The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: writer’s block

  • Writer’s Block-head

    There are two kinds of writer’s block that I know of, both with the same root. In one, I don’t know enough about my subject to be able to write coherently about it. In the other, I don’t want to write about my subject. The commonality is that I need to do more thinking before I start writing.

    For the first, I’ll start with pad and pencil, and begin free writing everything I know about my subject. What is the story I’m trying to tell? Where are the data gaps? Can I explain around the gaps or do I need to do more research? Does the logic flow smoothly from data to conclusion? If not, do I need to gather more or different data, or do I need to change my conclusion? Do I have the proper references for each fact I assert? My ignorance, once properly documented, is turned into a To Do list of questions to answer, niggling details to attend to, T’s to dot, and I’s to cross.

    If I’m just having a hard time sitting down to work on a piece, it’s often because the back of my brain, which is much smarter than the rest of me, hasn’t quite finished hatching the egg. I can push-start the process by writing the parts that I do know. Physical motion, such as taking a walk to get the blood pumped out of my ass and back into my brain, often helps to grease the cognitive cogs. I will stalk around, muttering darkly, explaining my thesis to myself as though I am a particularly stupid child. Once I am heartily sick of that, I can usually sit down and it’s as easy as taking dictation from myself.

  • Writer’s Block Is a Choice

    It seems like there’s two brands of writer’s block: there’s “My muse has not graced me with her presence,” and there’s, “I have no ideas.” Maybe there are more, but we’re going to focus on these two.

    The short version is: I think both are a bit BS.

    I can understand factors in every day life that take up mental energy. Sometimes my space is cluttered and dirty, and I can’t focus. I can understand being busy and distracted.1 I can understand needing a break from the process. I can even understand staring at a story and being like, “This story is impossible. I need to work on something else today.”

    The choice not to write is valid; you can decide today is a day that you need to preserve your energy for other tasks, or spend time with your family. But to then say, “Oh, I would write today, but you know — writer’s block,” is bullshit. It’s an excuse that you’re painting as a reason.

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  • It’s Never Just Writer’s Block

    In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the classic meandering semi-fictional work from the 60s, narrator-author Robert Persig tells a student suffering from writer’s block to start writing about one brick in one building on her town’s main street.  The student comes back to him transfixed, with pages and pages of writing about that brick, and the next, and then the whole building and whole downtown and EVERYTHING, and the curse was lifted!  She was no longer blocked and could write ecstatically.

    Alas, if only writer’s block was really that easy to overcome. The question this week asks if there’s such a thing as “writer’s block,” and I suppose my answer to that is “no.”  I don’t believe there’s an actual psychological condition that hinders a previously productive writer from working.  It’s something of an excuse, something of a myth–you can always write about that first brick, right?

    Except when you can’t.  And at those times,”writer’s block” is a convenient shorthand for whatever is wrong. Depression, for one, cripples creativity and pretty much everything else too.  It certainly blocks writing for some people (and usually for me). I know many great writers managed to keep going through depression–indeed, rumor has it that Shirley Jackson, among others, actually wrote herself out of depression–and I admire this feat, but that’s not how it usually works for me.  Depression accompanies self-doubt, this suspicion that my words and ideas are worthless and don’t even deserve the data space on my computer.

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  • Knock ’em over

    Does writer’s block exist? Yes, absolutely.

    Can it be defeated? Again, absolutely.

    As a Municipal Liaison for NaNoWriMo, I often act as coach for fellow writers that are struggling to keep up the minimum pace necessary to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Sometimes they’re just moving slowly, but other times they’re not moving at all. And some of them are moving backwards. Over the years I’ve gleaned lots of interesting tricks to break through writer’s block, whether it’s the morass of slow writing or the whiplash snap of a complete block, doesn’t matter: I gots tricks.

     

    One of the best tricks I’ve ever learned was shared with me by Dave deHetre. His answer to writing, not just during NaNo, but during the entire creative process, is to promise yourself to commit to writing 500 words every day. 500 words is an arbitrary number, but it’s a good one. It’s more than just a paragraph or two, but not necessarily an entire scene or a complete chapter. 500 words can be written in 10-30 minutes by most writers, depending on how smoothly and effortlessly the words are flowing. And 500 words can often serve to break through the logjam of writer’s block, and lead to many more words to follow, and at a much greater pace. (more…)

  • Fisticuffs at Dawn! The Writer’s Block Duel

    One of these girls believes in writer’s block. The other does not.

