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Beating Writers’ Block
This post originally appeared as a guest post on Carol Garvin’s blog, Careann’s Musings. I realized I never shared it here!
The kids are in bed, the house is clean, you’ve spent some quality time with your spouse and you’ve watched your favorite show. Now it’s your time—time to write with nothing hanging over your head. You sit at your computer, fingers poised over the keys and—
Nothing happens.
What do you do? Spend the next two hours checking email and blogs, playing Text Twist and Minesweeper, coming back to your story every half hour without anything new to add and drifting away again until you can’t face your computer anymore and go to bed, strangely empty and guilty?
No! You don’t have to succumb to writers’ block—you can fight it, and you should. What makes a writer vs. a wannabe is perseverance (and the same is true about revisions, finding an agent, getting published, selling books, etc., etc.). Working through writers’ block makes you a stronger, better, more creative writer. And here are eight ways to do it.
Come up with more ideas
Easier said than done, I know, but try brainstorming new events and directions for your story. I recently came across an analysis of the story conference for Raiders of the Lost Ark. The surprising thing about this conference is the sheer volume of ideas—the writer, director and producer threw out ideas while brainstorming, not worrying about how outlandish or stupid they might sound—you never know if it could be made workable.
Recycle an old idea
Did you have an amazing plot twist you never got to use or used in another (preferably unpublished) work, or one you love in someone else’s story? Find a way to work that idea into this story. The mine cart chase scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom originally came from the conference for Raiders, but they didn’t use it there—an instant source for later ideas.
Look for more connections within your work
I got stuck in one WIP when I needed a task for my hero. He’d agreed to do something for the villain in exchange for a hostage, but I was drawing a blank as to what that should be. I tried to think of something the villain could send him after—but finally the right answer came to me. It shouldn’t just be something, it should be something related to the plot. And I had a subplot that could tie back into the main plot (and a minimystery that could be solved) right here.
Write something
You may have to take some time away from your WIP to get the creative juices flowing. You can work on another idea—writing or plotting or planning—or you can find writing prompts to get started. Sometimes focusing on another story idea will give you the boost or idea you need to progress in your first story—just don’t get sidetracked for too long!
Write nothing
Do something mindless—like playing Text Twist or Minesweeper, or doing house or yard work. Do something creative—if you play an instrument, practice. If you do a handicraft—knitting, needlework, woodcarving, knapping—make something. Occupying your hands while letting your mind roam can have great creative rewards.
Erase
As hard as this may be, maybe you’ve written yourself into a corner. Maybe there just isn’t anywhere for the story to go now, and you need to delete the last paragraph or scene or chapter. (Ouch!) Look at where your story took a turn for a dead end and brainstorm another direction.
Read (or watch)
Look for other ideas (and beautiful writing) in other works, in or outside of your genre. You can also watch a movie or TV show and play the “what if” game—what if something happened differently in this scene. (I came up with a whole story idea this way.)
Plot
You can often avoid getting stuck if you plan out where you’re going in advance. Not always, of course—I’m a plotter, and I can still get stuck in the gray areas of my outline. But back before I started plotting out my stories, I began with an ending in mind, but sometimes I spent weeks stopped in the middle, trying to figure out how to get there. Even loose plotting can help to keep the big milestones in mind to keep you moving toward your goals. Plus you can brainstorm in advance and save all those ideas for any lulls.
Beating writers’ block can be tough, but you can do it—and if you’re going to finish, you have to.
What do you think? How do you beat writers’ block?
Photo credits: paper ball—makedonche19; blank page—Chris Blakeley;
I can’t think—Alyssa L. Miller
We’re going to have a good time!
Yep, it’s my birthday! I also finished writing my latest novel laaaate Saturday night, as I’d hoped! After three intensive weeks of writing, managing a “March-a-thon” and keeping up (mostly) with my normal life, I’m so ready for the day off.
Source: elegantweddingcenterpieces.com via Corinna on Pinterest
I’ll have posts throughout the week still, but Marketing Monday is taking a break for this week. Be sure to join me back here next week, though! We’re going to move from author websites to author blogs (dun dun dunnn!), a topic I know we all want to hear more about.
Using your web browser as a writing tool
It’s not just for research (and procrastinating) anymore!
Back in November, we ran a whole series on little ways to psych yourself up for your story. Since then, I’ve found another way I really like.
I recently switched my browser from Mozilla Firefox to Google Chrome. It’s a few months in and I’m still getting used to it, but there is at least one feature I really like: an add-on called Incredible StartPage. Whenever you open a new tab or empty web browser, it loads a set of links/information that you might need: your bookmarks, your Chrome apps, your recently closed tabs, a set of notepads, links to your email and calendar, and a picture.
You can use the default picture from Flickr, or you can set up a custom picture. I decided to set up my Incredible StartPage to help fire me up to write. Since I like making covers for my WIPs, I resized the cover for the book I was writing or revising at the time:
Notice the little note to self: Shouldn’t you be working? It shows up every time I open another tab for more research.
