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“The Process of Writing a Novel” by Maureen McHugh
(via Austin Kleon)
Category: Inspiration
The 10 Types of Writers’ Block (and How to Overcome Them)
“Writer’s Block. It sounds like a fearsome condition, a creative blockage. The end of invention. But what is it, really?
Part of why Writer’s Block sounds so dreadful and insurmountable is the fact that nobody ever takes it apart. People lump several different types of creative problems into one broad category. In fact, there’s no such thing as “Writer’s Block,” and treating a broad range of creative slowdowns as a single ailment just creates something monolithic and huge. Each type of creative slowdown has a different cause — and thus, a different solution.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the terrifying mystique of Writer’s Block, it’s better to take it apart and understand it — and then conquer it.”
Writing Game: Get in Their Heads
Pick someone you loathe.
Come on, everyone has one. Yours could be someone famous, I suppose, whose morals or actions you disagree with. But that’s no fun. I want you to think of someone in your real life that drives you batshit. It could be a family member. A neighbour. That one woman at work whose voice makes you want to pull your own ears off so you can more easily stuff something, anything inside the holes and finally have some blessed silence.
I mean, if you know someone like that, you could use them for this game*.
Okay, so you’ve got your loathee picked out. Your job is to get into his or her head. What do they do at night? What’s their guilty pleasure? What’s in their bank account? How do they view themselves? What’s their secret? Set up shop and poke around a little.
Now experience an obstacle, as your loathee. The plumbing has burst, and there’s a jet of water shooting across the room. The car broke down, and the next paycheque isn’t due til next week. And by the way, that promotion went to someone else.
What does your loathee do? What are they thinking? What’s their mood like? Do they lay blame, and if so, on who?
You can play this game in two ways:
1. For the greater good.
Maybe by imagining what’s going on in this person’s life and thoughts will help you to understand them a little better. Maybe you’ll learn to let old grudges go, to be more accommodating to the quirks and nuances of someone you never much cared for. You’ll better communicate with someone you understand.
OR
2.Sweet, sweet evil.
That weird smell your loathee gives off? That’s because he sacrifices cats by the light of the full mooon: what you’re smelling is singed fur. And the reason she doesn’t listen is because she’s stuffed cork in her ears to compensate for a tragic deformity wherein her brains leak out if she tilts her head (which also explains why she’s so dumb). Run with it, ascribe any horrible fictional trait you like, but base it loosely in fact. Flex your imagination.
But why someone you don’t like?
Picking someone you don’t like gets you outside your comfort zone. It’s easy to imagine someone just like yourself; simply plug in your own ideals and reactions and it’s done. But often the people we don’t like are the people we don’t get. There’s the challenge: you have to get out of your own head before you can get into anyone else’s. (Like, oh, I don’t know…a character? They can’t all act/think/speak just like their authors, if the story is any good.)
(This is the part where writing books would tell you to write this shit down. Why? So you can relive it later? Nuh-uh, this is a GAME, and it won’t be FUN anymore if you make it too much like WORK. Besides, if you play only in your head, you can play in public…this broadens your target candidate base exponentially. Mwuahahaha.)
Give it a shot, and let me know what you think.
*Why “game”, when most people call it a writing “exercise”? Because one of these things sounds like way more fun than the other, that’s why.
Never Give Up
I was sitting here, frustrated with how the story is going (or not going), and I got a notification on Facebook.
My dear ladyfriend LP sent me this:
…completely unbidden, not knowing how cranky I was. That’s what an awesome friend does. An awesome friend just knows.
It’s been printed, and now one copy hangs in my office and one copy is the front page of my Filofax.
I’ve said it before: how badly do you want it?
If.
Honestly, I never much cared for poetry. I tried writing it myself as an angsty teenager (who hasn’t?), but it never really spoke to me or, frankly, interested me much.
But I’m a believer in happy coincidences, and believe me, this one caught me at just the right time. Let’s just say there’s a lot of sky-is-falling going on in my life right now. I could use some bolstering.
It’s not horror, it’s not dark, it’s actually inspirational and beautiful…but rest assured I’m still working on good ol’ blood-n-guts behind the scenes. You haven’t lost me to the light side just yet.
“If”, by Rudyard Kipling.
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
Write Your Words
(This is mostly me trying to motivate myself. But if you need a good kick in the pants, feel free to join me.)
So you wanna be a full-time author? Wanna get paid to do this all day? Wanna work from home, with your cats and your coffeemaker?
You’ve done the planning. You know where you’re going, and how to get there. Now what’s the first step?
Write your words.
Tired? Too bad, write your words.
Cat threw up? Clean it up, then write your words.
Feeling uninspired? Start with something, anything, and write your words.
Other things to do? Self-doubt? Not enough time in the day? Worrying about whether this whole thing will even work out? Just plain don’t feel like it today?
Too bad, so sad, get off your lazy ass and write your fucking words.
You don’t get there by being lazy. You don’t get there by being hesitant.
You get there by working your ass off, sacrificing, and then working some more.
You can sleep later. Now it is time to WRITE YOUR WORDS.
Fuck Yeah.
“This picture I’m gonna do right now is gonna suck, but I’m gonna do it anyways, just to see how bad it’s gonna look.
Fuck yeah.
I may do something REALLY good maybe once a month, but then I completely screw it up once I color it.
Fuck yeah.
I love art.
Fuck yeah.”
by forums user kool-ka-lang on Conceptart.org. Read the rest here, get pumped, and get creating.
sniderwriter 