On writing: writer's block

[StillStunned]

We've all had it. The Big B. Lack of inspiration. The muse avoiding us like it's a muggy day and we forgot to apply deodorant. When the Plot Bunny visits, the ideas sit festering in our mind because we can't get them out.

So how do we deal with it? What is the writerly equivalent of a pint of prune juice?

Myself, I find that going for a walk once a day works. An hour with nothing to do but listen to some music and let my mind wander. Plan ahead so that when I sit down to write the outline is there. Keeping creativity and craft separate.

Another trick is to tell myself stories. Play fantasies out in my mind with no real intention of turning them into stories. Just random imaginings to refind the joy of it all.

Any other suggestions? What works, what doesn't work?

 

[millamomud]

Ask yourself what do you want to tell aand what do you need to to tell. My last block was a poker night, where the female submissive was just serving drinks. Figuring out that the game itself is irrelevant and nobody will care for the cards was liberating.

Also: drawing.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I personally find that pure stream of consciousness can be a good way to just unstick some cogs. Whatever pops into your head, you write that. Doesn't have to be a story, doesn't have to be something you're working on, hell, doesn't even have to make sense, but you just puke into the document whatever words are you in your head without any thought for judging them or plans to use them. Most of the time, it's pretty much just weird nonsense, but occasionally you'll get something useful out of it. I've had a few stories that started out as writer's block purges and they're some of my favorite works.

This is a good technique for a few reasons:
1. It keeps you writing. One of the biggest causes of writer's block is loss of momentum. One day becomes two, two becomes three, three becomes a week, and it's increasingly difficult to get back to writing because you've atrophied a little bit and started getting in your head thinking about how long it's been since last you wrote. This way, even if the writing isn't in any way productive, you're still exercising those writing muscles and can point to something tangible you spawned. Keeping up momentum is one of THE best ways to fight writer's block, so even if it's drivel, it's better than letting atrophy settle in, because it can settle in very, very fast.
2. Sometimes, what you write may seem disparate to start with, but as you write, you start to see ways to pull things together into something a bit more cohesive. Maybe the random thought about apple seeds doesn't seem like it has anything to do with lampshades, but then you come up with a story about a woman who hid apple seeds in a lampshade as a child, hoping the light would grow an apple tree out of the lamp.
3. This is a fun technique for doing dialogue and character work. You can have someone monologue, or have it just be dialogue without any tags or formatting, the point is just to have one or more people talking. Maybe it's inane, or wacky, but you can get characters with distinctive voices and you "chat" with them and get to know them, and maybe you find a place for them, or they tell you why the scene you're working on isn't going so well.*
4. Writing without judgement. This is a crucial part of this technique. A lot of writers will judge their work as they're writing it, evaluating craft elements and every little twitch and nuance and choice, and having that editing mode in gear while your writing mode is engaged can cause some backseat driving that impedes your progress and causes a ton of second-guessing. However, when you use the vomit technique, the goal is to puke out whatever thoughts pop into your head, and that includes any second-guessing and fretting, which allows you to see it on the page, and that can make it seem less scary or powerful as well. But the main benefit is that writing without a goal, without concern for quality, it grants you greater license and makes the writing lighter for not having to bear the heavy gaze of your internal critiquer's judgement.

* Talking to characters on paper can also be a good way to kinda have a back and forth with the elements of your brain that are heavily involved with creativity in a way that is easier to access than just asking yourself questions. Sometimes those characters provide insights that you, as you, wouldn't think of, and it gives your subconscious a vehicle to tell you what it needs.

 

[DEFCOM5]

My main reason for my writer block are a) lack of time and b) suddenly loss of confidence of the quality of the story

My solution to this is to have a support group. The "I will finish my damn story" has been an incredible source of inspiration and support

The second thing which comes from the support group is to reward myself with writing time i.e. if I finish this work project, I will give myself a 30 writing break

Because I plan my stories in detail, when I sit to write, I have a map.

My plot bunnies have stop multiplying and that worries me but the pen is still quite populated.

I have however not had a new idea in a while which is stressing me a little but i have more stories in the pen that I have time to write.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Plot Bunny Pens has room if you want to toss some in there and get them off your mind. Lots and lots of room

 

[Bazzle]

I jump fetishes or interview sex worker models.

If I get into a brick wall I find something else.

I've also found inspiration from scrolling through Deviant Art. Yes it's full of Ai slop and the arty artists are right to get cross, but they do produce story telling.

That inspiration has helped me knock out a story or two.

 

[DEFCOM5]

Plot Bunny Pens has room if you want to toss some in there and get them off your mind. Lots and lots of room

My bunnies plots are happy in the pen. But they have stopped reproducing .....

 

[anthrodisiac]

My bunnies plots are happy in the pen. But they have stopped reproducing .....

