Writers Block
Tue, 2001-10-09 19:21
#1
Writers Block
Writers block - that scurge of scribblers everywhere.
Here's three solutions that have worked for me.
1: When you are in a purple patch and everything is flowing brilliantly, introduce something into the proceedings that can be used as a memory jogger in more difficult times.
With me it's a smell. (No please missus - stop tittering.)
I used Olbas Oil, simply because it was at hand the first time.
Several times since, when the muse has gone, I've spread a few drops of the magic oil around and it seems to work as a 'trigger' of better days.
2: When that blank page (or screen) is mocking you, don't just look at it. Write anything - literally. Rubbish; garbage, nonsense, gobbledegook.
Start at the top of the page - by the time you've reached the bottom, the garbage has often turned into something weird, wonderful, or merely useful. But the 'train will be out of the station' again.
3: When all else fails, this one rarely does:- Excercise.
The brain needs a good supply of oxygen via the blood to work well. But writing is a sedentary business where the blood leaves the brain and settles around chair level.
Get it moving again. Half an hour of hard physical work, followed by a hot bath, is a wonderful way to blow away the dust and get the brain working properly again.
These work for me. Anybody else got any more ?
robert
can't think of any at the moment, no.
stormy
plagiarism?
fish
physical exercise????????
Wolfgirl
Physical exercise (snigger)
Linsi
I am so impatient, when I have finished a piece of writing I just want to post it quickly...sadly when I have re-read it it seems crap and full of mistakes.
A trick I now use thanks to a suggestion from Stormy, is to wait a day or two, then re-read it..I did this on my latest story "you have mail" It is not by anyones stretch of the imagination a riveting read, but having spent two days re writing and editing and then changing loads of it I am pleased with the result.
I can only suggest that armed with a can or two of beer (just to get the old grey matter lubricated you understand) fags (if you smoke) then get writing...then wait till the next day to read it again. If you are satisfied with it go for it baby!!
O f course this may be all a load of bollocks to many of you who are not as impulsive as me.
The only other thing I do is to start writing after midnight. somehow my brain is full of useless trivia and hence, creating ideas for my next piece. Again, this may not be good for many, but as I predominatly work nights, I can afford this luxury. (Hell, you try to go to bed and sleep at 10:30pm after spending four nights checking peoples pulses and administering bed baths!!)
I appologise for my inane rambling....Mayman...albas oil sounds good though!
stormy
wasn't this about writers block?
*you* certainly don't seem to have that problem linsi.
mayman
Linsi,
You go back to them a few days later !!!
I go back to some of mine years later.
I often read something I haven't looked at for years and see obvious improvements that I was blind to before.
Readers can probably see them instantly !
Linsi
(Stormy, while going to take a leak, slips on the banana skin that Linsi had previously planted near his chair. The whole forum laughs as he skids through the open bathroom door and falls head first into a bath of boiling honey)
"Oi!! don't ever dis' ma' chattin' Stormy!"
(gives it the large "gansta" stance....)
Just coz ya' larged it on da' front page, don't mean ya' can start dissin' me boooooy!
(recognising that she has no idea what she is going on about, Linsi exits forum via back door, slipping on a misplaced banana skin)
will
Here's a good exercise that works great for me.
Open any book and copy a couple of sentances. It doesn't mater what they are. Read them a couple of times, then simply write from there. After the first page or so you will have completely left the original idea behind and you can go back and cut off the first few paragraphs.
Linsi
Christ Will, I thought I was the only one up at this time of night!!! I am preparing for night shift tomorrow night, what's your excuse?
will
I live in Japan- about 8 or 9 hours ahead of you guys
andrew pack
The writer tries that in Calvino's "If on a Winters Night a Traveller" and ends up just copying out page after page of Crime and Punishment. The best thing about this sequence is that it is an inspirational poster of Snoopy typing 'It was a dark and stormy night' that locks him into a bout of writers block.
meremortal
Go for a walk always helps me. Change the surroundings you are trying to write in, a change of scenery, fresh air, anything different seems to give an extra burst of inventiveness. Then again as e everything i write is fairly pants that might actually have a negative affect......maybe i better stay in more.....
marina_henshaw
These are all great suggestions, but I find that my block kicks in even before I get to the PC. Anything to put off the horror of starting again: washing, cleaning, chores galore. I'm alright once I sit down, it's the getting the arse into the chair that I suffer from! So what type of block is that? Posterior procrastination?
Andrea
Just about sums it up, I reckon. I'm suffering from the same near-fatal disease myself...
funky
drugs help sometimes
Andrea
Tried that.
They just became a habit.
donignacio
He, he! I've had writer's block for two weeks until a coupla days ago! (I think it was more or less procrastination rather than writer's block.) Whenever I have writer's block I basically do something mayman has all ready suggested. I just set my wristwatch alarm to go off after five minutes. During that period of five minutes, I write as much as I can on a sheet of paper and never, even once, pause. What you write down could be a brilliant idea or something in which you derive a brilliant idea.
Liana
I tend to get blocked every so often, for about two to three months.
Each time, I go through absolute bloody agonies, trying everything and everything to kick start it again, whinging to the dear Fish, and anyone else that will listen, mournfully reading and re reading old pieces, thinking "I can't, I just can't, it's all gone."
I try exercise after exercise, and absolutely zilch happens.
What works best for me, is to ignore it totally, and concentrate on something else that I like to do. For me, its photography. The urge (some would question whether the ability) to write always comes back.
Don't sweat it, I say. Unless you have a deadline for a £1,000,000 blockbuster approaching that is.....
mayman
Some good ideas here. I'm gonna try Wills'. (Is that with an apostrophy or not ?)
I tried drugs but the Night Nurse made me sleepy.
Yeah, different surroundings definately helps.
Some writers book into hotels/travel around, just for this reason. (Will's even gone to Japan !)
That same wall with The Blue Lady on it does get tedious after a few years.
Talking of excercise; (Fish & Wolfgirl have just fainted !)
I wonder if anyone has had a brilliant idea during a spot of 'duvet dancing' ? ....... No, I mean a writing idea.
Did you stop and write it down, or carry on and risk forgetting it ? Or write it down without stopping ?
(If you were on your own I don't suppose it mattered.)
I suppose it depends on how advanced things were.
Good way of clearing writers block though.
(Last great idea I had during sex was to kick Hitler out of Poland.)
Finally, remind me never to 'diss' Linsi. She's one mean mutha.
Gnaw Rich
We, the undersigned, are incredibly dissed off with the modern useage of the word ' diss'.
for years we have suffered the joke about our eponymous railway station leaving ones view just as one arrives.
no more!
there will be a demonstration outside woolies at 10 tomorrow.
all non Dissers welcome.
Lady Flatland Norris
A. Bigbouy. (abroad)
Crhoma Tsone
A. LLowers Toff
Gnaw Rich ( I, personally, want to hereby state that I never have my Nickers Off Ready When Hubby Is Coming Home)
Watton E. Arth
Fay Kenham
a sheep
woolies has 2 ells:
woollies
got it?
goat e beard
butt it don't look right to me.
how 'bout ewe?
evie
I am in a perpetual state of writers bloke. On extremely rare occaions there is a tiny window of non-writers-blockedness, during which I scramble desperatley for the words that elude me the rest of the time.
Not ideal.
evie
....I`d be better off trying to find a cure for the writing...
funky_seagull
Jack Kerouac said once, That he felt a dilemna at times. He felt he should stay at home where God had appointed him to write. But on the other hand it was only on the streets of God that he would find the things he wanted to write about.
I guess sometimes we haf to go and look for inspiration.