Writer’s Block: A Pep Talk or Something

Writer’s block hits me on a pretty regular basis. I think it hits every creative person on a regular basis—including my father, the artist (it’s an old blog, but here it is), and even my crafty aunt who makes curtains and handbags.

Whether I’m in the middle of a project or trying to figure out how to get started on a project, I often find myself hating what I’ve written, unsure of what to write next, how to start, if I want to finish the project at all, etc.

At times, I’m my own worst enemy. I have this dream of writing professionally, of being able to contribute to the family income. I don’t need to be the next Nora Roberts or E.L. James; I’d just love to be able to make some extra cash doing what I love. As a result, my writing isn’t just for me anymore. It’s for the world. Business has to take a role as well as the pure love and art of writing, and that’s what tends to make the process so frustrating.

The majority of what I write is contemporary romance. I also have an interest in sci-fi and fantasy. I’m writing something I think may end up being general fiction, a la Nicholas Sparks or Jodi Picoult. I’ve been working on it for two years. Why is it taking so long?

Quite honestly, I don’t let myself focus on that story. I don’t let myself write down ideas other than romance because I have a pen name and potential career in romance.

I need to be thinking about and writing romance. Constantly.

That’s the business side of it. I have to write and produce, gain and hold a readership. I’m not going to do that if I switch up genres, and I’m not going to do that if I write one romance novel per year because I’m writing in other genres the rest of the year.

At the same time, I can’t keep staring at the screen and writing nothing because I’m not in the mood to write romance, but I should be in the mood to write romance.

I don’t resent the genre or writing in the genre. I love romance. Every single thing I have written, save a few select short stories, has contained strong elements of romance—even the sci-fi and fantasy stories. I’m sure everything I will ever write will contain elements of romance.

But they certainly can’t be called contemporary romance, and that’s the path I’ve chosen.

However, I think I’ve figured out a compromise.

A friend of mine from the Twitterverse, Jessica Lemmon aka @lemmony,  shared this quote with me:

“One reason that people have artist’s block is that they do not respect the law of dormancy in nature. Trees don’t produce fruit all year long, constantly. They have a point where they go dormant. And when you are in a dormant period creatively, if you can arrange your life to do the technical tasks that don’t take creativity, you are essentially preparing for the spring when it will all blossom again.” -Marshall  Vandruff

I’ve found that when I’m in the mood to write romance, I’m in the mood to write romance. I finished a novel and two short stories in the last six months. I also started a few other projects.

But when I’m not in the mood to write romance, I need to accept that and let myself write sci-fi, fantasy, general fiction, poetry, or nothing at all. I need to accept it and let myself read, watch TV, or play a video game until the urge returns because it will.

I don’t know about other writers or creative minds, but I have this constant fear in the back of my mind that my creativity has an expiration date. With every bout of writer’s block, I worry I’ll never recover.

But it truly is a cycle, just like Vandruff says.

So, in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions, mine is to give myself a break, to let myself write because I love to write once in a while instead of always writing because I’m chasing that dream. I love the dream. I love seeing myself get closer to that dream.

But sometimes it’s exhausting.

Sometimes I need a break.

And that’s okay.