I know the feeling all too well. I get my coffee, a glass of water and get nice and comfortable on the couch. Occasionally I’ll even sit at the table too. All psyched up, I open my computer and click on the document for my novel. Instantly, all excitement fades. It’s replaced by something akin to dread. The words on the screen start to look like either a foreign language or something a five-year old scribbled. This usually results in me acquiring a cause of the ‘author blues’ or placing my head in my hands and convincing myself that I’m a horrible writer and the scourge of the author world.
Okay,
maybe that’s a bit extreme.
All
writers suffer from writer’s block and the author blues at some point in their
life. Both of the things I tend to automatically do are obviously not what one
should do in this situation. But what DO you do?
I was
reading an article about horse training lately (yes, this relates to writing, I
promise). Our pony sometimes refuses to go forward, instead planting his feet
in one spot and staying there. Something I read by a famous trainer said this,
“Sometimes a horse will refuse to go forward because they’re trying to tell you
something. They’re trying to say, ‘hey, I need a refresher on the basics!’.
They could also be warning you that the next step will be explosive…and not in
a good way.”
If
you feel like you can’t (or refuse to) move forward, then go back and look at
the basics. I don’t mean go back to your first grade English curriculum and
start from square 1. Look at the big picture of your writing—your outline or
overview. Read it out loud, get some input from others, act it out. Do whatever
you need to do to make it real to you. I’ve found that if I start talking to
someone about troubles I’m having with my story, they tend to have some advice
and I’m able to see the bigger picture. Sometimes you’re just so close to your
story that you can’t see anything else. Instead of zooming in and focusing on
just a certain chapter or scene, go back to the outline and figure out your
plot holes. It may seem basic, but it really goes a long way.
Schedule
your writing time and stick to it. Make an appointment with yourself and honor
it just as you would a dentist appointment, a get-together or a lunch. You’re a
writer. Writers write, so you need to make time for it every day.
Write
something completely off-the-wall crazy. I’m working on a short story right now
about someone with a phobia of lampshades. The idea came from my sleep
deprived, running-on-coffee-and-sugar self a few nights ago while talking to a
friend. I was incredibly loopy and out of it and couldn’t focus on anything
serious (like my novel). Any kind of writing is useful, whether it be something
nutty like I did or a blog post or a letter to someone. Just get the creative
juices flowing. Writing is like any other skill. You have to practice to get
better at it. It doesn’t just develop overnight.
My
last tip is to avoid beating yourself up. It doesn’t help you at all, even
though it seems that it may get you more motivated. In my experiences (and
those of a few author friends), it does exactly the opposite—it harms you. One
of the biggest things that stops anyone from progressing in a creative field is
fear. The fear of rejection. The fear of being laughed at. The fear of not
being good enough. Don’t dwell on those things. Actually, what would be really
good is to chop the fears to pieces, burn the pieces to ash, and then dump the
ash in a river somewhere.
Remember,
the author is always the harshest critic of their own work. Throw your fears
out the window and keep pressing on. You’ll get better if you keep practicing.
So, write.
