Category Archives: writer’s block

Getting productive with the produce

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I must confess: I’ve been stepping out with a tomato.

I hate to strut on in to the confessional box, but I’ve been kicking ass and taking names this month, for I have discovered the mental nitrate that is the pomodoro. Pomodoros are very simple: here’s how you do one.

  1. Get a timer and set it for 25 minutes
  2. While the timer is running, work steadily on your task. Do not answer your phone, check your email, facebook, twitter. Do not go to the bathroom. You are WORKING, and nothing else, for the next 25 minutes.
  3. When the timer goes off, pencils down. Midsentence, mid thought. Stop. Pat yourself on the back and reset for 5 minutes. This 5 minutes is exclusively for farting around. Go bumble around in the kitchen, do some sun salutations, play with a rubix cube, give your kid a wet willie. Whatever. You can look at the internet if you want, but total disconnection from the machine is most restful.
  4. 5 minutes up? Mark an X on a spare sheet of paper. You have completed one pomodoro. Set your timer back at 25 minutes and go again.

The imposed structure of the pomodoro technique means that you work through the hard stuff, where you’d normally get frustrated and take a break (never to return) and stop when you’re hot, so that you’re chomping at the bit to get back to it. The breaks keep you from burning yourself out, so you can work all morning and not feel washed out for the rest of the day.

I started doing my pomodoros with an egg timer, because I find the quiet ticking sound to be essential— it’s unobtrusive but reminds me that time is running out. After a few days I switched to the free Android app, PomLife. I like the app because I can tweak the settings to have a faintly audible ticktok and a vibrating buzzer, which is ideal for working when the kid’s in bed.  I can also keep to do lists, and it’s really gratifying to see that, for example, it took me 10 pomodoros to complete the edits I received from my last class submission.

I don’t do poms every day, only on those occasions when I don’t get a chance to write until after 8 pm, and I’m wiped from my daily hausfrau grind. It’s only 25 minutes. I mean….…I can do that. And once I do one, I can usually kick out another. Now I’m in a groove where I’m putting in solid work every single day and feeling very encouraged by the results. Steady, flowing, unblocked— it’s a fantastic feeling, and I recommend it to anyone who’s got something that needs doing. So, you know, everybody.

Writing Slump? Journals Help

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Slumps happen. For me, slumps revolve around time management, or really, my pitiful lack thereof. All it takes is one day of not writing, and the next day is that much harder to get the words out. To make matters worse, the level of difficulty I have in getting back to it, is compounded each day I don’t write.

So how do you break this vicious downward spiral?

Here’s something I’ve found works for me.

When I first started on this writing journey, I compiled journals with thoughts and ideas. I attended Creative Writing classes and kept all of the notes and short pieces based on writing prompts. At the time of writing them, I had no idea were to go with these small bits. Some ideas I didn’t feel my craft was up to it yet. Others were shuffled in and lost amongst an onslaught of creative whims.

Writing those journals boosted me to where I am today, helped hone my craft. So why couldn’t they help again? During a rather long writing slump, I cracked open one of my old writing journals. Honestly I think I did it to waste time, because when you’re reading, you’re not writing. But a funny thing happened.

As I was reading those old entries, my brain remembered the sensations of when I first created them. That spark I was missing was suddenly there again. I used that spark and applied it to the tinder of my current project. The flames did follow.

It took a bit to get back into a regular groove, but that initial kick in the pants wouldn’t have happen without my old writing journals.

“But S.C.,” you might ask, “what if I’ve never started a writing journal?”

To which I would answer, “Then what better time to start?”

Get yourself a journal. It doesn’t have to be fancy. If you get an odd idea, even if it’s only a phrase or name, write it down. Partake in a writing prompt. There are plenty of books filled with prompts, or visit here every Thursday for the 500 Club (or dive through the 500 Club archive on any day). It’s not necessary to act on everything you write down. Just keep adding. Eventually an idea will so fully engross you, you’ll have to give it your undivided attention. Keep the book, though. Keep recording ideas.

And when that nasty slump comes on, you’ll have another tool at your disposal to shake it off.

