Struggling to get back into writing.
Sat, 2014-10-25 08:20
#1
Struggling to get back into writing.
Hello everyone.
Long time no read
I’m really upset. It has been so long since I wrote anything that wasn’t work related. I think I may have lost some of the style I had honed. I have lost my confidence.
I’m wracking my brain for a story idea. I am coming up with ideas, but nothing that really grabs me. I’m having trouble coming up with a good premise, a good “What If”.
I really hate to think about this, but perhaps it is because I quit smoking. It has been six months, and I am no longer completely distracted by the cravings, so that’s fine, but my brain still feels really foggy and loose, if you know what I mean. I have been quitting for nearly 2 years off and on.
Thoughts? Advice to get started again?
Reading is a great source of inspiration for me. It seems to refocus my mind to that of a writer/observer. For me it's mainly poetry but for short stories you could try the modern classics like Bradbury's Martian Chronicles or even Hemingway. Then there's a lot of excellent contemporary collections like John Mcgregor's This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someoneone Like You.
Whatever you do, don't sit around dwelling on it. Go away and do something else until the stories start coming back. That could be a day, a week, a year, or as long as it takes. But they will come back.
There's a drug called creative X that boosts the creativity area in the brain however it's totally addictive to the user. Our hero wants to write just one more best seller but he knows he must quit. He takes some more creative x and takes a deep breath and begins to write what he believes is his best work. One year later he's free from it but he's out of ideas. His agent calls and asks for another book. He sighs and goes off to buy some more creative x. Just one more book....
@grover Arh - I long for a simpler time, when doctors endorsed cigarettes to relieve stress. In those days they were as healthy as an apple. Then something changed - trust the baby boomers to mess everything up. Suddenly everything is bad for you and they abolished the White Australia Policy. Bloody Labour.
Jokes aside – I know I can do it without the smokes, in fact I remember in some ways they were not so helpful, as I chain smoked and wrote I would feel sicker and sicker. I could only do it for an hour or two.
They were good for when I got a bit stuck on an idea and I would have to go outside to have one. It would give me ten minutes away from the screen to think about what I was working on and would usually end up with a breakthrough. I night need to replace that break somehow.
@scorpio88 You’re right about read, it does get some juices flowing, just not yet in any cohesive or useful way. I have picked up an anthology of short stories and am reacquainting myself with them. The one I’m reading is called Brave New Worlds, edited by John Joseph Adams, and is a collection of dystopian fiction. (and a few other things)
After I posted this thread I started a few paragraphs. The concepts weren’t great but I could feel the old muscles starting to loosen. I’ll just keep at it.
keep at it. Simple. when you're writing you're a writer, when you're not, you're not.
That is nice and simple.
I'll try not to stress.
Hey - is Stan still around?
Or is he a bigshot now :P