Questions for the community: wrtier's block - what is it, who gets it, and what do we do to overcome it?
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In mid-edit of my novel, I found I was writing myself into a corner and couldn't seem to work my way out. I stopped, put it off, went away for a few days, came back. The only thing to do was to allow the characters to tell me where they wanted to go. I sat down and started to write, and the block vanished.
The chances are that a block occurs because you are in the wrong place - so move a little further up the manuscript and start from there. It's like the old joke: a gentleman walks up to a lady and asks for directions to the post office.
'The post office?' She shakes her head. 'Well, I wouldn't start from here.'
I find the ambient works of Matthew Florienz about the only thing that works when I'm writing or studying. It also helps to block out background noise. I like Helen's idea of not mentioning the block that dare not speak it's name!
Where can this thread go now? Lava lamps anybody? :-)
In mid-edit of my novel, I found I was writing myself into a corner and couldn't seem to work my way out. I stopped, put it off, went away for a few days, came back. The only thing to do was to allow the characters to tell me where they wanted to go. I sat down and started to write, and the block vanished.
The chances are that a block occurs because you are in the wrong place - so move a little further up the manuscript and start from there. It's like the old joke: a gentleman walks up to a lady and asks for directions to the post office.
'The post office?' She shakes her head. 'Well, I wouldn't start from here.'
Simple!
I find the ambient works of Matthew Florienz about the only thing that works when I'm writing or studying. It also helps to block out background noise. I like Helen's idea of not mentioning the block that dare not speak it's name!
Where can this thread go now? Lava lamps anybody? :-)
I can pretty much only write in silence, too. When that doesn't work, I might use:
1. Coffitivity (http://www.coffitivity.com/)
2. Noisli (http://www.noisli.com/).
If you're a writer and you don't know about these, you have to check them out!