Writer's block

The two words that terrorize someone with those publishing dreams so fragile and frail: writer's block.

But what exactly is this strange phenom that waylays the best minds in the business? Well, I recently read it is "the pause button on the controller of your mind" and that was about the most apt description I have read. I think it speaks to young writers of today in a way that old-fashioned ways won't.

Writer's block has been said to be the worst malady a writer can face and it has been called complete and utter bunk with no truth in it. Guess that depends on which side of the writing life you are calling from.

I am a victim of something that kept me out of the writing chair for months at a time and so I believe it is a real condition. I believe it is a gap in the writing mind, something that keeps us from giving of ourselves to that one urge that we feel we "must" do.

Honestly, I believe it can start out as a trickle thing, that just taps your arm and says, "don't worry about writing tonight" or "go watch television tonight instead of writing, one night won't hurt". Don't be fooled. It is like that old commercial where a devil is on one shoulder and an angel on the other. One says you don't have to write EVERY day, and the other says if you don't write EVERY day you will never write.

My advice? Be careful who you listen to.

You have to have down time... you have to rest your mind. We have so much to fill it these days, you should take a break, for sanity's sake. But remember, it should be a planned break, not an improvised one. Plan one or two nights a week to indulge in games, or television, or reading or anything NOT WRITING. But then, when the day is gone, stroll right on over to the writing chair and get in it.

If you plan your breaks, you will never want for time away, and may really find that when you get back to writing, it is more fresh than before! But if you neglect to take breaks, as I did, you will find that one or two nights away from the writing will result in a week then two then ... well, you get the image.

Don't kill yourself, Murderers. Save it for your characters. How delicious!

Confession of a stricken writer

copyright Kim Smith
I think I have writer's block. My mind is like this picture of frozen snow-covered object-d'yard art.

It's true. I simply haven't done more than turn my laptop on in nearly two weeks.

Why? Well, I can only tell you the story as it has unfolded.

First, I told myself I was going to write when I got home from work. That to me is the most important part of writing, that telling yourself what you are going to do. If I don't set myself up mentally, I am really setting myself up to fail, but for some reason, this time, I didn't listen to me.

I got home and my hubby wanted to go out to eat, so away we went. When we got home, well, it was Monday! You know what that means! All the funniest sit-coms are on Monday nights, so I digressed. So badly in fact, that I never got back to it. Then well, I didn't sleep well Tuesday night, and fell asleep as soon as I got home Tuesday night. On Wednesday, I actually got the laptop to my lap, and turned on, but had a visitor and they kept my attention focused on them. By Thursday, we were involved in something family-related, and of course when the weekend came, it was a weekend filled with a workshop, house-cleaning, and grocery shopping.

So, what have I learned about writer's block?
1. Do not watch television. Do not even turn it on!
2. Get plenty of sleep!
3. Do not plan your writing when you are likely to be interrupted.
4. Delegate responsibilities at home in order to allow your writing time, or maybe if that is not possible, reschedule it or shorten it.

There is a happy ending to this story however, writing is our love, not our life. It's okay to slip up now and then.

Writer's Block -- Can this writer be saved?

Writer’s block may well be the most common complaint of authors next to dangling plots and misbehaving characters. What is this malady that befalls so many of us and why does it strike at the most inopportune time?

I have a theory.

You are feeling sluggish. You need a fresh approach. You have lost focus of the story.

Am I getting warm?

It’s becoming apparent to me that the real thing is not a block, it is a lack of motivation. We really have to force ourselves to write when this situation occurs. Ideas for a story may abound everywhere but if you have embarked on a journey to elaborate on that nugget, that germ of an idea, you may face not writer’s block but stumbling blocks.

Let me give you a new thing to consider if you are finding yourself chewing on your pencil end rather than pressing forward with the lead end.

Primitive man needed a way to stay warm during the winter. He grew tired of freezing his hands and feet in the snow with no help for the frozenness of it. Likewise, writers need a way to keep the fires of creativity burning. They have no control over what makes their brain freeze and not release the words that they need to keep from dying during the creation phase of a book.

SO! If you liken writing to freezing in the tundra, then you will get this analogy.

You need flint and stone.

Yes, you heard me. Take the nugget of your idea, and strike it repeatedly against something hard. Watch for the sparks to issue forth, and then work like mad to feed it with kindling to get the fire burning.

It’s as simple as writing out the idea and then testing it.

i.e. A woman is lost in the woods.
Test: why? Test: alone? Test? On purpose?

