Tag Archives: Writers’ Block

Nano Reflections

06 Thursday Dec 2012

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Last year I posted about NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month for those of you NaNoWirMo2who prefer their English unabbreviated. I talked about why I was not doing it and why that made me a heretic.

This year, in order to stay ahead of the curve and reveal my contrary nature, I opted to go ahead and do it. Because not doing it once and claiming you are doing so because it is cool not to is fine but there is no sense in repeating the pose for a second year. No sense in doing what people expect, always keep the audience guessing. 🙂

Actually, the main reason I opted to do it was to give myself a kick up the backside. Earlier in the year I had promised a publisher a complete anthology of short stories (well, one novella and some shorts) and had promised him delivery by a certain time. In the meantime, the deadline has whooshed past and I was still sat there with barely anything written and all of that painfully extracted over the course of several months. So, when November loomed I looked at my barely begun novella and decided that this would be my Nano project.

Of course, I still had the same problems as last year, which were my main reasons for not doing Nano. Work life balances getting all out of synch and all that. This time I even had a regular job to occupy me. I knew that 50K was unlikely to be a target I could aim for and still stay sane, married, healthy and employed. Instead, I opted for a lesser target. As things stood on my WIP I had just under 10K written already and I had predicted it to be about 30K when complete (various additional stories were planned to take the whole project to more than 50K, some of which had already been written and just needed tweaking). I therefore set myself two targets:

1) Write at least 20K words in order to get the total up to more than 30K

2) Complete the novella

By the end of NaNo I had written 20777 words which definitely achieved the first target and had put the novella to just under 30K words (close enough to be not worthwhile worrying about). However, I had not finished the novella…. the reason being that I realised that it is going to be a much longer story than I originally thought. I am almost at the end but there are at least another few thousand words to go and I am pondering additional scenes which may take it even higher than that.

So, I am counting my first NaNo experience as a win. I acheived one of my goals and only did not achieve the other because of changes in the goalposts. Not only that, but the process has reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the project which had been mired in the doldrums for far too long. In the course of writing I created a new character who I enjoy writing (he was intended to be an incidental local colour character, present for maybe a scene or two, but I ended up taking him further than that) and thought of some new plot ideas which I hope work. Of course, I have also produced something that is grammatically messy, likely filled with examples of bad writing and worse plot cliches but at least I have produced something and there is nothing that cannot be fixed in the edit.

Would I do it again in the future? Maybe. I suppose it would depend on the circumstances – am I working full time? Do I have a project that is languishing? I do think it was a good motivation tool and so worth doing on that basis alone. Not sure I would ever get to the point where I would ‘win’ NaNo but I am confident that it will be useful nontheless.

[Vampire Month] “Giving birth to my Muse…an author’s act of faith and desperation”

16 Friday Mar 2012

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Ninfa Hayes writes about how to kick your muse into shape when it refuses to play ball…

“Giving birth to my Muse…an author’s act of faith and desperation”

By Ninfa Hayes

Calliope: The Muse of Epic Poetry

So, I usually don’t have to fight to get my writing going. If there’s an idea knocking about in my head, chances are I probably will sit down in front of the computer and write something. Might be 300 words, might be 3000, but something will normally flow out of my over-active mind and into the paper/computer screen… or so it should.

Writing “Demonica”, the second novelette in my upcoming short Anthology “Bites” was worst than giving birth, and believe me, I had a helluva time during pregnancy so that’s one big statement right there.

No flowing there. No sitting down comfortably to write about a fully formed story. No Madam. No Sir. My skunk of a Muse had different ideas…

I knew what the feel of the story was going to be, I knew who the characters were…and none of it ever went the way I wanted it too.

It’s like the whole story just decided to re-write itself, and every time I sat down and stared at the computer it just suddenly decided to change all over again.

