Phillip Williams - Author
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Firstly, what is writer’s block? Writer’s block is a phenomenon that occurs when you are trying to put words on the screen and hey… suddenly, you have literally nothing to give. All the words that you have bandying around in your brain down-right refuse to put themselves in logical order for you and you end up like poor Sheldon here. So, what can you do about it? How can you get those thoughts organised so that they can be put to good use? There are so many ways to overcome writer’s block. But I am going to give you some tried-and-tested ways of getting those creative juices flowing again (pardon the cliché). Although, before we get into that. It might be a good idea to understand why you might be experiencing this pain-in-the-backside self-lockdown mechanism. I like to call these the primal issues. Environment Are you sitting in a room where there’s so much going on that you’re having trouble concentrating? Are there lots of distractions: a TV on in the background; little ones running around; notifications coming through on your smartphone? Does this sound like your situation right now? Over-analysis You write something down. It doesn’t look quite right so you delete it and start again. You finish it again but even that doesn’t look right so you repeat the process. You’ve re-written the same section six or seven times trying to say the same thing but in a multitude of ways and now you’re left with a whirlwind in your head as you find yourself getting more and more frustrated. Sound familiar? Misjudged Timing and/or Poor Planning You’ve sat down at your computer… you’ve opened a new Word document (other programs are available) and you find yourself staring at a blank screen. You’ve got nothing to write. Did you do any pre-planning or give yourself a guideline about what you wanted to write about? In the fear of sounding patronising, this is something you really need to do before you sit down to write. The above happen quite regularly, they’re easy to overcome by taking yourself somewhere quiet, sticking with what you wrote originally, highlighted for you to revisit later, and getting your planning down first respectively. Also, they are all things that I have personally experienced! Yup… that third thing happened to me when I started writing when I was younger. No preparation, no research, not a clue and guess what… I got stuck and gave up for seventeen years (yes, I started when I was eleven). If these three factors are not the root-cause of your writer’s block then it’s going to be a little trickier, require more time and some extra effort too… but stick with me on this! From what I can assume, you’re here because you currently have writer’s block, have experienced it or are anticipating it and want to be prepare yourself when the inevitable happens. Yes… it’s inevitable. Okay… so, picture the scene. You’re comfortable, you’re in a quiet space, you’ve decided to not be over-analytical and just write whatever for the time being and you know what you want to write about. You start writing and you’ve reached that point. The point where nothing else will formulate and you’ve stopped writing and gone all dumbfounded. What now? Before the panic sets in, take a breath and firstly reassure yourself you can get over the hurdle. It’s time to take control and bring out the big-guns. Here are a few things you can do: Bullet Point Ideas My guess is that you know the context, you know what you want to achieve from this piece of writing. I’ll assume this because you’ve obviously done all your planning and you’ve got your outline all written out in front of you. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about then click below to read my blog on outlining. http://pwilliamsauthor.weebly.com/blog/outlining-your-story You’re at the start of the chapter and you’ve written a couple of paragraphs. There’s some dialogue that’s happened and you’re not sure what should happen next in the scene. You have your outline and you know where it needs to go. It’s time to start bullet-pointing what you want to happen in the scene. Once you’ve got all the necessary points on paper, put them in order of occurrence and imagine how it would look if you were watching it as a movie to help you describe what’s happening. Work backwards Is this still not working? Well, try this. You already know what the end goal is because your outline is in front of you. Think logically about how your characters would come to the end-point and work backwards. If your characters can’t achieve the end goal then there may be a plot hole for you to work through… in this instance it becomes a primal issue, which we’ve already discussed how to overcome. Take A Break Yeah, I said it. Go and do something else for a little while. Perhaps make a cuppa, grab a biscuit, go for a walk. Essentially do something that’ll help you clear your mind. When you come back, your anxiety about not having anything to write might have lifted, meaning you can crack on. Freewriting This is one of my personal favourites and it doesn't mean just writing down random words willy-nilly. Open a new word document/fresh sheet of paper and write down the following starting points:
Now forget about your storyline, your characters and everything to do with your own prose. This is something to help you to freely write down whatever you are feeling when you look at these pictures. It doesn’t have to have direction or purpose. This is just an exercise to put your mind into a state where you can just type away until you feel you’re ready to return to your work. Try and write a paragraph for each starting point and see how you get on. If you’re still not ready… just repeat the process from where you started bullet-pointing ideas. You’ll soon find your muse has returned. I’d like to get your thoughts on this and I’d be interested to know what you have done to overcome writer’s block in the past. Let loose in the comments below! Until next time, thanks for reading!
2 Comments
21/8/2017 05:37:30 am
Sometimes going back to hand writing re awakens the pathways between brain and hands. Stuff i write with a pen or pencil in paper or in a notebook is subtly different from that typed on a keyboard so it causes a creative shift. With luck a kick start
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Phil Williams
1/10/2017 05:46:00 pm
Oh yeah, I love planning on paper and writing up on the laptop. I find it really sparks the imagination
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Hi, I'm Phil Williams. Welcome to my blog.
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