Most (though not all) of us experience some sort of writer’s block or creative drought every once in a while. I’ve been working on one lately, and let me tell you—it’s not fun.

Gabi Pereira of Iggi & Gabi had been dealing with a creative drought recently, too. She asked for suggestions from her brilliant readers, and she got a lot of great ideas to end a creative drought. Here are some of the great suggestions:

From Joel:

• “Sit down and try to connect with what [your] inner self is needing right now, before it is ready to start writing again.”

From Selena Wolff:

• Recognize the creative life cycle, and remain confident that the creative mindset will return.

From Kari Marie:

• Spend a few minutes a day thinking about what bothers you about your WIP, or reasons why you can’t move forward.
• Daily journal writing, even if it’s only a sentence or two.

From several people:

• Get out and live life!
• Read!
• Give yourself room to breathe: don’t judge yourself, allow yourself to not write, etc.

This will be part of next week’s Writing Wednesday!

What do you think? How do you beat a drought?

Photo credits: desert—Guilherme Jófili; hand writing—Melanie Cook

I’m Jordan and I’m a writer who doesn’t have a muse. And I’m okay with that.

It seems like most writers, and other “creatives,” have a muse—an imaginary personification of their creative capacity. When “the muse strikes,” it’s time to write. When the muse kicks off for the day/week/year, we’re out of luck. It seems like the only time I hear about a muse is when it’s not doing its job:

• “My muse snaps her gum at me and rolls her eyes at my plot ideas.”
• “My muse goes after every shiny new idea that crosses my mind like a raccoon with gambling debts. Also, he’s in charge of my similes.”
• “My muse’s got nothin.”

Having a muse does alleviate some pressure to create (something I think I learned from Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED speech?). It can be draining and stressful to have to come up with everything yourself. If you’re stuck for an idea, dwelling on that fact can make you feel even less creative and more pressure to come up with something.

Maybe it’s pride, but I actually like coming up with ideas myself, or brainstorming with others. I like to think of myself as creative—and good enough and smart enough (and gosh darn it, people like me) to come up with solutions to my problems and ideas I can’t wait to write about. For the most part, I rarely disappoint myself—though it can be a little bit of a struggle when I’m burned out or just taking time off.

I think the biggest problem I have with muses is this idea that we’re abdicating the responsibility and the ability to create ourselves. Clearly not everyone with a muse does this, but some people use the muse less as a tool to encourage creative freedom and more as a slave driver.

As I said a few years ago in comments on a friend’s blog,

I think true genius is one that can still function as a normal human being while mastering his or her art. Those “geniuses” who ditch other people for their labs or their tablets because their fickle muse strikes them momentarily are at the mercy of capricious bouts of insight.

---

[The person she quoted] seems to be buying into the “genius is the ability to write pure, unmitigated, beautiful truths to power as they flow ceaselessly from my pen—while the muse lasts” school of thought.

For probably 99% of people, however, genius is the stroke of artistry that manifests itself while you’re trudging along—whether that trudging is through the other 70,000 words of your manuscript or through 70,000 diapers. “Genius” and talent, even taken together, rarely go anywhere without hard work, discipline and dedication.

What do you think? Do you have a muse? Is s/he a slacker, or does s/he work as hard as you?

Photo by Happy A

When I’m writing first drafts, in general, my two favorite parts are the beginning and the end. Usually, I’ve envisioned both of these long before writing, and I’ve been looking forward to them for a long time.

The end is fun because I’ve anticipated it so much, because it’s so satisfying to be done (for now), because it’s the final show down and my chance to have true love conquer all and/or justice to triumph just when it seems impossible. It’s something I’ve imagined and re-imagined, crafting lines of dialogue or action sequences or prose, foreshadowing.

Beginnings are even better. Often I start them before I even intend to, so many ideas and characters and phrases are screaming to get out before I forget them. I’ll have been thinking about a story idea for a week or a month, and all of the sudden, I’m at the computer, just giving it a try. A day or two later, when I’m a chapter or two into it, sometimes I’m so in love with it I send it to a couple friends for an alpha read. (A day after that, I’m ready to tell my husband I’ve started another book—which basically means we’ll see each other again in a couple months .)

Now, there are of course lots of scenes in the middle that I look forward to, but it’s hard for me to pin down a pattern of which scenes or plot points are most exciting. It’s pretty consistent with beginnings and endings for me. Revising I’m less enthused about, but I do love the purpose and the result—getting better and better!

What do you think? Do you have favorite sections to write? How do you feel about revising?

Photo by The Shopping Sherpa

Writing a book can be a long process. It’s easy to get discouraged or just plain bored before you reach “The End.”

For me, one of the big things that keeps me going is what Holly Lisle calls “candy bar” scenes:

First, let me define a “candy-bar” scene. It’s one that you’re just itching to write — something sweet enough that you can dangle it on a stick in front of yourself so that you can say, “When I’ve done these next three chapters, I’ll get to write that one.” . . .

Make sure your candy-bar scenes are spread out through the book, not all clumped together. Write down a single sentence for each of them. Don’t allow yourself to do anymore than that, or you’ll lose the impetus to move through the intervening scenes.

Holly Lisle also advises writing the ending first (so you have the goal in mind), writing about people you want to spend time with (because, hey, you’re going to be spending a lot of time with them in the writing process, and you want your readers to want to spend time with them, too), using an outline, and allowing yourself to be surprised. I’ve tried and loved all of those things except writing the ending first (meaning I haven’t tried it, though I might).

What do you think? How do you keep going until you reach “The End”?

Image by Emily Hoyer

I love writing. I have loved writing for most of my life. But when it comes to pursuing publication, love is not enough.

Love can help you to write every day (if that’s how you work). Love can help you to learn more. Love can make the world a happy, rosy place—remember when you were in love the first time, or when you first fell for the person you’re with now? Everything feels happy and skippy and you just know you’ll be together forever because you’ve got the right one (baby. Uh huh.).

You can love writing, and write every day—and if that’s what you want to do, great! If that makes you happy, you are a lucky, lucky person. Go forth, write and be happy (and never, never submit for publication. The rejection would make you sad, and if writing for yourself is enough, don’t taint that.).

But it takes more than love to do the work that’s required to reach publication (and beyond—it soooo doesn’t end there!). As the very-soon-to-be-published Kiersten White puts it:

This is where you switch from having a hobby to being a writer. The mind-numbing, hour-after-hour, please-I-don’t-want-to-do-this-anymore-let’s-just-watch-Arrested-Development-on-DVD-instead, how-on-earth-is-writing-this-much-work stage. Anyone can write a book. Everyone who wants to should. But it’s only when you put in the work (and make the sacrifices, and give up your social life and your sanity and occasionally lower your personal grooming standard) to take something that was fun and make it into something that is good that I think you cross from being a hobbyist to being a writer.

Writing is WORK. The best work, sure, but work nonetheless.

To use our love analogy again, let’s say you get married—and then comes reality. Suddenly, the pure euphoria of being together everysecondofeveryday isn’t there. You have an argument. You yell at each other. You don’t feel that overpowering high in his/her presence.

Suddenly, it takes more than love to keep going. It takes commitment. And it takes work. You keep going because you know the love is there, because you know this person/book is worth it—but love isn’t enough to get you there by itself.

How do you stay committed to your work? How do you cope when your love of writing isn’t enough to keep going?

Inspired in part by The Fantasy of Passion by Travis Robertson; photo by Victoria