by Susan Santangelo
I sat down at my computer this morning on beautiful Cape Cod to write this post. I stared at a blank screen for hours (ok, maybe five minutes) and realized -- I've got nothing coming into my brain. Nada. Zip.
Usually, words just pour out of me. Just ask my family. They can never shut me up.
Then, it came to me. I have a case of The Dreaded Writer's Block. Yikes! What's the cure for this?
So I decided to post about...having nothing to say. I know it happens to everyone sooner or later. And how do you all deal with it?
4 comments:
Chocolate...and a long walk. Not necessarily in that order!
Hmm. If I had a lot of chocolate, I probably couldn't manage the long walk. So I guess the walk would have to come first, and the chocolate be the goal for finishing it.
Good suggestions!
As Anne says, take a walk, keep your eyes open, and ideas will pop into your head. If that doesn't work, read the paper. It's full of fiction.
Forgive me for making this a long response but it's just a quick digest of something from a book I co-wrote which was intended to help students to write essays. They're just suggestions we'd tried ourselves or heard from others.
• Think positively. You know you can write this sort of thing. You’ve done it before.
• Change the physical way you’re writing. If you’re at the keyboard, use a pen instead, or vice versa.
• Read over what you’ve written already. Note down any ideas that come into your mind as you read. These could be starting points when you get back to your pen or keyboard.
• Write about something totally unrelated to what you’re trying to do, even complete ‘stream of consciousness’ rubbish. Make your ‘writing muscles’ work without engaging your ‘thinking muscles’.
• Talk to someone else about what you want to write, or talk out loud to yourself.
• Relax and do something totally different – clean up your room, do the dishes, go for a walk, play some music. Anything but writing and/or thinking about writing.
I hope this helps. If it doesn’t, something else will. It’ll pass, Susan.
Post a Comment