Posts Tagged by writer’s block
X Marks The Spot: Finding the Treasures In Your Writing
| January 6, 2011 | Posted by JerriCook under Freewriting, Prompts, The Writing Process, Writer's Block |
Your writing is a map to new treasures
In the documentary, What the Bleep Do We Know?, it’s postured that the Indians didn’t comprehend what the ships of the first settlers were because they couldn’t connect the image with any experience or prior thought. The ships were so alien in nature that they were effectively invisible. More succinctly put: they didn’t see what they weren’t looking for. Who knows if the story about the Indians not “seeing” the first sails of the first pilgrims arriving in the New World is true? It doesn’t matter. What matters is there’s a gem here for writers, and I promise you, where’s there’s one gem, there are troves more.
We all have a shared experience—every one of us has searched for something that was right under our nose, but the mental image we had of the object and what it actually looked like weren’t connected. Once we realized this and made the mental connection, we were able to quickly locate whatever it was we were searching for. When you write, you might think you know what you’re looking for, but keep an eye open for some sparkling, seemingly quirky idea that leads you off on a tangent. Your writing is a map and that tangent connects to a treasure that sits unrecognized right in front of you. (more…)
When The Words Won't Come: Overcoming Writer's Block
| December 9, 2010 | Posted by JerriCook under Freewriting, Writer's Block |
What do you do when you’re on a hard deadline, and the words won’t come? Sometimes, I take a walk, but it rarely helps. Mostly I just worry about what I’ll do if the words start to flow, and I’m a half mile from my computer. The only thing that helps me when I have writer’s block, is writing. If I can’t write about what I’m supposed to be writing about, I write about what I want. Writing anything breaks down the mental barriers that stop me from connecting with my thoughts.
Freewriting can be abstract
Working on unfinished pieces is a productive diversion from trying to chisel away at writer’s block. Every writer has articles, stories, poems and outlines lying around that haven’t seen the light of day in ages. Pulling them out and spending a few minutes toying with your forgotten drafts can lead you around the block before you realize it. Even if you don’t immediately return to the work that has stopped you in your tracks, you won’t beat yourself up for not accomplishing anything during your writing time. Working on pieces left unfinished is itself an accomplishment. If at the end of your well-deserved diversion, you look up and discover that the block you were so worried about is now nothing more than a fading specter on landscape of your imagination, you have put more distance between you and your block than you could have with a ten-mile hike.
Remember words of Walter Wellesley Smith: There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. He’s right, and once that vein’s open, there’s no telling what’s going to gush out. Don’t try to stop it just because the words and thoughts that come aren’t the ones you wanted. Just take what comes, trickle or gush, because only writing can get you around writer’s block.
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