Help! How Do You Get Through Writer's Block...

[Surei]

Does this ever happen to you?

 

I have been wanting to write a letter to friends for the last MONTH... But as soon as I sit down with a piece of scrap (I always draft my letters) and my FP.... Its just blank. Or unrelentingly negative.

 

I don't want to send my friend a depressing letter. For one, because letter writing is one of my outlets for spreading joy and love to the people I care about. For another, because it would feel like putting an emotional burden on them. I go to my therapist for that!

 

That's not to say I don't share sad things with my friends. There are times when you need your feelings acknowledged and understood by someone you care about... this is just not one of those times. Letting the negativity flow out is likely to just make me fixate on it and feel awful.

 

If you have any methods to get through writer's block, especially in the case of writing a letter, please let me know!

 

 

 

 

[LizEF]

Well, there's that quote...

 

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

 

I thought from the title we were going to be talking about fiction. I suppose we still could:

 

Dear Friend,

 

Yesterday, I ran into Ben Franklin while trekking in the Himalayan foothills....

 

Yours in truth,

Surei

[Surei]

Well, there's that quote...

 

I thought from the title we were going to be talking about fiction. I suppose we still could:

 

Dear Friend,

 

Yesterday, I ran into Ben Franklin while trekking in the Himalayan foothills....

 

Yours in truth,

Surei

 

I love it! That gives me a wonderful idea, thank you!

Edited October 11, 2017 by Surei

[LizEF]

 

I love it! That gives me a wonderful idea, thank you!

 

Glad to help. Don't blame me if your friends start talking behind your back about padded rooms and coats with really long sleeves...

[inkstainedruth]

 

Glad to help. Don't blame me if your friends start talking behind your back about padded rooms and coats with really long sleeves...

 

I'll admit that I also thought the thread would be about writing fiction when I saw the title....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Surei]

For the record I would love to hear anyone's advice for breaking writer's block for fiction! I need all the help I can get ;P

[Shaggy]

For the record I would love to hear anyone's advice for breaking writer's block for fiction! I need all the help I can get ;P

Start with prompts:

 

1. Who am I?

 

2. Where am I?

 

3. What do I see?

 

4. What do I hear?

 

5. What happens next?

 

Usually by number 5 I'm good to go.

[LizEF]

The two best ideas I've heard are:

 

1) Always stop writing in the middle of a scene, so that when you start the next day, you already know where the story is going.

 

2) Start by re-writing the last few paragraphs you wrote previously - to get you back into the flow of the story.

 

...those, of course, assume you're already in the middle of something rather than trying to figure out how to start something new. Starting a new story is never my problem, so I can't tell you how to solve it.

[Ghost Plane]

Feed your soul. Stop worrying about what you’re supposed to be writing and enjoy yourself.

[Retro-user]

Try writing from someone else's POV in the story. I've been experimenting with that lately and it seems to help.

[kestrel]

I take a long, leisurely walk while carrying a small notebook, a pen and a can of insect repellent (Mandatory in NE Florida). There is a large state forest only a few hundred meters from the house and walking, listening, and musing puts me in the right frame of mind. Earlier this week it was a female redstart bathing in a small pool of leftover floodwater from Irma. Another time it was bear tracks and scat (still warm). Random thoughts go in the notebook until I get home.

 

For fiction, if the beginning is too hard then start in the middle and go back to fill in the earlier section. The first chapter of Charlotte's Web gave E.B. White fits so he wrote it after writing most of the rest of the book.

 

Happy writing.

[praxim]

I take a long, leisurely walk while carrying a small notebook, a pen and a can of insect repellent (Mandatory in NE Florida). There is a large state forest only a few hundred meters from the house and walking, listening, and musing puts me in the right frame of mind. Earlier this week it was a female redstart bathing in a small pool of leftover floodwater from Irma. Another time it was bear tracks and scat (still warm). Random thoughts go in the notebook until I get home.

