Writer's Block and Why It Doesn't Exist

For those of you who don't know, I teach at the local university on occasion. I work, not surprisingly, in the English department. Specifically, I teach creative writing. While I'm not actually teaching a class this semester, I was asked to come in for a few days and talk to students at various phases in their education. One thing that always strikes me is how often students (and even seasoned writers) complain of the infamous writer's block.

Let me make one thing clear: I don't believe in writer's block. I simply cannot believe that anyone who calls themselves a writer (or who claims to want to be a writer) might sit down all ready to write and find themselves with nothing to say. How can that possibly be? Surely there are thoughts kicking around in your mind somewhere. Even if they have nothing to do with your current project. I've come to believe that writer's block has become the excuse a writer gives for pure laziness. This is not said with the intent of being malicious. We're all entitled to be lazy once in a while. I know I like having a lazy day here and there. But you'll never catch me trying to tell you that I'm doing anything other than being lazy.

But some people do really believe in writer's block. I know this because I argue with students about it all the time. And if you truly believe in writer's block, and believe that you're suffering from it, you might be having a tough time putting words on paper (or on the computer screen). If this describes you, there are some tried and true methods that can help you get in the habit of writing, which is the only thing that can really overcome writer's block.

1. Place butt in chair. No, I'm not kidding. Glue yourself to your chair and get something done. Reading is not writing. Researching is not writing. Thinking is not writing. Getting a snack is certainly not writing. Sit down and do it.
2. Why do you think I have a blog? Because I have nothing better to do? No. I have a blog (ten of them, actually), so I always have something to write. Nothing kills the desire to write like not writing, so I blog when I'm in the middle of research just to keep those creative juices flowing. So start a blog about anything you like and post no less than once a week. Even if no one reads it, you'll exercise those creative muscles. My blogs follow my passions, so use yours and have fun.
3. Write 500 words a day, no matter what. No excuses. Think 500 sounds like a lot? I write 5000+. You shouldn't compare yourself to me or anyone else, but you need to write if you ever want to be able to say you're a writer. I write my 5000 words even if they're horrible. That's the magic of editing.
4. Read. That's right. Pick up a book by an author you admire and read it. Let the flow of words inspire you. That doesn't mean taking their ideas, but inspiration can come from the way others use words, so read a good book.
5. Have more than one project on the go at any one time. I write adult fiction, children's fiction, and non-fiction, and I have at least one project in each category. Everyone once in a while, a project does need to sit, but if you just stop writing, it'll be harder to start again. So move your efforts over to something else for a few days.
6. Have a schedule. And now I hear the groans. But writers find time to write. If you can't find time to write, you're not a writer. You're just someone is playing around with the idea of being a writer, which is not at all the same thing. We all have distractions. I know I do. Kids, television, movies, kids, books I haven't read, kids, papers to mark, kids ... and did I mention the kids? But I've developed a very strict schedule for myself, and I follow it like clockwork. It's all well and good to say you're too creative for a schedule, but you'll never get anything done if you don't carve out the time. Make a writing date with yourself and stick to it.

Find a way to break the cycle and get writing. If you can do that, you are well on your way to writing a novel, or whatever your writing goal happens to be. Just don't fall into the trap of writing nothing, or nothing is all you'll ever write.

Choosing a Point of View When Writing a Novel

Well, I'm at the beginning of a new project, this one a rather lengthy novel that will likely be split into two or even three different books. Before I really delve into the books, I need to answer a few questions. The first is always what the story will be about. This one was easy. I already had the idea or I wouldn't have sat down to write the book

So I've got my story. After spending most of the week fleshing out the plot, I run into my next crucial question. Point of view (also called narrative perspective) is nearly as important as the plot. There are many choices, all of them with their pros and cons. Generally, when writing the types of novels I work on, there are three choices: first person, third person limited, and third person omniscient.