And from there you can flow. If you are stuck in the middle of a story your flint and stone could be damaging someone, or hurting them, or killing them off to create conflict. Usually you will not flag at the end of a story. At least you shouldn’t if you have clear understanding of who did what and why and how that has turned the story in a different direction.

The best cure for writer’s block is action. Get busy. Enabling your lack of creativity is like enabling an alcoholic to have reasons to drink. Getting home from work and lounging on the couch is a sure-fire muse killer. Don’t do it. Take it from one couch potato to another. Make writing as much a part of your life as taking out the garbage, washing the dishes, cooking meals, and feeding the family pets. Sit down at the computer and reread the last thing you wrote, come up with the ideas necessary to write the next scene. If you will just get started, I promise you will turn out a word count that you will be proud of.

A Dog’s Breakfast

© Linwood Barclay 2009 all rights reserved

My agent said it happens to every writer eventually.

I wrote a novel last year that didn’t work. To use a favorite phrase of my wife’s, it was “a dog’s breakfast.” I should have known. I wrote the first seventy pages three times. Shifted back and forth between first and third person. Couldn’t get a handle on it. A little voice in the back of my head had been telling me to abort.

It was like when you hear a funny noise coming from under the hood. You think maybe it will go away. You crank up the radio so you don’t have to listen to it. Next thing you know, three fire trucks are pumping water all over your ride.

That voice in my head was saying, “Pull over! For the love of God!”

I didn’t listen. I thought, keep going, get to the end, fix whatever’s wrong during the revisions. So that’s what I did, and by time I finally pulled over, the book was a write-off. Nothing really worked. It was fundamentally flawed. Reluctantly, I accepted my agent’s verdict that I could write another book from scratch in less time than it would take for me to fix everything that was wrong with this book.

I felt sick. This hadn’t happened to me before. While my six previous novels had needed varying degrees of work after the first draft, they’d all been in more or less good shape from the get go. I’d never faced the prospect of ditching an entire novel and starting over.
It was not a good feeling.

I didn’t know it then, but it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

At the time, I felt like stepping in front of a bus. I’d spent about four months on this book. I was contracted to deliver a new thriller before the end of the year. The clock was ticking. I did have an idea for another book – a missing daughter story, with a twist – but that was the one I was expecting to start next year.

I set aside five days to feel sorry for myself. My kids – now both in their twenties – have a word for a mopey friend. A “hurtsack.” That was me. A hurtsack.

But then I made myself get down to work. I took about ten days to make notes, then started writing. Something wonderful happened. I couldn’t write the thing fast enough. Those first seventy pages were a dream. Seven weeks later, I had the first draft of FEAR THE WORST. And not once during that time did I hear a voice saying, “Pull over!”

Believe me, I was listening for it.

FEAR THE WORST took another couple of write-throughs to get it into shape. The characters needed sharpening. A subplot was added. But that first draft felt pretty solid to me. Now that the book’s finally coming out, I feel better about it than any of my others. I think this book turned out well because the other one turned out so badly.

That first book wasn’t quite the failure I thought it was. It was my Apollo 13. It seemed like a disaster at the time, but it turned into a learning experience.

Here’s what that book taught me:

1. Listen to that voice. If it’s telling you the book isn’t working, stop. Regroup. Try to figure out what the problem is. How bad is it? Is it something that can be fixed? Do you have to start again? Would it be better to cut your losses and walk away?

2. Don’t be too proud to get some other opinions along the way. When I was working on that book, I didn’t want to show it to anyone until it was finished. Not my agent, not my editor, nobody. Looking back, I think this is because I knew, in my heart, that it was not working, and I didn’t want to hear that from anyone. But it’s better to get an early diagnosis so you can start treatment early. A lot of writers are too proud to take advice from agents or editors or friends. The only opinion they value is their own. That’s a mistake. You can get so close to your own work that you lose perspective.

3. Suck it up and move on. The time you spend sulking is time that could be spent writing. I spent more than thirty years in newspapers and writing to me is a job. The best job in the world, but still a job. If you had a contractor into your house to put on an addition, and the walls were all crooked and the windows fell out, you wouldn’t put up with him moping about for several weeks about all the time he’d spent doing a bad job. You’d expect him to tear down what he’d done and start over.

I suppose, when I say it took me seven weeks to write the first draft of FEAR THE WORST, that’s not true. I need to count all that time spent on the other book.

All well spent, as it turns out.

About the author:
Linwood Barclay is a former columnist for the Toronto Star. He is the author of several critically acclaimed novels, including Too Close to Home and No Time for Goodbye, a #1 bestseller in Britain. He lives near Toronto with his wife and has two grown children. His website is www.linwoodbarclay.com.