- Where We Live Now
- It Was Never About The Girl, Was it, Jarvis?
- Spooky Time Rhyme
- Invisible Bodies
- Tips for the Novel Writer’s Block
Every writer’s been through this; I’ve been through it; you’re probably stuck in the middle of it right now if you’ve clicked on this article, which is why I won’t waste any more of your time you could spend actually writing.
For me, writer’s block is a symptom of one of three diseases: motivation, association, and lack of ideas, each of which I’ll cover.
Motivation
So you have this amazing, jaw-dropping, earthshattering idea that will change the world, right?
So why aren’t you writing?
Motivation is a fickle toddler: difficult to please.
1. Start a word counter
No, not a word minimum, although you can certainly do that as well. A word counter. Track each day’s progress like Duolingo streaks, and record how many words you wrote that day.
The point isn’t to make you feel bad that you wrote 20 words after the previous day’s 200, but to show yourself that every day is progress.
It’s not 200 one day and 20 the next, it’s 220 words total. It can be a big morale booster, even if you have a couple of days where you wrote nothing at all. Twenty words every day for a week is 140 words, after all!
2. Write Out of Order
This is advice that I still struggle with. I used to tell myself: I’m a writer. To skip scenes is to admit defeat – to admit that I can’t write something – and that shouldn’t happen.
Yet at the same time, all I was doing was putting off projects until I had the energy to get past that sticky situation. It is more important to keep the work flowing than writing in order. Plus… more fun.
That scene is probably boring anyway, and can be cut later. Skip it.
3. Stop comparing yourself to others
Looking for ways to better yourself is one thing, but not if it stunts your growth and kills your motivation. If every single person on earth were to be given a pen and told to write a story, they would all be different and weird and wonderful, so why are you trying to copy someone else’s weird wonderfulness? You have enough of your own.
4. Don’t wait: Start now
Stop preheating your documents like its an oven. Open it, and write. Stop caring if you don’t feel like it – the biggest hurdle is starting.
Personally, I like to use the five minute rule: write for five minutes, and if you still don’t feel like it after that, you can stop. And more often than not I want to keep going, because getting your imagination to flow is the toughest part of the job.
Your creativity is like a blocked river: you need to get rid of the rubbish before water can push through. Throw out enough trash every day, and then you should have no trouble at all starting and stopping whenever you please!
I challenge you: when you finish this article, start some writing. You’ll be surprised how much you can find yourself doing.
Association
Your brain is one of the most amazing survival tools there is, but it can be tricked very easily. Right now, your brain may be tricked into believing this is not the time nor place to write, much like it would think this is not the time or place to hunt or gather if there is a predator after you. However, this can be fixed.
1. Time
Set a specific time to write. Right now. Think, “tomorrow, I will write at such-and-such time in the morning/afternoon”. Make it realistic. Set a reminder on your phone. I like to set a reminder an hour before, so I have adequate time to mentally prepare.
Give yourself some time for pure, unfiltered writing. Stick to it. After a couple of days, your brain will associate that time with Writing Time. This will have an enormous impact on your creativity and motivation.
2. Place
Location, location, location. Why do you think people advise you don’t go on your phone before bed? It’s because your brain no longer associates it with sleeping, it associates it with Phone Activity Time. Well, it’s the same with writing. Don’t do your writing in your bed, or at your work desk, or anywhere you could associate it with something else.
Use a coffeeshop, a library, or go downstairs and sit at the table or couch there. Customise a little writing nook for yourself. It will feel strange at first; your brain will wonder what you’re doing writing here instead of over there. Yet after a certain amount of time, it will come to associate that space with your craft.
3. Enjoyment
Don’t associate writing with: urgh, I have to write now. That mentality will kill your enjoyment. You will begin to see writing as a chore, much akin to doing the laundry or washing the dishes.
Think instead of that scene you’ve been building up to. That character POV coming soon. That setting you want to describe. Even just replacing an “urgh, writing” with a “huh, I want to write” is better. Soon, your fingers will be itching for the pen.
Lack of Ideas
This is one of the biggest invisible writing-killers there is. You may think, “no, I daydream about my worlds all the time! I’m constantly adding new stuff in!”. But is it the right kind of stuff? Tell me, where are you going with that minor character? What, exactly, goes on in the middle of your novella?
I’ve got you now, haven’t I?
We often don’t see that features need to be added because we’re too focused on what’s already there. We see a ditch and don’t think to fill it with water to make a lovely oasis.
You’re stuck on the scene of your main character interacting with that side character because there’s nothing interesting about that side character to make them worth writing, or nothing about the interaction that helps the plot.
Making things more complex is definitely for 2nd or 3rd drafts, but if you don’t enjoy writing that scene now, what would make it more interesting? What is that water you would fill your ditch with? Would you fill it with water at all?
Extra Tips
I’m sure these are things we all do whether subconsciously or not, but it never hurts to share the love. These are all little things I do to keep my writing in the back of my mind, helping with motivation.
1. Playlists
Make a playlist for the vibe of your book, or even the vibe of a specific character, scene, or place. Challenge yourself: limit a character playlist to, say, just 10 songs, to force yourself to reflect their most crucial aspects. Make a playlist that’s only 100% period-accurate songs. Make a playlist for non-lyrical songs.
2. Moodboards
Another generic one, and works much the same as playlists. Make a moodboard for your fantasy castle. Make a moodboard for the royalty. Make a moodboard for your main character’s dog. Who even cares. Just choose some pretty pictures to inspire the mind.
3. Dress like your favourite characters.
Admit it, you’ve at least thought about it. At least one of your characters is just a self-insert and has your taste. Are you even a writer if you don’t have someone who is just a cooler version of you? You don’t have to go outside. Just get into a fancy outfit and live a little.
4. Other Art Forms
Do you draw? Draw your world! Do you bake? What kinds of foods would your characters like — make them! Gardening? When character A professes their love to character B, what flowers do they have in their bouquet they give them? Grow those flowers!
I’ve been trying for the past 3 months to make a whole new language specifically for magic-users. It keeps me thinking. It keeps me writing. So what else are you passionate about?
5. A switch of medium
Oh, so you write on a laptop? Switch to pen and paper. Even changing the font can make you see your writing through fresh eyes. One of the worst tips I’ve ever seen was to write in comic sans. I hated it, and I hated the fact that it worked.
It helped to make my previous work seem less intimidating, taught me not to see it as serious. It’s literally squiggles on a paper. Sqiggles that aren’t even there if you’re on a laptop. And you can’t critique a squiggle.
Now I’ve given you all this, what are you waiting for? 3… 2… 1… and off you go!
