Writer’s Block: Is it all Just Crap?

by +Denise Drespling

I might be unique in the world of writers. I do not believe in the existence of writer’s block. Oh, I know the days when you don’t want to write, or feel like you can’t, or the idea just isn’t right, or you’re so frustrated with your novel that your finger itches toward the delete button. But there’s one solution to the myth of writer’s block: write.

Write anything. It can be bad. It can be horrible. It can be completely irrelevant to what you should be working on, but you know what? If you’re writing something--an.y.thing--you’re not blocked. Don’t give in to the myth. Don’t let your fear tangle you up. Take your blank page and stuff it (full of words).

On an ironic side note, the day after I wrote this post, guess what I found in my inbox? Two emails from two separate writing blogs, both about writer’s block. Okay, universe, what are you trying to tell me? At first, I actually considered changing my post. I thought, maybe I’ve just been lucky and haven’t suffered from writer’s block. Maybe I’m not being sensitive enough to the dilemmas of my wordly cohorts. Then I read the posts.

Nope. Not a believer.

The thing is, they talked about issues like not having ideas, not being inspired, not having the energy, even having too many ideas to focus (I might suffer from that occasionally). They talked about great solutions: get exercise, use writing prompts, unplug, free write. I’m sure they all work well.

But here’s the thing. That’s not the same as not being able to write. That’s not being able to write well. So, let’s call it what it is. Not writer’s block. It’s writer’s sludge. It’s when all that comes to your mind is crap and all that comes out is crap. Hot, stinky, crap. Like a pile in the corner that the kitten just left. Oh, wait. No, that’s my living room. (Anyone want a kitten?)

Writer’s block, as most people refer to it, is just an excuse. Trust me. I’ve used it. It sounds much more important and sympathy-inspiring than to just admit, I don’t feel like it. If you’re having issues writing, you’re not blocked, you’re sludgy, and you don’t have to be.

Being in an MFA program is a different type of deadline than a publisher or employer breathing down your neck to get it done. It’s the difference between being paid for your writing and knowing that you’re paying for it. I’ve been in the place where I had an assignment of 15 pages due and the last thing I wanted to do was to jump into that world with those characters. But, I had to write, so I wrote something I hated. It was awful. All 15 pages will likely be trashed. I could have claimed I was blocked, but in reality, I was being lazy and bored.

The point is. Those crappy pages led me somewhere. They led me where I knew I didn’t want to go, but they also pointed me in a better direction. Even if you have a deadline where you can’t turn in crap, you can still write the crap first, then make it shine later.

Nora Roberts said, “You can fix anything but a blank page.”

Yup.

Write something, then visit the land of what ifs (which is, btw, also the name of my blog because that's where I spend my time):

Suppose there’s a man crossing the street. What if he trips? What if he bumps into a woman who is/turns out to be the love of his life? Or his ex who broke his heart? What if he found something on the ground? What if he realized he was on the wrong street? What if he got hit by a car?

See. That took me two seconds, but gave me infinite directions to take a story in. Depending on how far you are in your story, you won’t have quite as many options, but there are always options. Go play with them. Before you know it, you’ll have something worth keeping. And if it’s not worth keeping, you’ll know that, too.

Your thoughts? Do you see this, or am I just full of crap? ;)

Denise Drespling is the author of short story, “Reflections,” in the Tales of Mystery, Suspense & Terror anthology (October 2014) and “10 Items or Less,” in 10: Carlow’s MFA Anniversary Anthology (April 2014).

Hang out with Denise at her blog, The Land of What Ifs, or on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Goodreads, or Instagram.

Clearing Out the Clutter

by Riley Redgate

Why hello there!

I am writing this from my one hundred percent certified Dorm Room™. As of yesterday, you see, I am a fancy-schmancy College Student™.

Classes started yesterday. Last week, I was lucky enough to go on a hiking/camping/backpacking trip in the wild outdoors with some folks from the College. Said trip involved a general deficit of personal hygiene, enough blisters to rival those of an entire cross country season, and campfires galore. And it was wonderful for a number of reasons:

1) I did not look at any screen of any sort for six days straight. This gave me a disproportionately heightened sense of personal accomplishment.

2) I made some excellent friends before I even got to orientation.