 

For fiction, if the beginning is too hard then start in the middle and go back to fill in the earlier section. The first chapter of Charlotte's Web gave E.B. White fits so he wrote it after writing most of the rest of the book.

 

Happy writing.

 

Although my writing was non-fiction, I found the same approaches worked for me, especially that in the second paragraph. I wrote well enough once started; it was starting that caused me great difficulty. Sometimes a massive and obsessive desk clean-up symbolically cleared my mind. Re-arranging outline notes can help, but often it was writing some bit I was ready to write that enabled other things to hang off it. The start of the document was often just a casual and often modified note, for quite a while. The end, though, always came at the end .

 

Referring to an earlier comment about quitting mid-scene, I would not have been able to stop mid-way through a thought train or segment of argument, which is how I see that. However, unless comfortably in flow and breaking for food, I would make a point of scribbling words or a line on what part I was going to cover next, before leaving my desk, to avoid a re-start problem like the first start.

 

edit: clarification

Edited October 13, 2017 by praxim

[rwilsonedn]

I find I have two different kinds of blocks. One is from that submerged part of my brain that organizes thoughts and finds something worth saying. If I try to overcome that I generally write garbage that will be recycled paper the next day. The only solution I've found for it is time and walking around.

The other block is from the part of my brain that does language. It generally just needs kick-starting. Even beginning to write something intentionally bad, or unrelated--like a grocery list in silly prose, or even writing about not being able to start writing will often get that part of the brain going, and then I can get down to work.

But I can't always tell which block I'm facing. Sometimes it's both.

ron

[darazs]

Start with prompts:

1. Who am I?

2. Where am I?

3. What do I see?

4. What do I hear?

5. What happens next?

Usually by number 5 I'm good to go.

Unconsciously i have done that for letters writing and always got going.

 

I do not write fiction, but I would think for anything substantial a skeleton goes a long way

[Surei]

I find I have two different kinds of blocks. One is from that submerged part of my brain that organizes thoughts and finds something worth saying. If I try to overcome that I generally write garbage that will be recycled paper the next day. The only solution I've found for it is time and walking around.

The other block is from the part of my brain that does language. It generally just needs kick-starting. Even beginning to write something intentionally bad, or unrelated--like a grocery list in silly prose, or even writing about not being able to start writing will often get that part of the brain going, and then I can get down to work.

But I can't always tell which block I'm facing. Sometimes it's both.

ron

 

I think my problem is generally similar to your #1.

 

If I am given a straightforward purpose for writing, like an essay or project for school for example, I am generally comfortable completing those.

 

But when my soul has the urge to create.. there I struggle constantly. I will have the urge to write, draw, paint... but it is so difficult to get started. I would say that ~90% of the energy i put into creating has no discernible effect, its all just coming up with an idea.

 

Speaking of which, I came up with an idea for my letter. I have a running gag with my friend about how secretive they are... so I am going to write him and his wife separate letters, as if they are secret agents with a mission. But the most "sensitive" part of the letter will be in code. To read the entire missive, they must put together the tools I send in each of their envelopes. This is going to be fun!

 

edit: grammar

Edited October 15, 2017 by Surei

[Studio97]

Surei quote "read the entire missive, they must use the put together the tools I send in each of their envelopes. This is going to be fun! "

😁

or they could turn the tables on you😁.

[Surei]

or they could turn the tables on you.

 

I can only hope!

[Ghost Plane]

There’s a classic book THE WAR OF ART by Pressfield on creative resistance.

[JWil]

I carried a small spiral notebook in my truck and if something came to mind and I would quickly jot it down. I also found sentences would sometimes follow a thought pattern on what I had written down at lunch time. I hope you writers block leaves you and may many more sentences follow.

[Surei]

There’s a classic book THE WAR OF ART by Pressfield on creative resistance.

 

Thanks, that sound interesting. I will check it out.