Greasing the mental wheels: What to do when you’re stuck

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Being stuck mid-story is a miserable feeling. Taking some time off seems like the natural solution, but it can misfire, badly. A walk around the block and a cup of tea is a break that may help you, letting your laptop get dusty for three weeks while you avoid the problem will only make things worse. If you’re not letting a completed draft ripen in your desk

Despite all my rage, I'm still just a drunk moose in a tree...

drawer between full revisions, taking more than a day away from your work is a mistake.

And when we get stuck, what is really going on? We’ve written ourselves into a corner and have become inflexible, unwilling to toss the work we’ve put in, even if it’s not working for us. We’re trapped in our own heads, unable to see a solution. All we see is the problem.

 

TALK TO SOMEBODY. You are frustrated. Get it out. Talking aloud will engage a different part of your brain, allowing you to examine your problems in a different light. Find someone who is a good listener, willing to tolerate frustrated rambling, someone who will be sympathetic, who may ask open-ended questions about your problem instead of trying to offer solutions. You do not want someone else to offer you solutions, no matter how well-intended. You do not want someone else to try to write your story for you. What do you want is someone who will listen to you spin your wheels until you get yourself unstuck naturally. If you don’t have anyone like in your life, you can be that person for yourself. Here’s how.

Open up your notebook or word processor and start writing about the problem. Express your negative feelings. Vent like a madman. And then… go past that and begin brainstorming. What else could happen in your story that would cut that knot? A new character? A different locale? Should your protagonist make a different decision earlier in the story? Could you cut that broken scene altogether without losing anything? Could you start at a different place in the timeline?

What do your characters want? Invite them into the conversation. Let them speak in their own voices about the story. Give them the opportunity to explain themselves- you’ll find if you prod them they’ll open up to you- mine are always vocal once I give them the mike.

Don't let the voices in your head be shy...

Above all, don’t allow yourself to be limited by what you’ve already written. Cutting can be scary, so don’t do it just yet. Instead, open up a new document and write something new: try out a scene from a different point of view, look for unexamined points of conflict and explore them. Allow yourself to riff and play, noodle around and jam out. Be free, have fun. Remember why you started doing this in the first place and just enjoy the sensation of creating something new. When the dust settles, you just might have a new scene that solves your problems. It’s hard to cut, unless you’ve got something awesome sitting in “ALT THIRD SCENE.DOC” just waiting for you to paste it into the manuscript.

If you’ve discussed your problems and tried some zero-pressure rewrites and are still thwarted and uninspired, it might be time to let go of that story and start another project. That’s okay. Not everything works. The worst thing you could do is stop writing altogether- that’s how writer’s block is born.

Fight for your Right to BIC

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I’m going to keep things short and sweet today, because last night I decided for some reason it would be fine to eat some shellfish from a buffet table.

It seemed like a reasonable thing to do at the time.

Anyway, this week’s theme is BIC. BIC is a technique one absolutely must refine in order to be a writer. Shakespeare used BIC to write his plays. Dickens used BIC to write his novels. Stephen King uses BIC every day. Wouldn’t you like to be like them? Well, here is how BIC is done.

  • Step One. Take your butt.
  • Step Two. Put it in a chair.
  • Step Three. Write.

No one can BIC for you. In fact, everyone wants to take your BIC away from you. Your family and friends want to hang out with your B. They do not want your B to be remotely located in your C. That’s no fun for them. Your job or schooling requires you to put your B in their C, for 40 hours a week (and more if you let them). And your own innate fear of your own possibility will keep your B out of your C all day and night if you let it call the shots.

Command your B! Do not let the world take your B from you.

Your life is what you make it, and so is your butt. If you dream of that butt being attached to a writer, well, you know what to do. Do what Shakespeare did.

BIC. Go on. Right now.

Want to write? Don’t starve your brain.

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I mentioned in my last post that I had participated in an experiment along with S. C. Green. The idea was to avoid all media input for one week. The hope was, that once divorced from all of this external stuff, we would bloom with new stories, new ideas. I had some doubts about that, but figured it was worth trying.