Now I’m mostly a patient woman, but let’s face it, when you have deadlines to meet you don’t really have the luxury to procrastinate. Me being a lucky, lucky woman, I have an understanding publisher, but it still didn’t sit right with me that this blessed story wasn’t going the way I, the Creator, Final Judge of all things written by my own hand, Mistress of the Laptop and Goddess of my personal fantasy land, wanted.

So I finally decided to stop waiting around for things to fall into place, and fired my Muse.

I gutted the whole story and rearranged it in a way that made new sense to me, giving me a better understanding of where I wanted it to go.

Oh but my Muse did not like it! And how valiantly she fought, the little minx, but eventually I kicked her pretty little backside back into gear, and after months of pining and re-writing, “Demonica” is now safely in the hands of my publisher, Bitten Fruit Books, awaiting editing and seal of approval.

What’s it about? Amusingly it’s about a girl with a dream that doesn’t quite go the way she imagined…sounds familiar?

Perhaps there aren’t demons in my real life, but it seems my subconscious is populated by the buggers and they all decided to come out and play with Miss Writing Muse this time around.

So to those out there struggling to put words together and watching deadlines approach with overwhelming panic I say, kick the Muse where it hurts the most and don’t wait around.

True inspiration is all well and good, but sometimes, and forgive me for paraphrasing “Nike”, you gotta make a plan, rein in those naughty free willed characters, and JUST DO IT!

Believe me, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve 😉

Guest Post: What’s in a Name

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

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I’ve been and gone and done it again… posted on another site…

This time I posted on the #amwriting site:

What’s in a name?

I talk about ways to overcome a very specific form of writer’s block that comes from trying to work out what to call your characters and invite you all to share your methods in the comments section…

Secret Project and productivity update

12 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Musings, Productivity, Secret Project of Secretness

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This picture is here for no good reason. Nothing to do with the post at all, honest...

I just got an awesome bit of feedback about a piece I wrote for the secret project I am working on. Apparently they liked it 🙂 I suppose it is one of the advantages of a set up like Dropbox and shared folders. Everytime I update a file in the Dropbox folder, the person I am writing this for gets an instant notification that there is something there for him to read.

Of course, the disadvantage of this is that everytime I update a file, he gets a notification that there is something for him to read…

Anyway, the upshot of this is that the secret project is going wonderfully and at some point over the next month or so I may even be in a position to tell you all what exactly it is. Assuming I manage to make the deadlines, which is where the next bit of this post comes in. Productivity…

This photo is also here for no reason. Enjoy.

My productivity plan is going great with one exception. I have been useless at remembering to post the word counts to Twitter every day. I have been managing to write 200 words a day minimum, every day except weekends and ‘official holidays’ (defined as days where my wife has a day off or days that everyone else in the country considers a holiday such as Bank Holidays). On most days I have more than exceeded that target (today’s, for example, is well over a thousand and today is a Sunday so I was officially ‘off duty’). I am therefore still declaring this method as a success because it has got me writing every day, avoided the ‘no productivity doldrums’ and generally increased my output. Now, the flaw to this is that only doing 200 a day is not likely to see a novel completed in any short time scale but as I said, I only see this as a minimum target, not a maximum. On average I am between 200 and 1000 words a day with the 200s only really coming out on days I am working fulltime. This contrasts with previous efforts to improve productivity by setting a high target of 1000 – 2000 words a day when I soon gave up because there were days where this was not possible.

Therefore, in conclusion, I heartily recommend this method if you find the more traditional ones not to your taste.

Guest Post: Dr Hansen’s REmedies for curing Writers’ Block

16 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Guest posts

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I would like to introduce to you all my first guest poster (you may applaud). For this slot, John Hansen is supplying some words of wisdom on Writers’ Block, that insidious syndrome which afflicts all writers at some point in their career. Since it is now about half way through NaNoWriMo I imagine a lot of writers out there are feeling the sting of this affliction.