There are lots of other ways to use your browser to get you back to writing. When I was on Firefox, I used an extension called LeechBlock to limit the time I spent on time-sucking websites. I loved how flexible it was: you could allot yourself a certain number of minutes per hour to use your web-based email or social networking sites (you specify which sites to block!), pick the days of the week, select the time of day, or block certain sites altogether!
I haven’t tried any of the similar apps in Chrome, but StayFocusd comes highly recommended.
What little tricks do you use to get excited for your story every day?
PS: a special reveal today. This month as part of the Authors Incognito March-a-thon, I set a goal to write a new book. And of course, I made a cover. So here’s a tiny peek at the book I should be finishing tomorrow!
Posted in Publishing, Technique, Works
Tagged covers, encouragement, incredible start page, incredible startpage, inspiration, productivity, web browsers
2 Comments
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
I know it’s a little early
St. Patrick’s Day is probably my favorite pointless holiday of the year! There are two basic reasons for this—and neither of them are my rich Irish heritage. (Incidentally, I do have Irish heritage, but considering those people died in the US a century before I was born, I don’t really have a strong attachment to the culture from them.)
No, my real reasons are at least half ridiculous:
1.) When I was in college, I spent Thanksgivings with my aunt. Randomly one year when we got up silly early for Black Friday, we began speaking in an Irish accent. These things only make sense before 5 AM.
2.) My first novel, due out next year, features a character from Ireland. I just finished a round of 
edits on the sequel, which features even more characters from Ireland (6!), so I’m up to my neck in Irish accents and slang and culture. I’ve spent approximately 1,000,000 hours studying it 
.
So to celebrate, I’m going to share a little “true” Irishness with you.
Eight Myths about Irish Culture and St. Patrick’s Day Dispelled—complete with tips on brushing up your Irish accent and how best to celebrate this weekend!
Irish Potato Candy—real!
Complete with recipe!
Irish Flag Apron—kinda kitschy, but real!
Complete with instructions—and it only cost me $5!
Photos all by me! Okay, and my husband.
The debt I owe to Davy Jones
In the ’90s, Nick at Night began airing The Monkees. My sisters and I got hooked on the absurdity pretty quickly right before I started high school. (What can I say? We were the target audience, 30 years too late.) Over the next couple years, I met and saw two members of the Monkees in concerts (three different events)—Peter Tork and Davy Jones.
Two weeks ago, I got a text message from two of my sisters within seconds, basically saying the same thing:
I’m so sorry about Davy Jones!
That was how I found out he’d died. He had a heart attack at 66. For some odd reason, the youngest of the Monkees was the first to go.
It was a sad surprise, even if it’s not completely unheard of (I mean, Peter Tork, the oldest of the Monkees, hit 70 just two weeks before). It hit me that night as I saw a clip from the old TV show that he was really gone. But let’s be serious here: he wasn’t a close personal friend, and I’m not going to mourn him like one. His death didn’t make me face my own mortality, or give me a sobering wake up call, or anything else. It was a sad note.
One of my favorite songs actually sung by Davy
But then over the last weekend, I remembered what I owe to Davy Jones.
When my sisters and I started watching The Monkees, I liked the show so much, I had to write about it. Yes, it’s true—I came to writing through fanfiction. Monkees fanfic. (Is this as shameful as I think it sounds?) And though Davy himself wasn’t the biggest reason for my doing that, he was part of the ensemble. He was part of the reason I started to write.
From left to right: my sister (holding one of my favorite photos of Davy from the 60s), my friend, my sister, Davy and me (holding records?), in 1998. And yes, that extra hand on my waist is Davy’s. I’m 15, he’s 52. Is that skeevy? Oh well. (Don’t know where my other sister was 
.)
So thank you, Davy Jones.
How did you get started writing?
Misadventures in character names
We’ve all met people with funny names. I have a friend whose mother-in-law’s name is Lynn Lynne. I played a prank on a friend once, claiming I was going to marry someone with the last name Gordon (and my first name is Jordan, remember?). And of course, my father shares a name with a very famous early US statesman.
In real life, these humorous names often happen by accident (especially if you’re a woman). My dad’s mother, for example, had already picked out Dad’s name before she met my grandfather and thus learned what last name her children would have. (It was the name of her favorite mule…)
In fictional worlds, we get to pick all our characters’ names—so hopefully, we get to avoid these embarrassing “nom” pas . . . but only if we’re really thinking.
Sometimes we choose funny or odd names on purpose. I chose the last name of Saint for one of my characters because it set up a number of jokes. I named another character Molly Malone for the same reason. (Poor characters…) Of course, for Molly, I had to explain how she came to have that unfortunate name. Same went for the tongue-twistery Cora Warren.
And sometimes . . . well, we’re just not smart enough to realize what we’ve done at first. For example, I once had a character with the first name Kent. I needed a nice strong surname for the guy, so in the next scene, he became Mr. Clark. It was a little while before I put the names together.
Kent . . . Clark.
Uh. Yeah. (His last name became Thornton soon thereafter. Borrowed from someone I knew IRL.)
