A moment of silence for those men and women who tragically
lost their lives at the Naval Shipyards on Monday.
Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with
writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new
work. At least that is the definition that most people, generally writers, subscribe
to.
What got me thinking about this was on Sunday
evening a group of us gathered to discuss things fantasy and science fiction.
As we talked, one of my friends, mentioned that as his wife was cleaning out
junk she ran across some papers and a floppy disk…yikes. It was a manuscript he
had begun 12-years or so ago and never finished.
I asked him why he never picked it up, and after a few
minutes he answered frankly that he had writers block.
I nodded at that, I understood him. I had wanted to be a writer
and in fact I wrote diligently from the time I was 10 until I entered college,
so for 10-years I wrote speculative fiction. Mostly for myself because I was
afraid to show others what I had written.
When I got to college I put my writing away and took up
other studies, but I always had my notes and I would look at them, occasionally
I would pick up pen or keyboard and start furiously writing again. Only to fizzle
and run smack dab into writer's block.
When he asked me how I got rid of it, I shrugged and told
him that beating the dreaded block is different for everyone.
For me I really started to get a handle on it when I lost
weight and began working out again. I felt fresh and energized. I started
carrying a small not book and pen everywhere and jotted down ideas during the
day. I kept one on my nightstand so that if an idea came to me in a dream I was
prepared. I still do.
Now the physical fitness part is a snap for him since he is
active duty military, he is constantly training and in great shape. So we
started discussing other things that it might be, Thank you Master’s degree in
psych, and after a bit we boiled it down to his wanting to be perfect.
You can’t be perfect when you write, not the first time.
That is what revisions are for, everyone does a rewrite or three.
I tell the new writers in my writing circle that there is no
such things as the perfect manuscript, don’t worry about making it shine right
away. Write down the story, get that on the hard drive, on paper or etched in
stone. However you write you need to write.
Don’t worry about anything else other than getting the story
out of your head and into a format where you can see what you’ve written and
can begin to hone and polish it.
A diamond when it comes out of the ground is a rough, hot
mess. But when it has been polished and cut a few times it begins to gleam and
shine the way the jeweler envisioned. That is the same way writing is.
We pull a hot mess of a story from our fevered minds and
then after a few days we begin to cut and polish it so that the true beauty of
our words is given life. I told him that it is tough but you have to stop
yourself from trying to fix things as you go, because if you do you will never
get your work done. You’ll get frustrated and dejected and the creative spark
that fueled you initially to power up the computer will burn out and fade. I
told him, just write, everything else will fall into place once the story is
out of your head.
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