Forum / Overcoming The Dreaded Block

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  Julie Innis

  Sep 02, 02:04pm

  I know there's a lot of debate out there re. the existence of writer's block -- for example, some writers claim to never suffer from this dread ailment, others are able to power through by maintaining their daily practices, etc -- but, for the sake of argument, let's imagine Block is a real thing. Any tricks, besides daily routine, for overcoming it?

• 
  Dolemite

  Sep 02, 03:33pm

  Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids.

  Tap into the mystery, the spirit of existence and the writing will flow--as a result, a gift, not a manufactured, manipulated, ulterior-purposed product.

  Gnome sane?

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  RW Spryszak

  Sep 02, 03:37pm

  I think it happens to people in various degrees and in different ways.

  Oddly enough, for me, it ends up being a kind of sign post that what I'm working on "isn't right" somehow, and needs another direction or I've written myself into a corner and the last few pages basically suck. Because stuff that seems to "write itself" never has the phenomenon attached to it.

  I used to have serious "block" problems - the kind where I couldn't come up with an answer to anything or even get motivated to so much as pick up a pen and open a notebook. But in my last few years every time I punch in to work and have to go through another day of wasting my life I get very easily motivated and off I go. Being in a situation you can't stand but still have to do works wonders for block...

• 
  Gary Hardaway

  Sep 02, 04:11pm

  Writer’s Block

  It’s nature’s way
  of saying Shut
  the fuck up!

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Sep 02, 04:23pm

  Ah Gary... I almost snorted coffee all over my monitor with your witty haiku.

  RW, I agree. I have a very demanding day job. It often takes the best of me. So I decided I would give the best of me first thing in the morning. Writing comes first. Always. Except for the coffee.

  I really don't sweat The Block. I think it's the mind's way of percolating stuff.

  But when I feel the yen for writing and can't do much on a current project, I swap genres-- poetry, non-fiction, drawing, photography--or edit something really old.

  And tell myself 5 minutes is fine. it really is. Peace...

• 
  W.F. Lantry

  Sep 02, 06:31pm

  Julie,

  Here's what I always say: There's nothing, absolutely nothing, inside me. I have no thoughts, no ideas, I'm just a hollow, empty vessel. I don't have anything to say, nothing is yearning to get out, etc., etc.

  And yet, I have to write every day. This is an externally imposed mandate which I have freely accepted, and taken on as my own. So what do I do, when I'm so written out there's nothing left?

  Well, I add stuff. I make the vessel less empty. I don't read much from other writers during those empty times, that doesn't seem to help. Instead, I do research, I listen to lectures (I've got hundreds of hours of lectures I've downloaded, gotten from podcasts, etc.). I fill the vessel up until it's overflowing. That makes it easy to pour a little out every day...

  Two things keep me going. Someone said "I just promised I'd write. I'd never promised I'd write well." The other: "Don't wait until the iron is hot to strike. *Make it hot* by striking!"

  I hope this helps. Seriously, things are tough enough all over, and no matter what else happens, it's a good day when I get something written, and a bad day when I don't. Here's wishing you lots of good days...

  Best,

  Bill

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Sep 02, 07:23pm

  Gypsies. Find an old Gypsy woman and ask her how much it would cost to remove the curse. She will tell you, "Bring me 1,000 dollars in old bills, a blank piece of paper, a candle, and three eggs."

  So you go home, have a beer, and write about it.

  Which means... that if there is such a thing as writer's block, then life and new experience is the cure. Set aside the writing, go somewhere you've never been before, breathe the air under an old tree, watch a sunrise, try to catch a squirrel with your bare hands... do something different, live as though living was writing. It'll be the habit that cures the curse.

  Of course, if that doesn't work, go back to the Gypsy. Bring her the money, the paper, the candle and three eggs. Let me know how it turns out.

• 
  Darryl Price

  Sep 02, 07:41pm

  Are you a good block or a bad block? You always want to know the answer to that question if possible.

• 
  Julie Innis

  Sep 02, 08:28pm

  thanks all, very helpful, and yes, Gary, that's what I've been a little afraid of...but will keep on keeping on.

• 
  Christopher Allen

  Sep 02, 09:43pm

  I've been dealing with writer's burnout for months. I have ideas but no energy. Forcing myself to sit down and write is awful, but I find that, often, early morning hours offer me the most in terms of spontaneous flow from head to page.

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Sep 02, 09:58pm

  I also think fallow periods follow after a big project has finished--first novel draft, a long story, a chapbook. At least, that does happen to me--I can't tackle anything big. Hence, the poems, the revisits of old stories, submitting stuff (you can tell when I am on a writing jag when I don't submit anything).

