All writers get stuck. It's an inevitability in the creative process. It doesn't matter if you've run out of ideas, the story has gotten out of control, or you have personal issues which are distracting you from doing your job, the end result is the same: no words on the page. The longer the page stays blank, the worse the writer's block tends to take hold.
I recently had some health issues, and did not write for almost two months. Sitting back down in front of my laptop gave me anxiety. I needed help to get over myself, and get back into the groove, so I looked up how other people get through it. There are a lot of lists and steps out there to overcome writer's block. I thought I'd share some tips which helped me.
- Write something! Don't make a plan, or think about characters or plots. You need to sit down and start to type/write. It doesn't even matter what you write. You can sit down and write a bio for one of your characters. You can write a plot outline. You can write your thoughts. You just need to write.
For me, when I was trying to start writing in my novel again, I felt anxious. It was like a big, scary monster was lurking behind the laptop. I don't know where these feelings come from. I love writing, it calms me, but when I was trying to get back to work it had the opposite effect. The feelings of inadequacies and self-doubt seemed to have built a wall between me and my keyboard. The only way to break that wall was to start typing. Eventually, the crippling doubt lifted, and my fingers were free to dance around the keyboard. - Keep writing. You'll finally get over yourself and get a few sentences or paragraphs on the page, but don't stop. You don't want the block to come back. You need to spend a good, long time writing to truly get over the block. Don't make things harder on yourself by stopping for lunch, or anything, because then you give the writer's block monster a chance to slip back in.
- Don't be afraid to write garbage. Chances are, if you've got writer's block, you aren't going to write your best work. The words on the page might not even make any sense the next day. Don't worry about quality at this point, worry about quantity. I've found, and a lot of the sites I visited agree, that it's easier to edit bad work than to write with writer's block. If you can break down that wall of whatever is causing the block, and push forward with your story, you will find that you've gotten to a stopping point which you can easily pick up and continue the next time you write. You can easily edit out any plot holes or mistakes when the work is done. The work never gets done if you obsess about chapter 5 and never make it to chapter 6.
- Free write. This helped me yesterday. I didn't read the previous chapter. I didn't think about where I wanted the story to go. I just started writing about my character; one of his days. I may not ever put it in the book, but it got me into the character's head again so that I could continue the story. I wrote almost 15 pages before I actually attempted to continue the story in my novel. Last night, I dreamed about my character. I'm writing this post at 7:00 AM so that I can get it out of the way, and get back to my story. It's amazing how much just getting back into the swing of things gets the creative juices flowing.
- Have fun! You write because at some point in time you liked it. I think every artist hates their work at some point through the process. It becomes... work. Remember, this is part of who you are. You have a story to share. If you've published before, remember that awesome feeling you got the first time you saw your work in print. If you haven't published before, imagine how great it would be to be able to say, "I'm an author" instead of, "I write", or, "I'm writing a book." There is power in what you do. You create dreams for people. You have the power to inspire others. I love this job because it gives me satisfaction to know that somewhere out there people are living in my fantasy world. What we do is AMAZING! Have fun with your work.
