We’ve all been there. You sit (or slump, or pace) before a blank page the words just won’t come.
I have friend who swears a glass of wine is the best way to deal with writer’s block. She claims wine lubricates the creative process.
Neither my budget nor my waistline can afford endless glasses of wine, so I prefer to create a found poem out of an article I’ve recently read.
What’s your tried and true method for dealing with writer’s block?
Normally when running into the writers block brick wall I do something to completely distract my mind away from the project. Everyone has their vice that can distract them. Mine is often playing hockey or playing a video game (geek). It often is engaging enough to distract me from anything else for an hour or so. Afterwards, I can think about the story with a fresh mind. I’ve found watching TV or a Movie is the worst thing you can do. You need to find something that really engages your mind. Doing a crossword would work, or playing cards.
Recently in one of the posts I read: ”... sometimes my fingers have diarrhoea….” . I assued him that I dare not plug it or pluck it ! He can’t resist writing…
I wake up early morning and listen to inner dialogues. I find many downloads…in…s and—-s. I have to walk a lot to reach the college where I teach. Often it happens to be walk-talk.
I think it depends on why you’re suffering from writer’s block.
If it’s because there’s some problem in your plan for the story that you can’t account for, then all you can do is continue to think about it until you solve it, as if you try to write earlier your subsconscious will be completely paralyzed by the contradictory orders until you do solve it.
If it’s because you’ve just been over writing and your mind is getting tired and repetitive, then the solution is simply to do something else for a little while. Usually I only need about five minutes.
Finally if it’s because I simply can’t think of anything, then I make sure I have enough laid out to know what I should be writing, and at that point I just write something and it’s usually apt, or if not, I have something to correct and work with.
I’m a very structured writer. I like to think of pieces of writing as an engine or a building to be integrated and designed carefully.