And my most recent character naming accidents came in my Nano novel. Just before another book was accepted, by coincidence I wrote one of my villains sharing a surname with my editor. (It was not a coincidence that another villain shared the same editor’s first name. I changed that.) But the biggie was the hero—and you know how hard it is to change the hero’s name!
Most of the time, it wasn’t a problem. He went by Jack, a nickname from his last name, Jackson. (Which set up some jokes, too, of course. This trend is becoming disturbing.) It was a great name for him.
And I thought his first name was perfect, too. Kerr. (It was a drug store and a lake where I grew up, and my dad had a friend named Kerr when he was a kid. Not that I ever knew him, but I knew it could be a given name.)
If you haven’t seen the problem yet, let me tell you: when his real first name came up, this character often had specify either the spelling or the pronunciation. Let me treat you to a now-defunct conversation from the novel: in this scene, their car has been reported stolen and is about to be towed.
They hurried across the street, Jack trying to compose his thoughts so he could pull this off. The stunned disbelief and confusion wouldn’t be too tough, but the innocence would be a stretch. [They have something stolen in the trunk. Which, sadly, will also end up on the cutting room floor.]
“Whoa whoa whoa,” he said, jogging up to the officer. “Is there a problem here?”
“Is this your vehicle, sir?”
“Yeah. Did I park illegally? The sign says no parking Monday to Friday.” Jack pointed to the sign. [It's Sunday.]
“No, sir. This car has been reported as stolen.”
“No, no—no. This is my car. It has been for seven years.” Unless his brother had changed the registration into his name when Jack left home—but still, it should all check out.
The cop raised an eyebrow and read something off the clipboard in front of him. “License plate 267 VAP?”
He nodded. “All me.”
“Registered to Kerr Halsey Jackson.”
“It’s pronounced ‘car.’ As in, ‘This is my car.’”
The cop folded his arms. “I’m going to need to see some ID.”
So what’s the problem?
His name is Kerr Jackson. Pronounced Car Jackson. Let me try that again: pronounced CAR JACKson.
I realized this two days before I finished the novel. He got a new first name—but I’m definitely going to reuse Kerr. Maybe with the last name . . . Hop?
All right, top my stories: what are the craziest, funniest or silliest things you’ve named characters, on purpose or by accident? Did you change them?
Photo credits: Superman by Greenog; car jack by Cameron Flanders
Because I can
Okay, yes, (hooray!) I have a book coming out (in a while). But I just like to make covers.
So this is NOT OFFICIAL, NOT MY REAL BOOK COVER, JUST SOMETHING I DID FOR FUN, but I made a book cover. Because I can.
Just what I need for that little extra burst of motivation and inspiration for the next round of edits!
This is the book that was accepted, coming out next year. It is not an official cover. It’s not even the official title. (If you want, you can read more about the LDS FBI agent undercover as a Catholic priest in the excerpt from the first chapter.)
The actors here are physical models I (loosely) used for my characters, although they’re still a few years older than my characters are. Not too bad, since they started out ten to fifteen years older. But Photoshop (well, Paint.net) can only do so much.
Altar photo (behind the title) by H. W. Morse
Façade of Fear
It’s the Halloween Scarefest! Post a scene, 400 words of less, of a character who’s afraid (and see the blogfest post) to join in!
This scene is from Façade (you can read the award-winning first chapter here), about two-thirds of the way through the novel.
Setting the scene: Katya Mikhailova is the Soviet cultural attaché in Paris. After she was injured in a bombing, she briefly worked with the police and an American liaison for her own reasons—but she gave them a false name so they wouldn’t know about her position at the embassy. Now she’s tricked them into returning her to the embassy before they could find out her identity.
But the American isn’t letting her get away that easily.
Please note this is basically an unedited rough draft!
As soon as the door latched behind me, a deep sense of unease sent my stomach plummeting. The hair at the nape of my neck stood at attention. Something wasn’t right here. Everything looked the same as when I left, but there was something I couldn’t put my finger on that put me on my guard, a sharp edge to the air.
And then the hand clamped over my mouth.
My heart froze. I could almost see myself ready to lash out with elbows and hands and feet—but I forced myself to breathe through the panic. Thinking clearly was the only thing that could get me away from this attacker, not blind luck.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice was a shade above a whisper. Frank.
My heartbeat redoubled, but still I fought off the urge to fight back. He hadn’t hurt me yet, and he’d just said he wasn’t planning to. No reason to change that by trying to use force.
I shook my head to free my mouth, and Frank moved his hand a centimeter. I stared straight ahead, unwilling to turn and look at him. I spiked my tone with sarcasm. “What took you so long?”
“You’re going to have to explain yourself,” he said.
“Explain what? That I couldn’t trust you to keep me safe anymore?”
“No, not that, Miss Mikhailova.”
The chill of danger in the air finally leached into my veins. I looked to the mirror above the vanity. My lips were still stained red from the beet borshch, but the rest of my face was as pallid as death.
He’d found out the truth and he’d come here to kill me.
Read the rest of the Halloween Scarefest Entries!
Picture by Valentin Serov
