Not writing

I can't offer any helpful advice but I can empathise with your frustration, being in a very similar frame of mind myself. You start off depressed, and being unable to write just makes you feel even more worthless and depressed, which in turn makes it even more difficult to write. It's a vicious circle! I'm hoping that entering the upcoming prose pentathlon will give me some kind of miraculous kick up the arse. Best of luck to you SteveDave

I'm in the same boat as you, SteveDave. The only advice I can give is to read the work of others on the site for inspiration and keep trying, but I often spend days on end writing a piece only to bin it because it's crap.

Sometimes you need to get out with a notebook and jot down some dialogue or a dramatic situation, what you see rather than dredging stuff up when you don't feel up to it. I saw these old ladies sharing a creme brulee in Cafe rouge, tapping their teaspoons on the crust, edging out over the ice but reluctant to be the first to break it-- I don't know what it is but I will try and describe it better. There's a website called Paragraph Planet and they look for 300 word short stories. 300 words would break the not-writing spell.

I find music helps sometimes - just as a kick-start, then I have to turn it off once the writing begins or it becomes a distraction. Good luck. Rob

Hello good ABC friends-- Some suggestions: ---Write for self---ideas for helping oneself. Take a sentence and turn it into a poem: ie. "I feel like crap, because I have no job" No jobs today the papers say don't care right now cause fishing's in the way. ---Write for Friends---self-help advice. "A canoe is fun and not really dangerous." Canoe so tippy unless you learn right from the start standing up in it a no-brainer so dump the fear relax and get fun into gear. ---Write for the world. Comment on life. "My thoughts so sad with kids hungry in Africa." The sky can be bright if only somehow I could share with those TV kids skinny bones showing so sad and yet I wish I had their ebony tan. Note: I truly believe we as writers can cheer up a little corner of the world with our writing. Little can we do about global events, the death of a child, or even the prevention of a personal tragedy. ---We can however, observe through our words and overcome with a scenario of faith in oneself, in friends and in family. A warm hand on the shoulder in our poetry is how we live and they perhaps survive their turmoil--- Come brothers and sisters too find solace in my embrace I too suffered loss I too hurt and feel useless but together we will overcome the events which threaten to destroy our soul. *Hope the above can tease some of you back into the personal responsibility and enjoyment of writing. God bless, from Richard and Esther.

The best motivation to write, is writing without a single thought. Write what you see around you, write how you feel, write about a description of your day job, or anything trivial will help greatly. A writer thrives off of observations and what they sense/feel/see around them and within; not how they "think". Begin by observing and end with vivid description. All else fails write random subjects on paper and draw it out of a hat. Improvise is always wise. Best of luck! - Chinobus -

The best motivation to write, is writing without a single thought. Write what you see around you, write how you feel, write about a description of your day job, or anything trivial will help greatly. A writer thrives off of observations and what they sense/feel/see around them and within; not how they "think". Begin by observing and end with vivid description. All else fails write random subjects on paper and draw it out of a hat. Improvise is always wise. Best of luck! - Chinobus -

the best way of not writing is writing. It doesn't need to be good. But someting's got to happen. And when something happens, something else happens. And if nothing happens, descibe why nothng is happening and who is involved with it not happening. And if they don't know find someone in the story that does, or think s/he does. Ask yourself one question. Do I know what I'm doing? If the answer is 'yes' you're a genuis, if the answer is 'no' you're a writer.

Hi Steve. It's awful, isn't it? All good advice above, though. Chinobus has written what I was going to say. I had a block in the summer (you mean it's passed? I hear you say) and I just started writing any old crap and looked for a theme. Literally writing what came into my head. I ended up writing a short sci-fi thing, which really isn't me. It wasn't much cop, but it got me going again. I'm sorry you're without a job, but try to get out and about with a notebook and capture snippets and observations. Some of my most rewarding stuff comes when I announce that I'm not doing it anymore and when I turn my attention to guitar instead (also crap!). Don't turn it into an issue. Good luck.

Not knowing how you write it's quite possible that a lot of the suggestions won't be relevant to you. It's several years since I went to a blank computer screen without an idea of what to write - I get ideas during the day, travelling to or from work, and hastily scribble them down, constantly cursing that I never have time to write up all of my ideas. I had two short periods of unemployment last year and in both cases I dried up in terms of thinking up new ideas, because I was thrown out of a long-set routine. There are two broad approaches. One, just write and try and find prompts. Go for a trip into town and set yourself the target of finding a character to write about, or do the weekly IP on this site, find a free competition (The Writers and Artists Yearbook have a competion on with the theme of 'Freedom' for example), or you could try objectwriting.com - which sets a word of the day and you have to write about that word for 10 minutes, and 10 minutes only. The other approach is to not write and not worry about it. Maybe you're just adjusting to unemployment, which can be very stressful, and you just need a break from writing. Set a date to come back to writing and have a holiday, pick up your running shoes, guitar, etc and work on hobby B for a bit. Or, something in-between the two extremes. Set yourself the task of editing your work, perhaps with a view of sending pieces for submission etc - it will use the writing bit of your brain without needing you to be at your creative peak.

I go with Celtic on this one. And I always start with The. If nothing comes I look around me and pick something. Right now it's my dictionary on the dictionary stand. So I write, The dictionary stand is dusty. It gets that way because I never get my lazy ass off this chair. I'm too dependent on the computer's dictionary. The dictionary has been open to page 1079 since about 2007. That's when we moved in here. Why 1079. Wait. Let me have a look. The first thing that catches my eye is the word lying. False, untrue, it says. I'm always confused with the word. I was probably looking for the word that means to recline. Do you lie down, lye down or do you lay down. All right, that was a pretty boring example and probably no help to you at all. lol. But you get my drift. Keep writing no matter how boring. Eventually the muse takes pity and comes to the rescue. But please keep writing. Your not writing would be our great lose. And we'd hate to lose a good writer. (loose a good writer?) All the best to you, Steve. Throwing some good vibes your way. Rich

A good thread, thanks to all contributors for the input. I have read all comments with great interest.

I've had this problem a fair few times and it's a stone clad nightmare. I discovered that the best way (for me at least) to get round it is to ask my subconscious. I just let my mind go blank and then write down the very first sentence that comes into my head. It doesn't matter what the sentence is, just write it down. And then write down another sentence that is loosely connected to it. And then another and then another. And then stop, go away, and think about the *content* of what I've written without worrying about the style / grammar etc. Then, when I'm intrigued enough I go back and write more sentences. If the thing runs out of steam then it runs out of steam, but at least there's something on the page, and it will make it easier to do the same thing again the next day. That's exactly how I started my novel, and it ended up 68000 words long! If you can intrigue your mind, then your keyboard will follow...

Great advice, Cloven Hoof. I often scribble down short pieces about whatever comes into my head when I'm stuck for ideas and dig them out when I desperately need inspiration. My hard drive is crammed with such random story ideas, and I also carry a notebook most of the time. Some of my best ideas come to me when I'm drifting off to sleep or waking up, I believe the psychological term for such subconscious musings is hypnogogic and hypnopompic visions (or states - please correct me if I'm wrong).