Winston Smallwood
The first thing I do is I sit on the couch and pretend to watch whatever nonsense is on television while I tell myself I'm worthless and I'll never accomplish my goals and I'm kidding myself thinking I could ever write. Once I've done that for a little while, I walk around the house and look at all the stuff I've neglected to maintain. I think for a short moment about doing something productive about that, but then I continue to make myself feel bad as I go to the pantry to find something to snack on. But there's nothing there, of course, because I'm broke, because I'm a writer...
Look, I'm going to explain this whole Writer's Block thing for you real quick:
1. It's a real thing. It happens.
2. It's an emotional thing, and emotions can change with effective thinking.
3. You ever had a crappy job? You know that feeling you would get every time you had to be at work? You would tell yourself, "Man... I really don't want to go to work. today" <-- That. That right there is Writer's Block.
Look, here's what a crappy job is:
It's when you do something that's taxing on your patience and mind, and there is no resolution in sight, and nothing you do is ever good enough. You typically get paid a crappy wage, you can't afford to do anything but work the crappy job, it's like you make just enough money to buy gas to make it to work to make the money necessary to make it to work, and it just keeps going and going and it never ends. Your work is never complete. You can't figure on a way out. And it just sucks.
That's Writer's Block. All right? It's the best I can explain it.
How does it happen? How is being a writer a crappy job?
Good question. Here's how:
It happens because there is a problem in the story, and you don't have a solution. That's it. It's really that simple.
You've spent so much time already thinking about the story and the characters and you've put in so much effort, and it's like the problems never go away. Constantly, it's one thing after another, and you don't want to do the work, because you know it's just going to lead to another problem--because it always does.
And then, some successful writer says, "No, no. I don't have any problems with Writer's Block. I just do this one thing no one can realistically, obviously do because it's super-human, and I just power through it like it's nothing because I'm more awesome than you." And it makes you feel like a total amateur and a loser and so forth and so on.
And you're tired--you just want it to be done. And your life is a mess, and you're miserable. You're not making money, but you're a slave to the craft and no one cares about your problems and your Mom and Dad didn't love you that one time when you were 12, and it all just snow balls and it sucks.
Writer's Block is when writing is no longer an awesome career but a terrible, crappy job. And it happens because you don't see a resolution to a problem, because you don't even know what the problem is.
How do you beat it?
Write about the problem.
Stop writing the story. Go to another Word document or write it in an email to whomever or wherever or however you write. Write about the problem. Write it. Write about the problem. Go into very fine detail. It doesn't matter if your writing sucks. Explain the problem very carefully. If you don't know what the problem is, write the scene over and over and over until you see it. Work your frustration out. Write the problem.
"I just don't know what I'm going to do. The character does this thing, and he's supposed to be in love, but I just can't believe he would be after what she did. I mean if you think back to this other scene, this moment between them happened. And then she did what she did, and he found out about it. And now he's supposed to be in love? Why? How? And..." <-- Do that. Whatever it is you want to call it. Do that to your story/scene/whatever it is that is the problem.
Writing is your art. Your art isn't always about building the product. Sometimes it's about relieving stress.
Every single time I had Writer's Block, it was because there was something I wasn't happy with. There was a process. Something bothered me. Something deep, deep down bothered me about the story, and I didn't know what to do or how to fix it. I didn't even know what the actual problem was.
What did I do? I wrote to my Editor/my Writing Buddy, and I dumped all my concerns onto them. We're talking walls of text, here. My Editor and I had an understanding. He knew I just had to go through this thing, and I never expected him to read any of it.
What would happen, is whatever nonsense I was worried about, I would exercise all of that out in my written rant. And I would just move on. Eventually, the solution would present itself, usually in some later scene or something, and I would instantly know how to fix everything.
Write the problem.
Look, I'm going to explain this whole Writer's Block thing for you real quick:
1. It's a real thing. It happens.
2. It's an emotional thing, and emotions can change with effective thinking.
3. You ever had a crappy job? You know that feeling you would get every time you had to be at work? You would tell yourself, "Man... I really don't want to go to work. today" <-- That. That right there is Writer's Block.
Look, here's what a crappy job is:
It's when you do something that's taxing on your patience and mind, and there is no resolution in sight, and nothing you do is ever good enough. You typically get paid a crappy wage, you can't afford to do anything but work the crappy job, it's like you make just enough money to buy gas to make it to work to make the money necessary to make it to work, and it just keeps going and going and it never ends. Your work is never complete. You can't figure on a way out. And it just sucks.
That's Writer's Block. All right? It's the best I can explain it.
How does it happen? How is being a writer a crappy job?
Good question. Here's how:
It happens because there is a problem in the story, and you don't have a solution. That's it. It's really that simple.
You've spent so much time already thinking about the story and the characters and you've put in so much effort, and it's like the problems never go away. Constantly, it's one thing after another, and you don't want to do the work, because you know it's just going to lead to another problem--because it always does.
And then, some successful writer says, "No, no. I don't have any problems with Writer's Block. I just do this one thing no one can realistically, obviously do because it's super-human, and I just power through it like it's nothing because I'm more awesome than you." And it makes you feel like a total amateur and a loser and so forth and so on.
And you're tired--you just want it to be done. And your life is a mess, and you're miserable. You're not making money, but you're a slave to the craft and no one cares about your problems and your Mom and Dad didn't love you that one time when you were 12, and it all just snow balls and it sucks.
Writer's Block is when writing is no longer an awesome career but a terrible, crappy job. And it happens because you don't see a resolution to a problem, because you don't even know what the problem is.
How do you beat it?
Write about the problem.
Stop writing the story. Go to another Word document or write it in an email to whomever or wherever or however you write. Write about the problem. Write it. Write about the problem. Go into very fine detail. It doesn't matter if your writing sucks. Explain the problem very carefully. If you don't know what the problem is, write the scene over and over and over until you see it. Work your frustration out. Write the problem.
"I just don't know what I'm going to do. The character does this thing, and he's supposed to be in love, but I just can't believe he would be after what she did. I mean if you think back to this other scene, this moment between them happened. And then she did what she did, and he found out about it. And now he's supposed to be in love? Why? How? And..." <-- Do that. Whatever it is you want to call it. Do that to your story/scene/whatever it is that is the problem.
Writing is your art. Your art isn't always about building the product. Sometimes it's about relieving stress.
Every single time I had Writer's Block, it was because there was something I wasn't happy with. There was a process. Something bothered me. Something deep, deep down bothered me about the story, and I didn't know what to do or how to fix it. I didn't even know what the actual problem was.
What did I do? I wrote to my Editor/my Writing Buddy, and I dumped all my concerns onto them. We're talking walls of text, here. My Editor and I had an understanding. He knew I just had to go through this thing, and I never expected him to read any of it.
What would happen, is whatever nonsense I was worried about, I would exercise all of that out in my written rant. And I would just move on. Eventually, the solution would present itself, usually in some later scene or something, and I would instantly know how to fix everything.
Write the problem.
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