First person, which uses the pronoun I, is great for getting into a character's head. You can reveal all thoughts and feeling your lead character is having and you get to know everything that character knows. The main character is not a mystery. This is great, and would be great, except for the obvious drawbacks, the first of which is limiting the point of view. As a reader, you only get to know what the main character knows. There is no way of introducing any other information (unless I make use of the idea of the Interlude, but these always annoy me).

The other problem is one of suspense. If I'm using first person, then the reader can guess, probably accurately, that the main character is sitting by the fire telling the story after the fact. The main character survived everything that happens. I don't usually like to kill off my main characters, but I do it occasionally and I like to have the option.

Third person limited is not all that far removed from first person. Third person uses the pronoun he or she, but the point of view is still limited (for the most part) to the main character. This imposes some distance between the main character and the reader, and as an author, I don't have to reveal everything the main character knows. This allows for more mystery and some suspense. But I still have a hard time killing off the main character, since we've been mostly in his (or her) head the entire time. Also, this point of view can become boring for some readers, which is the kiss of death for any author.

Then we come to third person omniscient. A good point of view, as far as it goes. I can dip into anyone's thoughts at any time and I only reveal what I want, and only when I want to. I can kill any character and keep the integrity of the story. The problem? This point of view can seem cold and distant, which it is to a certain extent. It also leaves me open to being accused of head hopping, which is leaping from one point of view to another and confusing the reader while doing so. It can be done, but it takes a little more care and patience to do it well.

My choice, as always, must be dictated by the story itself. Looking carefully at my plot, it became clear to me that I only rarely drift away from my main character. With a little careful rewriting I can eliminate these scenes and drift closer to first person point of view. But I don't want to get that close. A little mystery is good for this particular story, since I don't want to reveal the end too quickly. Third person limited, then. But I like the intimacy of first person, so I think I'll do a prologue and an epilogue in first person. The best of both worlds.

When you are searching for a point of view, disregard what's popular and what you might be used to. This decision should be driven entirely by the story, and not by what is currently popular.

Want more information about narrative perspective? They this little video for starters.

Making Real Life People Into Characters in Your Novel

I spent most of this week populating my novels with new and unique characters. It's a novelists job, to keep pumping out the characters. And I don't like limp characters in my novels. I like people with spunk, who are exciting and fun to be around. Bascially, I like realistic characters. But, when you've written dozens of stories, you start to run out of new characters.

Or do you? Look around you. Maybe not right now as you might be sitting on your computer in your own home. But next time you're out for a walk or on your way to work, glance around. There are people. More people if you live in the city, but there are still people out in the country. People going to work, people you live with, extended family. We all know some people. And we can observe more still. With so many people around, how can any writer claim to run out of characters for a book?

So this week I looked around. I watched friends and family, I watched people at the grocery store, and I watched families as I took my own children sledding this past weekend. Some of these people probably thought I was pretty strange with my notepad and pen, but that's okay. I watched and I listened. And I had a lot of fun as I realized once again that people are just plain weird. "Truth is stranger than fiction" has never been more real than it was this past week.

But all these people will make great characters. And I had a lot of fun imagining what they'd do in the situations in my novels. It was exciting and entertaining and certainly useful. There are so many different people in the world that I quickly found myself with more characters than I needed. Some of them are neatly written down and stored in my filing cabinet for future use in whatever story I come up with next.

So if you're having trouble creating well rounded characters, look to your neighbors. And your family. And whoever else you happen to encounter. Then insert them into a fictional situation and see what happens. Just remember to change everyone's name so they don't recognize themselves!

Using Poetry to Fuel Your Writing

I was working on a particularly intense part of my next novel this week and it just wasn't coming together. It wasn't writer's block because I could write. It was more like I was writing the wrong thing. My prose was off and the words were not sticking to the page. It just wasn't happening for me this week.

After much thought, I realized what the problem was. I wasn't digging deep enough. The emotion wasn't there and without that emotion, this particular scene was going to fall flat and would not contribute to the final novel. And if it wasn't going to contribute, I needed to either cut the scene or fix the problem.