You can poke through PBP and see if anything there suits your fancy. That's the whole point of PBP, you can peruse to your heart's content and pick out most of them since most are free-use bunbuns. Or you can check out FUCK™, see if there are any characters that might give you an idea for something.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I never have had total writers’ block. I’ve never been in a situation where I couldn’t write a thing. I get stuck on specific stories. When this happens, I:

1. Take a break and do something else - go for a walk / run / swim, do yard work, do something around the house, even sometimes - - work
2. Skip forward past whatever I’m stuck on to a bit that I know how to write (often the end or some key moment in the story). That both gives me time and motivation to link to the later text.
3. Totally abandon the work (for a while) and go write something else instead.

Each of these is intended to give me time to think - consciously or unconsciously - about what I’m stuck on. It seems to work.

 

[Seurat]

My focus has been shot lately, so my writing isn't on any-one-thing anymore. Writer's Block, in a fashion, since I can't finish things. I think of what I used to do as a meal: appetizer, main course, dessert, maybe a drink afterwards. I had a long downtime where I wrote but haven't published, and only recently have thought of putting something up again. Now my writing is more like a buffet (specifically one in Eastern Pennsylvania called The Shady Maple Smorgasborg, IYKYK) where I am hip deep in hundreds of thoughts and potlines and characters and twists. The conclusion is the same: I'm not being productive.

What I've done is switch gears. Can't write on this? Try writing on that. Can't right on that? Try reading the other thing. One big thin I've found is to avoid the comfort foods; no novels that I've read ten times, no TV rerun for the hundredth time, no Harry Potter Movie for the Zillionth time. Bring something fresh into your creative world. New movie, not connected to a series or characters you know.

Break your mind free from the walls that have crept up around it because, if you don't, those walls are going to get higher and closer. Not a doom and gloom warning, just a hint that even walls have doors, walls can be scaled, walls can be broken down. Hell, get some spray paint and graffiti all over the fuckers like its 1972 Berlin. The only thing you shouldn't allow yourelf to do is sit back and watch them grow.

 

[crookedletter]

I just write. I'll write something I know is shitty, something I know I'm not going to use, just to shake lose some cobwebs.

Sometimes I'll free write, kind of a stream of consciousness about what I want to be working on, often starting with something like "So, here's what's happening." I'll write about what I expect to happen in the story, or who the characters are, or some central idea I'm circling.

Sometimes, I won't say usually, but often, that exercise will segue into something a little more focused. I'll find myself transitioning from broad non-narrative nonsense suddenly into a scene, something I will use.

 

[ChuckWolf]

I have many, MANY ideas and because of lack of time, real world distractions and occasional loss of interest, I often find it hard to finish a work, especially if it's for the deadline of a Lit challenge/contest.

 

[BeechLeaf]

If there was a known, reliable cure for it, there wouldn't be as many of us suffering. You just do the thing and after about a week you've got better and you're writing again.

I haven't added anything usable to my main writing since September. After a couple of months I created this account to let off steam, write about new people, not have any baggage. Worked well for a couple more months. Now I haven't published anything for two months and haven't had any idea, none at all, about how to push things forward. I think other people who are stuck should consider this as normal, or at least as normal as anything else: there is no obvious way that a logjam can easily be broken after a brisk walk around the park and a bit of doodling on a page.

 

[Duil2]

If there was a known, reliable cure for it, there wouldn't be as many of us suffering. You just do the thing and after about a week you've got better and you're writing again.

I haven't added anything usable to my main writing since September. After a couple of months I created this account to let off steam, write about new people, not have any baggage. Worked well for a couple more months. Now I haven't published anything for two months and haven't had any idea, none at all, about how to push things forward. I think other people who are stuck should consider this as normal, or at least as normal as anything else: there is no obvious way that a logjam can easily be broken after a brisk walk around the park and a bit of doodling on a page.

I suppose everyone has to find their own way through the stages and phases they find themselves travelling. Sometimes sharing approaches that work for one author might help another through a difficult or trying stage but it won't help another author. I know I've found sharing where I am and getting well-meaning advice and possible solutions has been invaluable. Naturally, that won't be everyone's experience. I'd say the one thing we'd all have in common is that we all go through different stages and phases with our writing and one of those can be when we're blocked and so, yes, that aspect is universal.

 

[NotWise]

I think there's more than one cause for writer's block, and so there's more than one cure.

My worst block came when the readers' response on two consecutive stories knocked me out of my hyperfocus on writing. It took me almost a year and a half to get over that. When I did, it came as the result of making myself produce without being hyperfocused on writing. I learned to set a writing goal and get it done despite distractions I couldn't control.