    I think it’s hilarious that the existence or non-existence of writer’s block gets people’s panties in such a tight little bunch.

    Unlike a lot of people, my feelings about it are lukewarm, maybe tinged with amusement.

    Is there a magical curse that blocks the flow of a writer’s creative source, sucking him dry and preventing him from writing anything but total and utter crap? No. Of course not. But writers are a superstitious lot. We have to be. Making stuff up is what we do.

    But.

    There are always going to be days when we pull out every single word onto the page like a fishhook that’s been embedded deep in the skin. It’s not always manic rivers of prose flowing from lightning-charged fingertips. (more…)

  • The Semantics of Writer’s Block

    I’m sure even non-writers are familiar with the phrase “writer’s block” and understand it to mean a point where a writer finds it absolutely impossible to finish writing whatever he or she is currently working on.

    I know that a lot of people, many writers included, would argue that writer’s block is just a myth.

    Let me tell you, folks, that regardless of what my fellow Confabulators might say this week – all of their explaining away of the phrase – writer’s block is, in fact, a real thing.

    I do need to qualify that statement, however. Some writers are lazy, or pretend to be too busy, or just can’t be bothered with the actual act of writing. Even some serious writers (myself included) will use writer’s block as an excuse to avoid working on a project that needs attention because we don’t want to work.

    That is not writer’s block. That’s something else. (more…)

  • We’re All Blockheads

    Lucy yelling "You Blockhead!"
    Lucy Van Pelt from “Peanuts.” © Peanuts Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

    Every writer can tell you a story about having writer’s block at one time or another. It happens. It’s part of human nature. Just like not doing the dishes or forgetting to get the oil changed on the car.

    We’re procrastinators, and we like to put things off. That includes writing.

    Now, some writers might say that they never intend to get writer’s block. I’m sure that’s true. I also never intend to whack my elbow into the countertop when I’m in the kitchen. But I also know the kitchen didn’t rearrange itself to cause my accident. It was my fault. If I had planned better, it wouldn’t have happened.

    The secret of writer’s block is that there’s no such thing as writer’s block.

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  • Lost and Found: Navigating Your Way Back to the Story

    Here’s what we do as writers. When we’re asked to write these blogs, about whatever the subject may be, we tell you what works for us.

    We are not experts or authorities on some long-decided rule of law. We’re people with lots of opinions and varying levels of experience, and that’s about it. So when we’re asked to comment on whether or not writer’s block is a real thing, the only honest answer is we don’t know.

    There are a lot of people out there who have no problem telling you writer’s block is a myth. Writer’s write, after all, and if you aren’t doing that, well . . . you’re not much a writer then.  So stop making excuses already.

    I’ve read a lot of posts like that, some of them by authors I admire. But here’s where I part ways with that line of thinking.  If our minds can totally screw with us in every other aspect of our lives, why is it hard to believe it could prevent us from writing? What is so special about the written word that it is somehow inoculated against mental blockades?

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  • Punch the Boogeyman in the Throat

    “One reason I don’t suffer from writer’s block is that I don’t wait on the muse, I summon it at need.” – Piers Anthony

    I know some people will hate me for saying this, but there is no such thing as writer’s block.

    Writer’s block is built on shaky self-confidence and not much else. It’s like being afraid of the boogeyman. We can all relate, but there is nothing there. Get out of bed and if something grabs you, punch it in the throat. It’s probably your significant other. That will teach them.

    Chances are, you can think of something to write. You just can’t convince yourself that it is going to be worth a crap. Then it snowballs. You become convinced your ideas suck. Then you start thinking that your writing sucks. Next, you are questioning whether you are really meant to be a writer, at all.

    Just…stop.

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  • We Live On the Same Block (Week Ending July 7)

    You know how some guys don’t like to talk about a certain “condition” because they’re afraid it will happen to them? Because they’re afraid they’ll have to start taking those little blue pills advertised so prominently on late night television? Well there’s a condition — an equally performance-inhibiting affliction — that affects writers. It’s called writer’s block.

    Here at the Cafe, however, we’re not afraid to talk about it. In fact, when we posed the question to our writers, they all jumped at the chance to put in their two cents on this often overlooked scourge. Some think it’s real. Some think it’s all in your head. But all of our Cafe regulars have some wise words for aspiring writers facing this problem.

    Until next time,

    The Cafe Management