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What's the longest amount of time you've had writer's block?
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Laura
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Oct 14, 2014 03:51PM
I've haven't been able to write ANYTHING in almost 8 months? Anyone else ever had this problem? What can I do to get started writing again??
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I have writers block and always will. It's getting around it, and there are tricks. My teacher Walter Abish called it "entering the text." You start the paragraph with a trick:
1) Dear Bill - let me tell you a little bit about something I saw yesterday.
2) Here is an introduction to a rug in the middle of the room.
So you have your first line, which is the hardest part, and then you let it take off. And you delete the first line (or the first paragraph, about that rug) when you're done.
Or you start by writing a chapter of your memoir, and switch to your novel, and before you know what's happened, you've written a chapter.
It's a question of tricking your brain. You had no problem writing that email, for example. So you're able to write.
Never looked at it that way :) sometimes I know what I want to say just can't get it down, I just stare at the page until I give up. I'll have to try that.
I'm not a big believer of writers block. There are times when I don't feel like writing and what I do in those cases is just set an alarm for five minutes and just write. If you tell yourself it is just for five minutes then it is easier to get started. Like Steven it does not matter what you write, just let the words flow and if you don't know what to write describe your day. I have always found once I've started that it is hard to stop and as the alarm goes off I am back in the flow and the words just come.
If your writing a novel, another thing I try is just writing random sentences out of order. So for example if I have something that I know is going to happen later in the book, I write it whenever I think of it and just put something like chapter 9 above it. So my last two novels written that way, completely out of order. This is a trick we can use to overcome writers block in the era of wordprocessing. It wouldn't have worked back when people wrote with a pen, or the typewriter.
Alright! I'm trying both your suggestions, I'll let you know what happens.
I'm with Caroline - just write something. I've found that the hard part is getting started. If you can sit yourself down and make a grocery list or just about anything - you're back in the saddle. Just write something - anything.
Sometimes if I have a block in my writing, It usually last a couple of hours. listening to music and day dreaming helps me. By using day dreaming,I actually imagine the scenes that I want to write about.By the end of the day I would have some idea on the direction I want the story to flow. I am not a professional writer, I never attended school for it. But this is the method that works for me.
Thankfully I don't experience writer's block often. But I do get stuck on "where to go next." I find revisiting the scene in a book - the one you really, really wanted to write and have people read - is the best way to regain your mojo. Returning to what made you passionate about the story in the first place is the one trick that unblocks the logjam in my mind. Happy writing!
I have yet to experience writer's block. I don't outline anything. I have a good idea where I want my story to go. Then I write incrementally. I know character A needs to get to a certain point and I write from A to B, B to C and so on. Certainly the story deviates from my original intent which is why I think I don't get blocked. I can't imagine ever experiencing writer's block. If I write my way into a corner, I just write my way out or cut that piece out. Best of luck to all writers out there. The trick is to write every single day of your life. Even one sentence. Even if you don't want to. I can't tell you how many times I didn't want to and three hours later, I'm still writing.
Writers block is simply inspiration in disguise
Kieran wrote: "Writers block is simply inspiration in disguise"I like that. Perhaps it's inspiring you to write something else?
The longest for me was over two years. At the time I was dealing with some terrible and heavy family issues, and in a lot of pain. Looking back, it makes sense to me that I could not write. I'm glad that I had enough wisdom to stay away from my fiction, especially my novel. But I didn't stay away from reading. I read voraciously, and I miss that time because of it.
C.C. It's good to hear that you kept reading. That is one of my faults. When I write, I don't read. I don't have writer's block but I have gone through periods of not writing. That was a choice for reasons similar to your own. I don't call that writer's block at all. I could have written but chose not to. Would the pain have added something different to my writing? I'll never know. Now, I write at least a sentence a day and go on writing binges where that's all I do. That is where I am at the moment...constantly writing.
Thank you all for your feed back! It helps.
Laura wrote: "I've haven't been able to write ANYTHING in almost 8 months? Anyone else ever had this problem? What can I do to get started writing again??"collaboration has helped me in the past; in fact just talking through some ideas has been really helpful for energising various projects.
I also used poetry to bridge gaping holes in my bridges between projects - both reading it and writing it - especially writing it because it can be so free and without structure or boundaries that I then realised that it was just those things - the enforement of structure and boundary - which were hamstringing me on the projects which were going nowhere.
Read John Donne's The Dream ...
Alp wrote: "Laura wrote: "I've haven't been able to write ANYTHING in almost 8 months? Anyone else ever had this problem? What can I do to get started writing again??"collaboration has helped me in the past;..."
Thank you! I'll check it out.