Cutting the scene was not an option, so I had to fix it. I had to find the emotion that would fuel the scene. This is often the key to writing a novel. Of course, it's easy to say "find the emotion." It's much harder to actually do it. After three days of agonizing over this, I turned to the most emotional form of writing I know -- poetry.

I wrote the scene as poetry instead of prose. I let it form in verse and suddenly my brain was engaged. I was digging for the real meat of the scene and leaving behind that which just didn't fit. If there wasn't room for it in the poem, it didn't belong in the prose. Once I had the entire scene written as a poem, I went back and converted the poem into prose. And I am immensely pleased with the results.

Did this take me a little longer than simply writing the scene would have? Well, yes (if I'd actually been able to write the thing in a satisfying way). But the results are more than worth the effort. So if you find yourself in a bind while writing your first novel (or your tenth), try using a little bit of poetry to reengage a sluggish brain.

Write What You're Interested In

I was giving a lecture at the local university this week and we were talking about how to choose what to write. Which genre should you pick? Fiction or non-fiction? And inevitably someone piped and and said that writers should only write what they know.

I hate this little bit of "advice" that seems to pop up frequently. It really doesn't help anyone. Why should a writer confine herself (I'm a woman, I'm going to use the feminine here; no offense to the guys) to what she currently knows when she can go out and learn just about anything. It's a limiting viewpoint and not something I subscribe to. Especially when it comes to giving advice to students, since they don't know as much now as they will 10 years from now. They could get stuck in a mentality that will never lend itself to the best they're capable of.

So I amended the statement. My exact words were, "Let's change that up a little bit and say that you should write what you're interested in. You can always go out and learn something new." What does this mean? Well, maybe you want to write a non-fiction book on learning to ride horses but you've never even touched a horse in your life. You can still write the book. Get out there and learn to ride and write a book about it.

Doesn't this mean that you're now writing what you know? Well, yes, but you didn't know how to ride a horse before you got the idea for the book. The point is that you should never let the statement "write what you know" direct your writing. Instead, go with your heart. What do you love to write about? Horses? Fantasies? Murder mysteries? We all have things we love, and we should direct our efforts to these areas.

If you can do this, you'll soon find that the words just pour out of you and take their place on the page.

Taking Advice From Others About Your Writing

I talk to other writers a lot. Probably two or even three hours a day. I talk to aspiring writers and I talk to seasoned professionals. I even talk to agents and editors on a regular basis. I truly enjoy most of the time I spend interacting with other people in my field of work (I write for a living), but there are weeks when I probably should have just ignored everyone and focused on my writing.

Why? Because this week I encountered no less then six people, aspiring writers all, who simply cannot take advice. It's really maddening. And I'm not talking about these people taking my advice. I'm talking about them not taking ANY advice, not from anyone. Not from an agent who replied that the work was just too long or the editor who stated that the conversation was just too trite. These aspiring writers simply refused to acknowledge that their writing was anything less than perfect. And these are people who hope to be published!

I'm not saying you have to change your story over every little bit of advice you get, but you have to be open to feedback. As a writer, or an aspiring writer, you have to keep an open mind and understand that advice can often improve your story, hone your skills, and increase the chance of your work making it past the slush pile. The advice of critics can and will make you a better writer, but only if you're willing to hear it.

If someone with experience gives you advice, you should seriously consider it. A publisher, editor, or agent is usually an expert in the field. Others writers who have been published have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. If someone you trust tells you something is just not working within the story, do yourself a favor and really look at ways of improving your book.

And, if you absolutely refuse to accept any advice whatsoever, don't whine when you keep getting those rejections slips. Instead, frame then as a testament to your stubbornness. Harsh? Maybe, but none of us are perfect. I've never written a book that hasn't changed between the first draft and the last, and I'm pretty sure other authors haven't either.

