Courteney
asked
Melissa Marr:
Have you ever had to combat writers block, and if so any tips on how to get over it?
Melissa Marr
For starters, I suggest not thinking of it as a BLOCK, but as a part of the process. It's a matter of your brain not working as fast as your fingers. Sometimes the best stuff needs to simmer, and we need to allow for that.
My sometimes writer-partner Kelley Armstrong laughs at me for this, but my #1 recommendation for writers block (or study block or figure-out-if-I-should-take-the-job/marry/move/buy a house or car) is to go to the water. Sometimes I float, and sometimes I need submersion . . . & therefore a snorkel. (It's the snorkel part she finds funny, incidentally.)
When I bought my house, my first step was to put in a pool. BEFORE I bought it, I needed to make sure the tub was vast enough. It sounds a little silly, but it's about reaching a meditative space. For me, I need water. I wrote part of every single Wicked Lovely book at the ocean, and I wrote most of the others partly there too. I sleep with a recording of waves.
Water makes the body light, and it muffles sound. Close your eyes & sink or float. You concentrate on breathing. There are no distractions by noise or sight or touch interfering. You can clear your mind, and in that quiet, your brain will offer up the bits you need to move forward on the plot or decision.
Other strategies I've employed for this are--
1. Organize something (closet, sock drawer, spice cabinet, etc).
2. Bake for a day (this is measuring, kneading, etc)
3. Weave a blanket (I have a loom for this).
4. Exercise vigorously.
5. Re-arrange the furniture.
6. Garden
All of these are tricks that achieve the same purpose: distract me from the thinking & obsessing, clear my mind bc it's occupied with measurements and patterns, and generally the answer I need appears. It's such a part of my process that my family now assumes I have plot bunnies every time I start organizing or baking :)
My sometimes writer-partner Kelley Armstrong laughs at me for this, but my #1 recommendation for writers block (or study block or figure-out-if-I-should-take-the-job/marry/move/buy a house or car) is to go to the water. Sometimes I float, and sometimes I need submersion . . . & therefore a snorkel. (It's the snorkel part she finds funny, incidentally.)
When I bought my house, my first step was to put in a pool. BEFORE I bought it, I needed to make sure the tub was vast enough. It sounds a little silly, but it's about reaching a meditative space. For me, I need water. I wrote part of every single Wicked Lovely book at the ocean, and I wrote most of the others partly there too. I sleep with a recording of waves.
Water makes the body light, and it muffles sound. Close your eyes & sink or float. You concentrate on breathing. There are no distractions by noise or sight or touch interfering. You can clear your mind, and in that quiet, your brain will offer up the bits you need to move forward on the plot or decision.
Other strategies I've employed for this are--
1. Organize something (closet, sock drawer, spice cabinet, etc).
2. Bake for a day (this is measuring, kneading, etc)
3. Weave a blanket (I have a loom for this).
4. Exercise vigorously.
5. Re-arrange the furniture.
6. Garden
All of these are tricks that achieve the same purpose: distract me from the thinking & obsessing, clear my mind bc it's occupied with measurements and patterns, and generally the answer I need appears. It's such a part of my process that my family now assumes I have plot bunnies every time I start organizing or baking :)
More Answered Questions
Hannah
asked
Melissa Marr:
I know this random but have you ever thought about writing anything about the origins of a species of fae? Or like a story about a dryad, naiad or nymph? Not nonfiction just like a creative story like what you've done with modernizing fae and the cool story you created when you wrote Carnival of Souls/Secrets. Or thought of writing something with Holly Black since you both write about fae and changelings?
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