming up with excuses.

Which is the point: it’s easy to come up with that shit, isn’t it? A hell of a lot easier than actually sitting down and writing. Sometimes it feels like my brain has way more excuses in it than useable words. They come out faster, too.

But that’s a quick route to nowhere. Nothing gets done that way. No bones about it: writing is work. At least, it is if you want to be any good at it. You’ve got to turn up every day, and bang those damn keys, and see what comes out.

And you know what? Sometimes it’s going to be crap. Already I suspect that this might be.

But here’s the point: if I spend all day at this laptop and produce nothing but a damp clot of barely coherent sentences, it sucks. But at least I know that I did what I could. I didn’t let the excuses win. I stared at them, and they blinked first.

At the end of the day (or, more accurately, now, at 9:43 on a Monday morning), the excuses are just that: excuses. Because I’m here, and the computer’s here, and there’s stuff to get done. So now I have a choice: walk away and spend the day avoiding it, or holster up my ovaries and get to work.

So I’m getting to work. I’m going at this tired and sick, and with more than a little trepidation. But, hey, at least I’m doing it.

Because inspiration only takes you so far. Then you’ve got to get out and push.