  Anyway, just thinking about this when I went for a walk. Peace...

• 
  Gary Hardaway

  Sep 02, 10:39pm

  Julie, my little piece was/is tongue in cheek, of course, but I've found that satire directed at some great source of anger (righteous or otherwise) is a way to kick-start invention. Fear and loathing are great motivators, I believe.

• 
  Sam Rasnake

  Sep 03, 01:21am

  I'm one of those who doesn't believe in writer's block. I write, I don't write, but I'm not blocked.

• 
  kate hill cantrill

  Sep 03, 02:09am

  I thought Gary's advice was spot on! Go and buy some chalk and do a graffiti drawing somewhere instead or get a feral cat spade or make some soup or design a new font. Just don't beat yourself up. You'll sleep better that way and one night the want will wake you and you will click the keys again. Best of wishes!

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  Matthew Robinson

  Sep 03, 08:02am

  I feel like I experienced some form of writer's block this spring. I was never not writing, but I never knew what I was writing, and it turned out to be nothing. Maybe 10,000 words of nothing. Sometimes I rely on a word salad sort of thing with writing, I just trust they'll be there when I sit down to hammer down something that's been placing a nail against my hippocampus for god knows how long, sometimes I have the entire story in my head and it's just a matter of tinkering until it's right, but when the old system isn't functioning, and the words are just that, a big amorphous blarf of what, I guess I call that writer's block. Words blocking words.

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  John Riley

  Sep 03, 11:09am

  I need to read and think of myself as a reader/writer or writer/reader depending on which one I'm doing at the time. Occasionally it's time to read without writing. Also, I write and edit nonfiction books for a living and sometimes it's fun to research and write without having to make up what happens next. I don't have writing blocks. I have what am I going to write next blocks.

• 
  Dolemite

  Sep 03, 02:29pm

  Not writing equals more time to spend on my penile reduction exercises, so it's all good.

• 
  Jane Hammons

  Sep 03, 03:39pm

  I do things that force me to be or use some part of myself that I don't draw on very often. Yesterday (having spent the past two days hating everything I write and myself as well, 'cuz that's part of it for me) I started doing the accounting for my sister's estate (numbers, yuck) and then later I met a friend at a bar in the bowling alley down the street (I place I've been once--that bar, not the bowling alley). Yesterday I was a bookkeeper who hangs out at the bowling alley. Today, I'm feeling more like myself. And am off to write! So balance your checkbook, bowl a few frames, have a drink. Don't write. Walk away from it.

  And what Sam said.

• 
  Jane Hammons

  Sep 03, 05:19pm

  and a another thing. If you haven't tried Dr. Wicked's Write or Die http://writeordie.com/
  give it a shot. It's fun. I do it with my students a lot. It's a good way to use the old Peter Elbow freewriting method (keep the pen moving, don't lift pen from paper even if you just have to repeat the last word you wrote over and over). For me it puts the play back into writing. Play is something I try to do a lot of with students in any writing class at any level. And something I too often leave out when I'm writing.

• 
  David Ackley

  Sep 03, 06:31pm

  "Write or Die," huh? Now there's a thought, otherwise explored by the opening line of my play "Tiger Milk," (available at Prick of the Spindle excusively for Kindle, online at the Amazon Kindle Store. Oops. Sorry for the blatant self promotion in an otherwise unrelated thread...) wherein, the Poet Mandelstam says, in his opening line,
  " Imagine the poem written with a pistol at your head."

  So, go ahead. Imagine it. Now write it. He did. Which is to say, write as if your life is on the line.

  It is.

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  David Ackley

  Sep 03, 08:20pm

  On a less Draconian note, with me, it seems block is more or less work-specific, that is getting stuck in a piece, not knowing which way to go next. In that event, shifting to another piece( not a bad idea to have a few open at one time) seems to do the trick most times. I also like to take off on things that are outside my comfort zone, trying something I've never done before. Since I don't have any fixed ideas about how to write poetry, this is where I've been going lately. Even if the poems suck( fairly often the case)the act of trying seems to sometimes help in getting things going again.

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  Jane Hammons

  Sep 03, 10:03pm

  Not for me, David. It's all consuming. It makes me cast aspersions on things I've published, things I think/thought were good. It's global. I think there is a Writer's Block spectrum. I don't even call what I'm experiencing Writer's Block until I'm suffering a lot of anxiety. And it leaks out all over other parts of my life. Okay, so probably more than you need to know. But for me, it's not about being stuck with a particular piece of writing. Maybe it's more about the word Writer. I'm not even really sure what that means, but I think what I experience that I would call Writer's Block is at the "medicate" end of the spectrum :)

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  Gessy Alvarez

  Sep 03, 10:47pm

  I experienced a block that lasted three years...with the block came depression and very bad thoughts. I'm not sure how it stopped. Some therapy helped a bit. A year on an antidepressant helped a lot. For me, a block represented fear. Fear of failure and success.