Productivity is way down, but it's there.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I've never had writers block as I understand it, which is, I can't think of anything to write. I've had situations where I was unsure where to take the story next but that just means that I jump to the next story in the queue until I figure it out. I've got pages of ideas and enticing characters waiting for their turn.
The idea of just staring at a blank screen with nothing in the tank seems outrageous to me.

 

[NotWise]

I've never had writers block as I understand it, which is, I can't think of anything to write. I've had situations where I was unsure where to take the story next but that just means that I jump to the next story in the queue until I figure it out. I've got pages of ideas and enticing characters waiting for their turn.
The idea of just staring at a blank screen with nothing in the tank seems outrageous to me.

This is the description of writers block from the OP:

We've all had it. The Big B. Lack of inspiration. The muse avoiding us like it's a muggy day and we forgot to apply deodorant. When the Plot Bunny visits, the ideas sit festering in our mind because we can't get them out.

Writer's block doesn't mean that you don't have ideas as much as it means you can't get them down.

I could sit at the computer and write, and at the end of the day I'd have fewer words than I started with. That's why it took five years for my most recent story to go from inspiration to publication.

 

[deathlynx]

What haven't I tried!? And keep in mind this is from someone who only just started writing again after seven years of absolutely nothing. Before that inspiration had been failing for a while, so nothing is guaranteed and sometimes you just lose.

Disclaimer over, now for the helpful part.

Plowing through can get word count but isn't satisfying at all. In fact it tends to make me less inspired.

Stream of Consciousness was good for getting pen to paper (or the computer analog of such) but I tended to get caught in thought loops, and not always constructive ones. It's similar to why venting doesn't help with frustration, because I then end up hyper focused on something.

Switching gears is usually a pretty good idea. What do you really want to write? Even well established authors use this solution, which is why your favorite series might have a few year gap while they work on another project.
Try a different theme/genre/style?
Write a recurring fantasy.

Try switching up the music you're listening to. And not just while you're writing, but while you're in the car and whatnot. Music has a profound effect on our subconscious.

Try revisiting an old movie/show that you used to love. Or a new one you haven't yet made the time for. Creativity is often inspired by what we enjoy watching. The same applies to reading.

Lastly, I like the support group suggestion. After all, it took only a day from the time I built up the courage to post on AH again, after over a decade absence, for my inspiration to come back full force. We're here for each other, and though the names have changed (still miss the old crew, may more than a few rest in peace) the comradery is the same.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have many, MANY ideas and because of lack of time, real world distractions and occasional loss of interest, I often find it hard to finish a work, especially if it's for the deadline of a Lit challenge/contest.

I gave up on deadline targets years ago. I still have the first 8k words written of a sequel to my story in the first Geek Anthology, and another 8k for a sequel for my story in the first Mickey Spillane Anthology. We're what, up to years five or six, now?

Those are the only two old WIPs that might sometime see the light of day, every other stalled thing won't ever start again, and nothing from them will be reused.

I'll read them over one day, and there'll be some pretty good stuff. Maybe I should publish some of those non-starters, and openly invite others to do with them what they like, since they've already got substance of some sort.

The EB Slow Burn, Interrupted series. Might be a thing!

 

[ronde]

We've all had it. The Big B. Lack of inspiration. The muse avoiding us like it's a muggy day and we forgot to apply deodorant. When the Plot Bunny visits, the ideas sit festering in our mind because we can't get them out.

So how do we deal with it? What is the writerly equivalent of a pint of prune juice?

Myself, I find that going for a walk once a day works. An hour with nothing to do but listen to some music and let my mind wander. Plan ahead so that when I sit down to write the outline is there. Keeping creativity and craft separate.

Another trick is to tell myself stories. Play fantasies out in my mind with no real intention of turning them into stories. Just random imaginings to refind the joy of it all.

Any other suggestions? What works, what doesn't work?

We write (mostly) about people. Since there are basically an infinite number of different people walking around, there should be an infinite number of stories that need to be told. All you have to do is find them, and that can be easier than you think.

Sitting and staring at a keyboard while waiting for an idea to pop into your head rarely works. Instead, try going where people go and see what they do.

My favorite place to people watch is the local mall. Pick a place in the middle, sit down, and just watch what people do. Take some notes if you want, but ask yourself questions about what you're seeing. People don't do things with out a reason, though the reason might not be a conscious one. With a little imagination, you can develop some motives for what they're doing, and then use those motives to write a story.

For instance:

Why does that tall blonde with a killer figure wear dresses that come down to her ankles?
Why does the mother with a little baby in her arms go into Victoria's Secret?
Why does the older man also go into Victoria's Secret and flag down a clerk?
Why is that woman who is wearing a wedding ring walking around the mall very obviously without a bra?

If you want the strange and unusual, try your local Walmart after ten some night. You might be surprised at how many stories are there just waiting to be told.