3) Here's a secret: Before the trip, I felt myself slipping down the slope toward Writer's Block. I was getting words out, but they were strained. The bottom of the proverbial barrel was getting severely damaged by my scraping fingernails. I was worried that when I got to college, I'd hit Real Actual Writer's Block just when I needed to be able to write for papers, etc. ... BUT, when I returned from the camping trip, my writerly brain felt refreshed. In fact, my mind had built up and saved several ideas over the six-day period, and the lack of ability to write them down made me all the more eager to take advantage of that ability when I got back.

Maybe it's nature. Maybe it's good company. Maybe it's depriving oneself of the actual physical ability to write for a while. Whatever it is, my new official advice for those afflicted by the dreaded writer's block is to take nature days. As in multiple nature days. Let fresh air clear your head; physically distance yourself from the word processor; don't think about writing unless it happens to drift across your mind in passing. Let the world flow before your eyes, easing the pressure on your writer-brain.

It's easy to get buried in the writerly world these days. We have blogs, twitter, social networking sites, email - with all of these awesome options to meet people with the same interests, it's easy to lose track of life outside all that, and the world outside our lives in general. I've often heard that the writer's best friend is a full and well-rounded life, every day/week/month filled with as many diverse experiences as possible. Maybe the fix for writer's block is to let your vat of life experiences fill back up so you can draw on it again with fresh perspective.

From this different physical place, and from a slightly different mental place, everything looks new to me. And this newness has proved wonderful for jolting my mind back to that place I needed to be. Three cheers for nature and the world around us!

Do you have any rituals to clear out the clutter?

Riley Redgate, enthusiast of all things YA, is a bookstore-and-Starbucks-dweller from North Carolina attending college in Ohio. She blogs here and speaks with considerably more brevity here.

The Search for Writer's Block and Other Legendary Creations

by Matt Sinclair

I recently responded to a series of questions for a writer-friend's blog. If you've never done this before, I recommend it. You're often asked questions that you don't ask of yourself, and it's a good way to shake unused braincells around so ideas scatter as if they're in a snowglobe.

Surprisingly, the question that gave me pause was not the one about cupcakes, but rather the one about how I deal with writer's block.

Hmmm, writer's block. Um. Yeah. Uh, what's writer's block?

I know the term. I understand the concept. I believe it's real because others talk about it (kinda like Bigfoot, I suppose). But I don't get it. You've heard of that "fear of the blank page"? I treat it the same way one of my three-year-olds would: Get a crayon and scribble like hell!

I've read Stephen King's Bag of Bones, in which his lead character, a successful author (write what you know), finds himself unable to write after the death of his wife. Maybe that's writer's block—that feeling of "I won't do this any more." If I need to lose my wife in order to feel writer's block, I'll pass.

Now, I'm making a huge distinction here that needs to be addressed. I write and edit for a living. If I get writer's block, my kids don't eat. That's all the motivation I need, thank you. As a result, my fiction sometimes gets shunted. At the moment, it's not a budget line in my family revenue stream. Indeed, there's a big difference between whether a person is writing and whether the product is worth publishing. Some might argue that the question of whether unpublished writers get writer's block is the same as whether there's a sound when a tree falls without anyone to hear it. J.D. Salinger didn't suffer from writer's block. He just stopped seeking publication of what he wrote.

But many writers ask these questions of themselves because they feel that without writing, a part of their soul has crashed to the ground. And I totally get that.

Lately, I've been unable to jog. My legs still work, of course, but I've had other things that needed to be done and not enough time in which to do them. It gnaws at me, this stagnation. I often sit on the train thinking of how my physical inactivity is as unhealthy as my inadequate amounts of sleep (which I partially resolve by napping on the train). But I know I'll jog again. In a twisted way, it's kinda like what Mark Twain said about quitting smoking: It's the easiest thing in the world to do. I've done it several times.

You know how you change things? By doing. Cram a ten-minute writing session onto a piece of paper. It's not a novel, it's a scene, a vignette, a character sketch, nary more than an uncooked idea. It's the moment you just lived, turned into fiction and fantasy. It doesn't need to fit a genre. It just is. Every Wednesday for a few months now, I've been leading a little "writing cue" thread on AgentQuery Connect in which I toss out a few words, a vague and open setting, and say "Now write." There's no right or wrong. It's just about writing.

We're writers. Writing entails doing. Sure, as with any exercise regimen, you can get into bad habits, which is why it's always good to have a spotter (a future metaphor to develop...) But if you're serious about being a writer, write. You're the only one stopping you.

How do you deal with writer's block? Is it real to you? What does it mean to you; is it the same as living in an idea desert? How do you deal with the blank page?