  Now, I allow myself the freedom to just be. When I want to do something, I figure out the steps and get it done. I don't worry about the outcome or anything I can't control ( like meeting other's expectations). I just do it.

• 
  Julie Innis

  Sep 03, 11:36pm

  this is why I like it here, thank you all. Am feeling hopeful for the first time in a long while.

• 
  Joani Reese

  Sep 03, 11:39pm

  Julie-- You just had a marvelous book of short stories published, with all the promotion and folderall that requires. I'm sure it was a work of love and brains that took years to compile and months to come to fruition. It's perfectly understandable that you may feel drained right now and also that you might be worried there isn't anything left to squeeze out of that sponge. I think you owe yourself a vacation from writing and you shouldn't treat it like a malady. Revel in your success and when you're ready to hit it again, you will.

• 
  David Ackley

  Sep 04, 01:10am

  Jane, if you're not worth calling 'writer' then a lot of us are misapplying the term to ourselves including yours truly. But I don't think that's the case. It seems we sometimes write as if the toughest critic in the world is looking over our shoulder, measuring every word and finding it lacking. We all know about the right brain\left brain, creator/critic dichotomy and the need to keep the critic at bay until the work has begun to form. That doesn't mean it's easy to do, just necessary. As to your past work, I among others have praised it highly, which I don't do lightly. Are you doubting my critical chops? Seriously, don't we all think our work is not as good as it coulda, shoulda been? But it seems to me there's something wrong with this way of thinking. When we create a work out of ourselves, it's our talent and the occasion that set the standard for that work, not some hypothetical ideal for what it might be. When I finish something, I'm satisfied if a) it's finished b) it's as good as I can make it with the tools at hand, this mind, these materials. There's no other self out there( or in here) who could have done it any better...This may not be clear, but it says what I mean.

  Write to please yourself, Jane, and let your self be pleased. Doubtless we others will follow along.

• 
  Mary Lane

  Sep 04, 02:44am

  I love all of this discussion and agree that your writing is like exercise. Take time away from it, and it's hard coming to get back into.

  Write even if the words are bad.

  But I find, personally, I'm blocked (more acurately, I want to stop) when I'm scared. If the writing scares me in some form, my first instinct is to stop.

  Hi Julie Innis. ;)

• 
  Jane Flett

  Sep 04, 08:15am

  I like Tom Robbins on writer's block (ah, though I like Tom Robbins on everything!):

  "I'm not convinced that there's any such thing as "writer's block." I suspect that what we like to call "writer's block" is actually a failure of nerve or a failure of imagination, or both.

  If you're willing to take chances, risk ridicule, and push the envelope, and if you've managed to hold on to your imagination (the single most important quality a writer can possess, even slightly more important than an itchy curiosity and a sense of humor), then you can dissolve any so-called block simply by imagining extraordinary, heretofore unthinkable solutions, and/or by playing around uninhibitedly with language. You can imagine a wordplay your way out of any impasse. That's assuming, of course, that you're talented in the first place."

  It's the "risk ridicule" that I need to hear. My writing suffers when I think too much about the people who are going to read it when it's done. Suddenly all my metaphors are incredibly cheesy and overwrought. I need a sign beside my laptop/typewriter saying yes, yes, it's ok to be ridiculous. Actually, I have that sign.

  Other cures:

  Write or Die, yes, always!
  Swimming in a lake
  Taking on some new project that forces me to write lots and lots with less concentration on quality, such as NaPoWriMo (poem a day)
  Baking bread

  So either things that make me fully connect with my body or things that make me make all the words come out of my brain.

• 
  Gloria Garfunkel

  Sep 05, 02:47am

  We forget that we are creatures of circadian rhythms and these rhythms vary with the time time of year, our levels of stress and fatigue, varieties on the broad spectrum of mood disorders. We can try to regulate ourselves with daily practices -- that helps a great deal -- but to expect a precisely consistent output daily is the stuff of literary myths and exceptions.

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  Gloria Mindock

  Sep 10, 01:15pm

  I write in spurts and don't get upset if I'm not writing. I know I will be at some point.

  I also teach exercises on how to get through writer's block. If anyone is interested in knowing some of them, e-mail me. It is too long to type here. Some are strange but they do work!

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