I learned a lot about myself during that week. And I did make serious inroads on a longer short story, finishing the first draft shortly after the week was up, something that would not have happened if I had not participated in S.C.’s experiment.

But the story was something I had started writing before I deprived myself of books. I already knew my plot and characters, I just needed to discipline myself to push through the hard parts. After I finished it, I felt listless. Anxious. At sea. And I had no new ideas to work on.

I hadn’t gotten a single new idea the entire week of the experiment. Which, honestly, was what I had expected. I found I wasn’t enjoying my daily runs half so much as I normally did, without a story to worry at and dream about.

And then I did a stupid thing. I kind of don’t know why, except that I do stupid things sometimes. You could call it a signature move. Anyway, I continued to hold myself back from reading. I knew that I certainly wouldn’t write anything if I allowed myself the pleasure of reading a new book. And I really wanted to write. So I didn’t read, and I didn’t write. Instead, I remained restless and adrift.

Finally, wanting to escape myself as much as anything else, I caved and cracked open the first book of Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders series. I’d greatly enjoyed her Farseer Trilogy and was ready to plunge back into her world. I read the book, Ship of Magic, like I was starving.

Because I was.


Guess what happened the next day, as I went for my run? If you guessed, new story idea, you get a cookie. So I guess I must modify my Inspiration Equation thusly: (READING)(music + movement)= story ideas.

Writers are readers, first and foremost. That’s why we all started writing, is it not? Books? If you are not making time to read, both in your chosen writing genre and out of your genre, every day, you are starving your brain of the nutriments it needs to create. And starving your imagination is just another way of giving yourself writer’s block.

So, don’t be stupid like me. Read. Every day.

Sick in the head!

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My entire family got sick on New Year’s Day. At least, that’s when it became obvious. I didn’t think much of it, just figured we all had a cold. The holidays are always exhausting, you know? So I gave it a couple days. Then I gave it a couple more. Suddenly it’s MLK Day and we’re all still sniffing. I drag the entire family to the doctor and what do you know? I have ear and sinus infections, and strep throat. My toddler, whose only symptom was a runny nose, also has strep. My husband has flippin’ pneumonia. A grown man. Who is not eligible for the early bird special. Has PNEUMONIA. IN THE YEAR 2011.

Many antibiotics were prescribed.

nom.

 

I took my meds like a good little monkey. Then, something strange happened.

By the third day I still had all my ucky physical symptoms, but mentally I felt like a whole new person. I felt rested. Hell, I felt cheerful. And I realized I had not felt good-morning no-reason cheerful in a really long time.

Suddenly, I had the willpower to sit down and scrape through some tough edits on a short story I’ve been meaning to shop. Suddenly, I had the energy to write. No blocks. I felt so different.

STRUT.

 

After spending some time wondering whether antibiotics treat depression (answer: no), I realized I had been expecting my mind to function at 100% when my body was at 50%. And that’s just silly. My brain is an organ inside my body, after all…

Heeeeelp meeeeeeeeeeeee!

…and it works in tandem with my immune system. Of course the ability to think and to create are going to be drastically effected by a bodily infection.

Writer’s block arises from fear, stress, and depression. So does physical illness. So my dear writing friends, if you’ve been feeling a little run-down during this long cold winter, for the love of little green apples get your heinie to the clinic, even if it’s just a runny nose and general sense of ennui. True, you might just need a little more shut eye and exercise, but you might have something deeper going on.

Plotting for Pantsers

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To plot or to pants-it, that is the question. Or, can you be both a plotter and a pantser? That’s another question.

I think all writers naturally gravitate towards one or the other, but I would argue that a middle-of-the-road approach is best. How to do that? Well, I can’t speak for Plotters, but I can offer some thoughts on how a Pantser can plot without doing all that full-outline-with-notecards jazz. Honestly that stuff fills me with befuddlement. I know it’s a successful tack to take. But it’s just not how my mind works. I start writing a story because I get a flash of something- a scene, a person, or sometimes a voice speaking directly in my head.