Why are you blocked? You haven't offered much by way of explanation. How many works do you have going? What have you tried? How do you feel about the current story? What is going on in your life? How do you feel about writing in general? Why do you write? Where do you draw your inspiration? Are you a plotter or a pantster? What is going on in your book right now and where do you want to go? What is the block?I can't go more than a day without writing. If I'm having problems with a particular work, I might switch to another work in progress, do some editing on something else, outline where I want the work to go, write some backstory, journal about what is going on and the difficulty that I am experiencing, do some research, break down the story, backtrack/delete the last scene, skip ahead and write a later scene, work on character sketches and motivations, read back earlier in the story, think about the paradigm shift, what I want to communicate to the reader, etc.
But what I do depends greatly on where/how/why I am having trouble. I don't consider myself 'blocked', just at a decision point. I may have made a wrong turn or lost the thread, or may need to change direction or make a leap in order to go forward. So many possibilities!
I used to write and draw comic books as a kid. Loved short storys in school (Though mine still ended up between ten and twenty pages,lol) and I have obviously written as an adult. Honestly? I've never had writers block. Maybe I'm just a motormouth with too much to say (or write in this case) but.....writer's block is something I always fear.
The worst case of block I've had in adult life had to be for seven months in 2013 - 2014. I'd had the year from hell, which really impacted on my confidence and made me believe I couldn't write. I kept picking up my pen and everything I wrote looked like total rubbish. It wasn't until late spring this year that the block was removed.If my experience is anything to go by, block isn't caused by a lack of inspiration so much as as your emotional state. I was deeply unhappy, and since my current story is a love story, I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind for it. I also believe that as a self published author, the expectations are different - you read about all these authors who have published ten books, and if you haven't produced that many, you wonder what's wrong with you. Once you realise that everyone works at their own pace, you stop feeling like you're stuck or somehow letting the side down.
The opposite can be true too. Some authors/artists are most creative when they are depressed, drawing on inner conflict, so they can dry up when things are going too well for them! In either case, I would recommend journaling to help deal with the inner stuff and keep you writing. Or hop genres; romance when you are happy, horror when you are depressed...
P.D. wrote: "The opposite can be true too. Some authors/artists are most creative when they are depressed, drawing on inner conflict, so they can dry up when things are going too well for them! In either case..."
I agree! I also wanted to let everyone know I am writing again. Well writing/editing on something I started a while back. But I'm happy to finally be doing SOMETHING. Thanks everyone for the feed back.
Writer's block is a myth. Pick up a pen. And write. It's not like you've been tasked with irrigating the Sahara or some such. Writing is not hard. If ideas aren't coming, that's different, and nothing that a decent walk and a think won't solve.
To me, writer's block means there are no new words, and that can be real. I have writing exercises that I do to encourage myself while still moving forward. Rewrites, correction of punctuation on existing works helps a lot and keeps the "pen" upon "paper". ( I wrote more about this in an Ask the Author response.)
Hi allIt's the most beautiful that occurs to me, is to record every new idea, I read the idea each time in a new way because my linear is not beautiful ...............
I start to write several books ... slowly. But the idea is important not to get lost ...
So I always write ...
( English is not my native language)
I m Rima Al khany writer
I never have writer's block. I just write, even if it sounds awful. Editing is writing, after all!
Bethany - that is a long block! I've never gone 17 years without writing!
The Human sensitive, will see many things in a distinctive actually worth writing ...
Bethany wrote: "The first 17 years of my life!"Wow!
Three months - then I get that "aha!" moment at about three in the morning (seriously, I do) and I write. Most of the time the inability to write is caused by other pressures in life. When I can't write new work, I edit. The 3 month thing comes and goes.
I actually get it every day. I have to sit down and force myself to start writing. After a few minutes, I start thinking of some stuff that would fit in my story and then I'm off to the races.
Two years! Well I guess it was more that I got to halfway through 'What Laura Saw', and just didn't like where it was heading. I had a problem in that I knew the plot, but it was essential that the whole book never shifted from Laura's POV. As the plot was quite twisty, it gave me a huge technical problem being unable to use another POV or omnipresence. So I gave up... for two years. Then I decided to publish my first book, 'Gods Inc', and I got the writing bug again. I haven't stopped since and am now writing my third book, 'The Mistake'.
I hardly thought writer's block existed until it happened to me.My hubby went into the hospital with e-coli for about 4 months, and it took months longer for him to recover as completely as he could. So I found it hard to write for about three years. Nevertheless, I did write in my journal. The online writers' group to which I belong helped me struggle through the writer's block, although they didn't know I was afflicted. Gradually I worked my back into the passion.
Nowadays, the problem is trying to balance writing with promoting. I'm now working on Water Pearl, a fantasy, and have other novels waiting to be finished.
