One of the questions I'm asked most as a writer is, "What do you do when you get writers' block?". It's a question I never really find that easy to answer, well not succinctly anyway. Writers' block is a strange concept. Today my lovely writer friend Joanny @JoaOropesa asked me this question - she referred to it as 'hitting the wall' and somehow this simple, brilliant phrase inspired me to write this post. You see I always deny that I get writer's block - I think this is because the idea of it terrifies me; as if I might just wake up one day and have nothing left to say, no stories left to tell. I can't tell you how much that idea saddens me. But as for hitting the wall....
Yeah, I hit the wall all the time and the way that I deal with it - I walk away from it. I'll give it an hour or so, labouring over a scene but if it's not walking, I close the file and do something else. I never know exactly when I'll return; it might be an hour, a week or even a month - it's never gotten past three before. I use the time to go and read some of the awesome books I have gathering dust in my TBR pile. I return to my notebooks and re-read them. I go to the bookshop and buy history books to do more research. I sketch out plots and ideas of other books. I increase my blogging, play with my website, design my cover, interact with my readers - you see, I'll do pretty much anything but agonise over my MS.
This doesn't mean I've left it body and soul: you carry your stories with you. I daydream the settings I've invented, chat to the characters I've created - because I know that the story will come, the wall will suddenly develop a door - and then it will just be a matter of waltzing right through it.
I think in these modern times of indie-publishing and networking, there can be a terrible sense that all of our writer friends are cleverly spinning out works with ease. It only seems like last month when they published book one of their series and already they are getting ready to release book two. It can sometimes feel a little bit like a race. I give myself a stern talking to about this. I'm happy they can produce talented work quickly - but it's not who I am. I've always been a four hour casserole girl over a stir-fry. It's taken me four years to get the first two books of my series out. Book three is coming along nicely - although on saying that, I haven't touched it in a fortnight.
So - this wall business. You've got to find your own way. You can determinedly bash it down brick by brick wielding a big hammer. You can spend your day scrabbling up it and for every three steps upwards you take two down, or like me you can turn around, enjoy the flowers and the sky, have a chat with those standing around you - and just wait for the door to appear.
Thanks so much. I once read an article by an engineer who had built an innovative robot with Legos. What struck me was his description of the process. He said that with almost any project he had to walk away at least three times with pieces scattered all over the floor and no answer in sight before arriving at the solution and finishing. For him, that walking away, those frustrating, despairing moments, were an inevitable, even necessary part of the creative process. He didn't believe he would have found the answer without them. Engineers know and expect this. Writers don't always (I still have to remind myself). So you're right: walking away, busying your mind with something else, isn't abandonment. It's a way, I believe, to let the sub-conscious do its necessary work, to let the deeper, creative mind figure things out, so you can turn back to that wall and find there's that beautiful gate opening, as you've pictured above, beckoning you through.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. There seems such a sense of urgency amongst some creative types. As if dogged determination will accelerate a result - all that happens is the end product ends up never meeting the true potential it might have had. Like the famous advertising slogan says "good things come to those who wait!" :)
DeleteGood blog with good points, and I couldn't agree more with walking away from the work for a while. Though I have found that, for myself anyway, it is best if I go back and reread what I've written, make edits--because we all know we can't resist fixing spelling and grammar when we see them during a reread. It just keeps me in "the zone" even when I'm feeling blank, and then I find that door you spoke of, open.
ReplyDeleteI also think that "writer's block" is something different to us all. To me the only time I truly experienced what I would call a writer's block was back on the day I started my first book. I felt "empty". I had no story to tell, I just KNEW I had to write. I had to become the author I had always dreamed of being, so I just started writing. I used that blankness, the emptiness, the complete lack of story, to just let words come out. It was like tipping a can of paint upside down and not knowing what color would come out. Once the words started I just took charge of them after a point. It was an odd experience, but rewarding.
I think "hitting the wall" is something entirely different to me. That is when I get the blues about my writing, overthinking it, wondering if it will really ever fly, and then the depression over those ponderings becomes a "wall" against me getting anything done. When that happens I don't even WANT to get anything done.
Anyway, Like I said, I think it is so vastly different for each of us that all we can do is generalize, sympathize, and empathize.
You do all of those well!
I can totally sympathise with the emotions you talk about when getting the 'blues' about your writing. As I've grown in confidence I've come to sort of accept these blues as a critical friend. Overthinking is such a problem - it can be almost crippling.
DeleteThank you so much for your response. It's fascinating to read about how the writing process works for other writers. Like you say it's so different and yet shared at the same time.
Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree that everyone has their own way of dealing with writer's block, or hitting the wall. My English 101 students report that they suffer from this ailment at alarming rates, and I'm always trying to give them new tools for moving through it.
As for me, my coping mechanism is to write something silly, most often nerdy alternative lyrics to pop music. I've been doing this for years, and it always helps me rediscover my muse. My favorite product of writer's block will always be Big Books Got Back. Though Splice, Splice Crazy comes a close second. :)
That's a much more creative response than mine, Lori :D :D
DeleteIt's usually because I haven't totally figured out a plot point or scene-often making a list of ideas REALLY helps. A list of about twenty options yields at least two good threads.
ReplyDelete