Whenever I get stuck, writing the same scene over and over to my dissatisfaction, it’s because I’m not listening hard enough to the voices. Whenever I get lost, it’s because I don’t know where I’m going anymore, and the voices don’t either. Stuck and lost feel similar, but they’re not the same thing at all.

In either case, this is the point where I need to morph into a plotter, or the story will die on the page. I’ve developed some weird moves that work for me. If you’re a pantser they might work for you too. If you’re a plotter, you might try them instead just to see what happens.

plotting gone awry

When Stuck: I get a spiral bound notebook and “call the characters into my office.”

Basically I do a character interview, but instead of the one-on-one getting-to-know you questions one usually asks when writing a character interview, I ask everyone involved in the sticky scene directly: what’s wrong? Usually they tell me right away what I’m doing wrong, and what should happen instead. Sometimes they call me names too, but I don’t mind a little sassing, as long as I put down the pen knowing exactly what to do next.

When Lost: I sit down and ask myself some questions: What is this story about? What needs to happen? How can I create a narrative arc?

I’ll then do some brainstorming and create an extremely brief outline that gets me where I need to go. I write just enough so that I can look back on my notes later and remember what I was thinking about, but not so much that it kills my energy. Usually just a phrase per scene, or a line of dialogue that pops into my head while I’m brainstorming.

For me, taking a step back and talking myself through the plot allows me to run through many different ideas, discarding what doesn’t feel right without spending too much time with any given thought. And having a pow-wow with my characters directly is just another way to tap into the creative subconscious, putting me back in the pantsing groove. It’s not a lot, but it’s just enough of a push to get me where I need to go.

Fight Club, Epic Fantasy Style

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I love a good fight.

Writing realistic fight scenes can be hard. I suspect this is why so few of us do them well, and when they are done well, ala Joe Abercrombie, everyone talks about it. (If you like your fantasy bloody and haven’t read any Abercrombie yet, do yourself a favor and pick up The Blade Itself.)

I’ve heard not to describe a fight in too much detail, because a real fight moves too fast. And I agree- but as I am revising The Iron Key, I see that my own trend is to underwrite the scene. I think that a crucial fight scene should take at least a page. And I do alright with fisticuffs, because I’ve done a (very) little sparring in my time. But throw in an actual fantasy weapon? Problematic. And a two-blow-and-camera-pans-out fight scene wasn’t the kind of scene I wanted to write.

Part of my problem with the fight scene in question was that I wasn’t using a sword as a primary weapon. My fighter, Wilhem Imbrel, is a priest in a death cult. I wanted him to have a scythe-like polearm as a primary weapon, as well as the usual sword and dagger kit. Wil usually fights alone, so a polearm, like a stave, would give him advantage of reach.

I initially hopped onto Wikipedia (everyone’s favorite pretend research device) and clicked through Glaives and and Halberds, Fauchards and Spetums. Wikipedia gave me a photo and the history of each weapon, but didn’t really edify me as to practical application. Nothing I saw was quite right, so I invented my own weapon, something between a Glaive and a Guisarme, and called it a Glaeven. In my head it looked very like the polearms used in Curse of the Golden Flower (if anyone knows what they are supposed to be, tell me and I will be forever grateful).

I loved the way the polearms were used in this movie, and tried to mimic the lightening fast spins in my scene. But it still wasn’t holding together.

Suddenly I realized I was trying to write Hollywood polearm fighting, without still having any idea how such a weapon would actually be used. I was stuck again. Then, at my Beta Reader’s suggestion, I pulled out my 2nd Edition AD&D Arms and Equipment Guide and spent Saturday immersed in its pages. The beauty of the A&EG is that it is written with roleplay in mind. There is advice on when a weapon would be particularly useful, or useless. And the Guide pointed out something crucial to me: polearms are slow.

In the original fight, which is many-on-one, Wil whirled around, striking out with both ends of the glaeven, quick as a viper. More men fell.

Yeah, too bad that’s both generic and physically impossible (also, what a tired simile).

