Rant: Writers Block

[PujolJunkie]

i had a dream that hamburger was eating ME

In Soviet Russia.......

[st.lewis11]

Due to my own writer's block, I don't know what to say in this post.

[Leroy]

Dangit Lewis.

[The Third Man]

i had a dream that hamburger was eating ME

I was walking down a road in the desert, and this snake wearing a vest was rolling a giant donut...

[C. Johny]

Fr...

[StatmanCrothers]

i had a dream last night that the plane i was a passenger on was in trouble -- somehow the pilot and co-pilot were both dead or unavailable. As a last ditch "nothing to lose" idea, one of the stewardesses asked, "are any of the children flying for half-price actually midgets disguised as children? midgets who know how to fly a plane?" ... three of the four children on the plane raised their hands. Hooray for midget pilots disguised as children!

[StatmanCrothers]

Just once I would like to be able to sit down and write even half of the things that come to my head as far as ideas go. I have so many plots, characters, scenarios and words that just stick in my mind and every single time I try to sit down with a pen and a piece of paper or put them in a word processor, it just doesn't happen. I try. I've sat in front of a desk for half an hour just trying to write something or anything and it just doesn't work and it's probably one of the most frustrating feelings I've ever had. And the screwed up thing is, it's easier for me to sit here and write an entire post's worth of words [expletive] about how I have writers block than actually writing something that I have in mind. I've tried writing prompts, I've tried website after website that gives tips and so on trying to help people who have writers block and nothing ever works. I love writing more than almost anything but the only time when my stories come to life are right as I'm falling alseep. This sucks.

First you have to decide that it totally doesn't matter, and that all your ideas will turn out to be crap. You are going to write some total crap, just for the hell of it. start with that.

"Crap" by PujolJunkie.

Once there was a piece of crap. It stunk. It really really stunk. And It's eyes? really just pieces of corn. The End.

You can do it. Even if it ends up being more than crap, you can trick yourself if you lower your expectations to the very bottom. Right some [expletive] crap.

[Donnie Ebert]

First you have to decide that it totally doesn't matter, and that all your ideas will turn out to be crap. You are going to write some total crap, just for the hell of it. start with that.

"Crap" by PujolJunkie.

Once there was a piece of crap. It stunk. It really really stunk. And It's eyes? really just pieces of corn. The End.

You can do it. Even if it ends up being more than crap, you can trick yourself if you lower your expectations to the very bottom. Right some [expletive] crap.

This is fantastic advice in the no-confidence middle of National Novel Writing Month, when your "new" idea has lost its sheen and yet there are still so many words to go and so many plotlines and characters to create and then eventually knot back together. Somewhere in the middle it all feels like gibberish and a fairly enormous waste of time.

But then you search GRB for advice, and you find something about writing crap that really does inspire you. Thanks Statman.

Write crap. Because guess what, in the end, no matter the quality, it'll be yours and no one can take it away from you. My advice is to print a sign that says, "If you're not writing, you're not writing" and paste it to the top of your monitor.

As an aside, if the playoffs were in November I would be unable to even attempt NaNoWriMo.

[mikechamp]

I used to get writer's block.

Now, I have so many ideas I can't get them out fast enough before they fly out of my head.

But Donnie's right. Just try to get them down. It might be carrying a pen & notepad around all the time. It might speaking into a tape recorder. It might even be saying the idea over and over to yourself until you can get to a pen/paper or tape recorder.

[Donnie Ebert]

I like to think about it sometimes like just getting the clay on the table. You can form it later, but if you don't have any material to mold, you don't really have anything anyway. Get the words and ideas out there first, no matter how disjointed and raw they seem initially.