Take the Excuses Out of Writing

I hear it all the time. "I'd love to write, but I'm too busy." "I've been waiting for inspiration." "I've got kids." Well, guess what? Writers write. I've had this conversation at least three times this week, once in person and twice over the Internet. And hearing all these excuses (and many more) is starting to grate on my nerves. If you want to write, sit down and do it. Stop telling me why you can't and get to work.

Sound harsh? Well, so far this year I've produced (under various pseudonyms) a 100,000-word novel, 2 collections of short stories totalling 60,000 words, a non-fiction book of 55,000 words and two work books that go with that non-fiction book. That's a total of 265,000 words published so far this year. That isn't counting my 10 blogs, each of which gets a weekly posting of sometimes 1000 words or more, and all the work that hasn't gone off to the editor yet, including another 100,000-word novel. I've written well over 1 million words this year, and the year isn't over yet.

And I did this while raising 2 kids, only one of whom is in school (the younger one is still only 4 years old). Not only that, but I had major surgery to remove a tumor from my abdomen in February and I'm struggling toward my PhD in English. Just this week alone I've had to deal with lawyers and sick children, and I still produced 20,000 words.

I'm not bragging here and I certainly don't think every writer needs to write 20,000 words in a week. Many (most) writers need to hold a full-time job while taking care of a family. Writing is my full-time job, so I can write for hours a day. In fact, I have to write for hours a day to make a living. But anyone can write 1000 words a week. That's barely more than 100 words a day. Excuses will get you nowhere.

So what am I asking aspiring writers to do? Stop making excuses. Either start writing or admit that you're not going to start writing and move on. But don't whine and complain about how you don't have time or you can't think of anything to write about. No one has time. Everyone runs into writer's block. Everyone has things that happen in their lives, sometime major things like serious illness or a death in the family. But you either write or you don't.

Let's take the excuses out of writing and get back to the task at hand. Let's get back to our passion, to writing.

Taking the Vanity Out of Writing

When writing, especially when writing novels or other works that demand a significant amount of time, it's easy to fall prey to vanity. It's easy to think about publication, and how to alter and change your story until it's what you think of as "publishable." It happens to everyone, even seasoned authors who've published forty books and are working on number forty-one. You might think that worrying about producing a "publishable" book should be an author's first concern, but you'd be wrong.

It happens to me sometimes. In fact, it happened this week. I was working on the first draft of a novel that as yet has no title, and I started approaching it all wrong. I started thinking about what my agent would want, what the editor might change, and how the publisher might market the book. Instead of writing a first draft, I was working on what would probably be the third. And I was skipping the most crucial steps, so I began to lose the core of the story I was trying to tell. Not good.

When you're at the beginning of your journey, when you're just starting to write that book, you absolutely shouldn't be focused on getting published. Until you have a workable product, there's no point in worrying about what you'll eventually do with it. So forget about being published. Dismiss the vanity that comes with imaging yourself as a bestselling author. Put all that aside.

I had to. I managed to. After two days of playing agent/editor/publisher, I remembered that I am a writer. My job is to use the power of the written word to weave a tale that's consistent, well written, and has a solid theme and premise. And I have to focus on that job until it's done. First draft, here I come.

Leave your vanity at the door when you first start working on that novel. Don't think about the world or how your neighbor might react to your words. Write a powerful story, regardless of genre, without any concern for how it might eventually be received. There's time for polishing and primping later. Pretend that no one but you will see the story. You'll stick it in a drawer somewhere and eventually, after you're dead and buried, one of your great-grandchildren might find it. Craft the story you need to tell. Later, hopefully with the aid of a skilled editor, it can be turned into something that may eventually sell to the general public. But now is not the time for that.

Once I'd remembered this, my fingers flew over the keyboard. My first draft is coming along nicely, my characters are developing (when they're not stopping in at the local pub for a beer), and the plot is shaping up. Of course, I had to delete the first two days' worth of work, but that's okay. The 'delete' key is there for a reason.