The rewrite:

Wil jabbed at him underhand with the butt of his weapon. The blow glanced against the smith’s shoulder, but he kept coming. Wil spun, kicked the smith in the stomach and danced back, swinging the blade end of the glaeven around in a slow arc. It sliced halfway into the smith’s skull and stuck. The smith’s arms flailed.

Now that I can actually see in my head. Gee, I wonder if Wil’s gonna get that blade out in time to deal with the next guy who comes at him. Probably not.

Anyway, I’m going to keep tweaking this scene, but I’m much happier with it now than I was. So if you’re having trouble with a fight scene, the AD&D 2nd Edition Arms and Equipment Guide might help you rethink your fight. Or, if you’ve got a good resource on weaponry and would like to share, please do tell! Clearly I need to keep doing my homework.

Creative Cycles: The Path to Learning About Myself, The Writer

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The Author, Vacationing in Arizona

By: Michael James Greenwald

I’ve got another Confession to make (Dave Grohl evidently isn’t the only one), which is apropos, considering this week is an Open Confession Week. Timing, I guess, in life, is everything.

I haven’t written this week.

EEEEKKKKK!!!!!!!!!

It’s true.

Welcome to the Sunday edition of the Confessional, my peeps.  I’m writing these words fighting off frustration, for those of you who know me, know my greatest weakness might be impatience and my foremost adversary could be my own perfectionism.

We here at PLC dedicated a whole week to the discussion of writers block.  If you missed it, or to revisit (always a good idea), Amy N. probed into the stylistic issues of WB, Amy M. described WB as analogous to depression and listed psychological strategies to combatting WB, and S.C. took the hard-line approach of not making excuses (maybe I need to fly Drillmaster S.C. to Chicago to do an intervention) and getting the work done.

I’m not going to talk more about WB.

Before this week, for a good month, I had a nice writing roll going.  You know the one, where before you go to sleep the night before, you dream about fixing your morning cup of coffee and sitting at your desk and typing your way into the next scene.  Every sentence, every paragraph, every scene reads like magic.  Your fingers, at times, seem to operate without the consciousness of your brain.  Beautiful phrasing, metaphors, imagery, appear on the page in bunches.  You know those days, right?

Ron Carlson says simply, “the writer is the one who stays in the room.”

Easy to say when things are going well.

But those days inevitably arrive when it’s as though you’re writing with recently fractured fingers (hmmm, that’s the best metaphor I’ve developed in seven days), and typing each letter is excruciatingly painful.  Sentences are clunky, containing no arcs, and read as emotionless as a Wall Street Journal article.  Single scenes, which at times, were written over the course of an entire day of work lay flat and listless on the page.

Terrible.  Horrible.  Writing.

That’s been my past week.  The kind of writing that if I’d show it to my mother, she’d frown and ask, “Wait, why didn’t you go to law school?”  Or to my girlfriend, “Honey, that’s…honey…you know I love you…but…well…maybe I should be the writer and you should bartend four nights a week to pay the mortgage.”

So, now it’s Sunday, and the Confidence that swelled over nearly a month of Boom Writing has deflated to levels where I am having difficulty typing this blog (and think it sucks monkey balls, at that).

My father is bipolar.  I don’t bring this up for sympathy, but to build toward my point.  I am my father’s son (see, that could be the best incite I’ve developed all week).  So, though, I do not believe I am bipolar, I do (and my friend’s will attest to this) have bipolar tendencies.  I have cycles–not the cavernous depressions that my father suffers through, nor the hysterical mania I know other people with the disease struggle with.  But I do have cycles.  Some weeks my confidence in my work and my choices is really high.  Other weeks I know I’ll struggle to work at all, struggle to live sometimes.

Boom and Bust Writing.

(An analogy that works on even more than one level when it pertains to writing being comparable to mining for gold…hmmm, maybe I am poking my head above the depressive, gray cloud)

But I know that wherever I’m at, in terms of productivity and mood, next week (next month, tomorrow) most likely will be different.  When I’m having a Bust week (like this one), that’s a solace; when I’m having a Boom week (like hopefully this upcoming one), it’s fear of an upcoming regression.

