Writer's Block-A Common Cold for Authors
The past few weeks I have found myself in writing block hell. I am unable to write anything but teacher lesson plans--and right now even that chore is suffering from a miniature block.
Writer's block is like the common cold. Everyone who writes knows about it, but few of us actually court it willingly. Seemingly there are many treatments for it; however there is no cure.
Just like the common cold, my writer's block has traveled around the members of my home (namely me and my husband since our kids are 4 and under). Chris, who is a traditionally published non-fiction writer of true crime, came home at the end of May with a case of writer's block. Of course, he doesn't admit to having writer's block, but he hasn't written anything new, especially anything in his field, since June.
It seems that he has passed the filthy little virus on to me. Although I have written several stories in the month of June and half of July, I knew I was fighting off the bug. My writing had all the symptoms of the common writer's block disease…sluggish stories, worn-down words, and crotchety characters. I was an achy author with icky ideas.
Still, I continued to pen stories and even sold one, "The Trader" to The Talisman Magazine. Somehow horror stories tend to lend themselves to crotchety characters and icky ideas.
Despite this feat, riding my creative immune system was a vicious new strain of writer's block.
It was determined to ride my healthy creative body of work into the ground.
So as I grew more ill and the symptoms intensified, I did what everyone else does... I took some medicine in the form of encouragements and leafing through my journals, even reading to try to keep the virus at bay. No ideas came, nor have they since I returned from Africa.
The writer's block bug in full force.
In the past, I have written columns about how to battle and defeat writer's block (physician heal thyself!). This new strain may actually have evolved to be immune to my common, over-the-Internet treatment (suggestions) for smiting it into remission.
What I wouldn't give for a bottle of Romulan Ale and a holodeck right now! Something, heck anything, to jump start my creative author muse and battle back the bug that is threatening to send me into a dry, arid desert for months! Maybe even years!
I am heading to Flagstaff this weekend as it is my anniversary. Perhaps there I will find the cure for my current cup of writer's block.
Wish me luck!
~Nicole
Writer's block is like the common cold. Everyone who writes knows about it, but few of us actually court it willingly. Seemingly there are many treatments for it; however there is no cure.
Just like the common cold, my writer's block has traveled around the members of my home (namely me and my husband since our kids are 4 and under). Chris, who is a traditionally published non-fiction writer of true crime, came home at the end of May with a case of writer's block. Of course, he doesn't admit to having writer's block, but he hasn't written anything new, especially anything in his field, since June.
It seems that he has passed the filthy little virus on to me. Although I have written several stories in the month of June and half of July, I knew I was fighting off the bug. My writing had all the symptoms of the common writer's block disease…sluggish stories, worn-down words, and crotchety characters. I was an achy author with icky ideas.
Still, I continued to pen stories and even sold one, "The Trader" to The Talisman Magazine. Somehow horror stories tend to lend themselves to crotchety characters and icky ideas.
Despite this feat, riding my creative immune system was a vicious new strain of writer's block.
It was determined to ride my healthy creative body of work into the ground.
So as I grew more ill and the symptoms intensified, I did what everyone else does... I took some medicine in the form of encouragements and leafing through my journals, even reading to try to keep the virus at bay. No ideas came, nor have they since I returned from Africa.
The writer's block bug in full force.
In the past, I have written columns about how to battle and defeat writer's block (physician heal thyself!). This new strain may actually have evolved to be immune to my common, over-the-Internet treatment (suggestions) for smiting it into remission.
What I wouldn't give for a bottle of Romulan Ale and a holodeck right now! Something, heck anything, to jump start my creative author muse and battle back the bug that is threatening to send me into a dry, arid desert for months! Maybe even years!
I am heading to Flagstaff this weekend as it is my anniversary. Perhaps there I will find the cure for my current cup of writer's block.
Wish me luck!
~Nicole
So you just described this in a way that made me understand how you feel. Totally and utterly. And please, oh please, don't let it spread to me! :-)
Really. Though after my 4-word limit last night--I think I am suffering the same. :-(
Posted by Bethany | 11:52 AM, September 16, 2005