Although my writing is more in the nature of reports and critiques, it can still be hard to motivate myself to get going on it.I've tried various techniques to get myself past that initial writer's block (kitchen timer, bribery after a certain amount of words etc), but a friend has just emailed me a rather more tough-love approach.
I thought I'd share it with you as a bit of Friday fun...
The Write or Die web application at the Dr Wicked website has three modes: gentle, normal or kamikaze. You are asked to type your work into a box on-screen (which saves on to a clipboard for easy transfer into your usual document). And if you stop writing, the penalties range from a polite pop-up box asking you to get started again, to an unpleasant noise, to your work spontaneously unwriting itself!
So if you feel you must 'write or die', you could always try it Dr Wicked's way!
Cressida
(editorial consultant)
Laura K on November 6, 2009
Ha ha! Brilliant, though you'd definitely want to remember to hit the pause button while you reference the dictionary or thesaurus or the like, the words vanish otherwise!
I'm feeling a bit Writer's Blocky - but that's more borne from having reality kick in and the panic that this story of mine may never make it into print - It's not hampering my imagination, more my motivation. But then I remember how much pleasure I get from creating the story and actually, I just want to tell it to myself, because it's what I want to read, and my writer's block is banished!
Lizzie Gates on November 7, 2009
I thought a blocked-out bit of time in the diary - no pun intended - would solve writer's block. Friday mornings, I thought, then lunch with friends. Perfect. The only problem is that weeks are now going by with that neat little 'block of time' under threat. What I'd like to be doing is writing my short stories. What I am doing is marketing and invoices.
Time for desperate action. Another block, another time? No, still under threat. So, I'm sitting here at my desk at the moment, seriously contemplating what I can lose from my week. Do I want to lose writing? No! Dog-walking? No! Riding for the Disabled? No. I've got it. If I lose emails and business planning, I gain a staggering 10 hours a week. Business planning I can do while dog-walking - so long as Tilly doesn't kill anything while I do it.
But emails - leave them alone and hundreds arrive - usually from the Canadian Pharmacy - in which I have no interest. I would say only 10 a day are worthwhile. Any suggestions for email-handling?
Cressida Downing on November 9, 2009
I must confess I am too nervous to try it! Anyone who does - please let me know how you get on.
Lizzie - when it comes to emails, I try not to check them too often. Do set up your email client to banish obvious spam so you don't have to waste time wading through the various offers of pills, or cash, or the like. Maybe set aside a particular time a couple of times a day to check emails? If it's that urgent, the chances are that someone will ring you.
Cressi
T. D. Green on November 10, 2009
I use the following method to cure writer's block...
I usually start the week with a new razor blade; Monday through to Friday I'll bleed a lot when shaving due to the new blade, but come Saturday I'll be fine as the razor will have lost most of its cutting edge sharpness. Ah, Saturday is the only day when I can go out and enjoy myself without looking as though I've just challenged a Samurai warrior.
Yes Monday is the day when I have the greatest urge to write, and I happily go sit at my desk and begin to tap at the keyboard in the hope that I'll create something worthwhile. Or at least acceptable for consideration by editors.
Come midday I'll have the urge to take a walk to the local pub, order a lager, and sit and ponder over what went wrong with that morning's writing? I'll have put down the paragraphs, deleted them, re-written them, and deleted them once more, finally ending up with the first blank page I started with - a morning's work in all.
Could it be writer's block, I ask myself? Or something much more sinister, like senile dementia? It has to be said, I'm well past my first flush of youth. Anyhow here I am, sat in the pub and drinking lager, with nothing written even though I'd toiled so hard I'd started bleeding from every pore of my forehead. But then I let go a little chuckle as my ageing mind takes control of my thoughts, and saves me once again from drifting into self-pity. And a flashback sequence begins ...
Arriving at the nightclub where I worked as a barman, I'd decided that I didn't feel like doing my shift that particular night and so I came up with an ingenious idea - I'd pretend to be going a touch crazy. And so I hoisted myself up above the counter and hung upside down by the legs from the spotlight rail. Sally, the blonde barmaid, asked me what I was doing.
"I'm pretending to be a spotlight so the manager will think I've gone a bit crazy and send me home to rest," I told her. Sally shook her head as she grinned.
Duly the manager entered and saw me, and called over, "What on earth do you think you're doing?"
"I'm the spotlight, but I'm going to go out," I replied.
The manager stared strangely at me for a moment. "I think you'd better go home and sleep off whatever it is you've been on, okay?"
My idea had worked like a charm! But, as I was coming down off the spotlight rail, both I and the manager noticed that blonde Sally had picked up her bag and grabbed her coat and was heading for the door to leave.
The manager called out to Sally, "Hey! Where do you think you're going, young lady?"
Sally stopped and turned to face the manager. "I'm going home too," she started, "I can't work in the dark!"
Suddenly I was jolted back to reality as someone asked me if I'd got a light for his cigarette. And the flashback sequence was at an end....
But that flashback did give me an idea, and I finished off my lager and headed for home and my desk.
That Monday afternoon flew by, due to the fact that I was able to write something down, and my day had not been wasted after all. I guess you're left wondering what it was that I'd written, hmmm? Below is a clue.
GO BACK TO TOP.
Lizzi Vandorpe on November 19, 2009
Tom Evans, The Bookwright runs a series of workshops to help overcome writers block. Based on the success of these, he has written and published his book "blocks" available on Amazon! Well worth a read if you cant get onto one of his workshops !