The point I’ve been building to (if I was having a better week I’d have been able to disguise this thesis statement more skillfully) is as a writer, you must KNOW YOURSELF.

You must know your weaknesses and strengths, know techniques to keep your motivated over the length of a novel, learn from hiccups and Bust Writing days, Bust Writing weeks, Bust Writing months, and most importantly: KEEP YOUR HEAD UP.

I’m learning to deal with my Creative Cycles.  To not get too elated when I’m in a Boom and not beat myself up when I’m in a Bust.  To use Busts to prep for the next Boom:

1) Spend time with family, friends, kids (spending time in my real world)

2) Observing this real world we live in (which we neglect when we are in Booms in our fictitious worlds)

3) Reading a lot (spending time in other writer’s worlds)

4) Listening to a lot of music

5) Researching

6) Working out dialogue, setting, scenes in my head

7) Thinking about my characters, my story, my world

8 ) Working on another project: a short story, a blog, poetry

9) Organizing submissions, MFA app materials, query letters

These are some of the things I do during Busts.

May I make a suggestion?  Okay, I will.  I want, when you’re finished reading this blog, to take a moment, maybe a sequence of moments, if you are a list person get a paper and pen, and figure out what are your weaknesses, your strengths, techniques you use to buoy your writing productivity.

Write your own writing Confession, if you will.

If you’d type your Confession in the comment section of my blog, that would be even better.

I’d find it helpful to know I’m not alone; as would, I’m sure, the other three people (two of whom I pay and the other one I sleep with) who read my Sunday Confession.

But really, in all the truth I can muster in my exhaustive state, use this exercise to know yourself.

KNOW YOURSELF, PEOPLE.

One of the fifteen…[crash]…uh, ten commandments of writing.

:)

Okay, go…

–MJG
Michael James Greenwald fights off his sometimes daily dose of depression with his fingers. He’s a student at Story Studio Chicago, applying for a Ragdale Residency in the fall, and considering allowing UT, Austin a second chance at deliverance, by accepting him into their MFA program for 2011 (HOOK ‘EM HORNS!!).

For now, he works in his family business of owning and operating bowling alleys in the South Suburbs of Chicago. He is also a fiction writer, with a short story collection Stories from a Bowling Alley and a novel The Rainbow Child due to be published in the next several years. You can read his blogs at sleepsunshine and his confessions every Sunday on his group blog at parkinglotconfessional.com. Venture to his Facebook page or feel free to email him with any comments or suggestions for further topics, or if you had any interest in being a guest blogger on either one of his sites.

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Setting Goals: Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

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This week PLC will be talking about goal setting. Honestly, there isn’t a lot of point to setting goals if you never achieve any.  For example, say you currently write a short story a month and you want to kick up your output. You might be tempted to get crazy and commit yourself to 30 stories in 30 days, but deep down you know by day 30 you’ll probably end up with 3 pieces of microfiction, one 2k word story that makes no sense, 4 meandering beginnings that went nowhere, and a whole lot of shame. It’s self-defeating. Instead, consider the amount of time it takes you to complete a project (in this case, one story in a month), then cut that time in half. This will give you enough pressure to produce without setting yourself up for utter failure. Now your challenge is to write two stories in a month. That’s an attainable goal, and what you’ll get at the end has a higher chance of something you can take pride in, something that’s marketable.

My other deadline-oriented goal-setting suggestion is to mark your deadline on a wall calendar in red ink. Make sure the wall calendar is displayed prominently, somewhere you will look at it at least once a day. I like a wall calendar better than a phone calendar because it’s easy to hit the ignore button on your phone and go on your merry without ever really thinking about it, especially if you are out and about in the world when your reminder pops up. There is no ignore button for the wall next to your desk(or kitchen, or front door).  I also usually mark the weekend before my deadline with red ink. It helps kick in that deadline squeeze of panicked productivity that I sadistically enjoy so much.

So yeah, I like my goals bite-sized. I wonder if I’m in the minority here? Is it better to set yourself some mind-altering enormous goal, or a series of small ones? What type of goal pushes you to get more done?