As authors, we all become ill, at some point in our lives, with the highly contagious writers’ block epidemic. This irksome disease is often transmitted through mad and unsuccessful attempts at writing stories and, sadly, there is no vaccination for it, nor can one build up immunity to it. It lurks in words and soon-to-be-formed pages, watching, waiting, prepared to infect yet another helpless writer. And as much as we, as writers, try to prevent writers’ block from infecting us in the first place, a vaccine has yet to be developed, but it will never. So if we cannot prevent writers’ block that begs the question: how can we cure it?

There are a number of successful home remedies used to cure writers’ block, but you requested Dr. Hansen’s opinion and it’s Dr. Hansen’s opinion you shall get.

  1. Don’t force yourself to keep writing – This, surprisingly, is a very common mistake. When some authors get writers’ block, they seem to think that by forcing themselves to continue writing, they will overcome the writers’ block. This is not true at all since that is not how writers’ block works. It’s like saying that if you break your leg, the best way to heal it is to force that leg to be constantly active as if the pain would suddenly go away because of this. It just doesn’t work.
  2. Relax, take a deep breath – So if you shouldn’t force yourself to write, what should you do? Well, first of all, don’t worry too much about writers’ block. It will go away soon, I assure you. Instead of cursing at yourself to come up with the next sentence and the next sentence and the next sentence (this does not make for quality writing), I advise you to sit back, turn away from your computer and take a deep breath. Don’t get worked up over writers’ block – that never helps – just calm yourself, clear your thoughts and pay no heed to the blinking cursing on your computer screen that seems to be sneering at you.
  3. Walk out of the room – The best cure for writers’ block seems too easy to be effective, but it is. After your have relaxed, stand up, stretch your legs and walk out of the room. I recommend walking around your home for a few minutes and then return to your computer afterwards. This will help to rejuvenate the creativity within in you, dispel all that anxiety, and a little fresh air – not the stuffy atmosphere of your room – will clear your head of those irksome cobwebs.
  4. Splash water on your face – You wouldn’t believe how well this works. If writers’ block has you so stressed out that you can no longer concentrate, simply go up to your sink, fill your hands with cold water and splash it on your face, again and again. This will help to revive your sleepy muses and invigorate your creativity. Cold water does wonders. After several splashes of that icy water, you’ll be ready to conquer that gosh darned writers’ block, guaranteed.
  5. Find something to distract yourself with – A great way to rid yourself of writers’ block is to find something else to occupy your time for awhile, even as short as a minute. Talk to someone, watch a funny YouTube clip, visit those beloved online forums, admire your blog site stats – do anything you want; it doesn’t matter as long as you are distracting yourself from writers’ block with an alternate activity. The advantage of this is that it will help to clear your brain of all thoughts, worries and whatever else lurks within the confines of that messy head of yours and will allow for a fresh start when you return to your computer.
  6. Don’t be afraid of failing: just write! – Once are finally ready to conquer those malicious words, it is time to return to your computer. Do not let your computer’s imposing presence deceive you; you are its master, you are its keeper, you control it and all of the words it will form. As frightening as it may be, to overcome your writers’ block don’t stray away from your computer; just strut right up to it and write. And write. And write. Once you have done this, you can kiss writers’ block goodbye. At least for the day…

John Hansen is the author of several short crime stories and an unpublished crime fiction novel. He has a very interesting, unpredictable (sometimes good, sometimes bad), creative, disturbing, random, insightful and humorous mind. You can him at home, cursing at either his computer. Or sometimes you can find him on his couch, staring at the blank TV screen as if it is some magical, awe-inspiring promiseland. But in most cases, it isn’t. John’s blog, The Incessant Droning of a Bored Writer (http://incessantdroningofaboredwriter.wordpress.com), is a book blog with an edge of mystery/thriller/crime fiction that includes book reviews, author guest posts, author, agent and publisher interviews, (somewhat) insightful posts about writing written by yours truly, along with its fair share of cool facts, randomness and all around insanity. Be sure to subscribe to it if this post was of interest to you since you’ll get much more like this!