Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Filed under 2019, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Genie: “You have one wish left.”
The writer thought about it for a few minutes. He looked around the bar. He had already messed up twice and didn’t want to screw up this third wish. Finally, he said, “I want to forget my writer’s block.”
“Is that your wish?”
“Yes, I wish to forget my writer’s block.”
The genie disappeared in a puff of smoke. The writer paid his bill and left the bar, happy to know that he would now be able to write again, once he remembered where he lived.
Filed under 2017, joke by author, Monday morning writing joke
A writer goes to his doctor.
Writer: “Doc, can you give me something? I’ve been trying to write for a year now, but can’t get it done.”
Doctor: “Are you saying you suffer from writer’s block?”
Writer: “That’s my story.”
Doctor: “If that’s your story, how can you have writer’s block?”
The writer then goes to his psychiatrist.
Writer: “Doc, can you give me something? I’ve been trying to write for a year now, but can’t get it done.”
Psychiatrist: “Are you saying you suffer from writer’s block?”
Writer: “That’s what I said.”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
Psychiatrist: “It means your problems are rooted in your expectations.”
“Yes,” the writer said. “I’m expecting you to help me.”
In desperation the writer goes to his mother.
Writer, in tears: “Mom, I’ve been trying to write for a year now, but can’t get it done.”
Mom: “Why’s that?”
Writer: “I think I suffer from writer’s block.”
Mom: “You know, your Dad had that same problem when I married him, and I was able to help him.”
Writer, his face brightening: “How, Mom, how?!”
Mom: “I had you and the bum had to find a job and go to work.”
Filed under 2017, joke by author, Monday morning writing joke
Some days, even the smoke of inspiration doesn’t come, let alone the fire.
Filed under 2017, CarToonsday
If there’s one word to describe Isaac Asimov, it’s “prolific”.
Source: Isaac Asimov: How to Never Run Out of Ideas Again – Personal Growth – Medium
by Charles Chu
If there’s one word to describe Isaac Asimov, it’s “prolific.”
To match the number of novels, letters, essays and other scribblings Asimov produced in his lifetime, you would have to write a full-length novel every two weeks for 25 years.
Why was Asimov able to have so many good ideas when the rest of us seem to only have 1 or 2 in a lifetime? To find out, I looked into Asimov’s autobiography, It’s Been a Good Life.
Asimov wasn’t born writing 8 hours a day 7 days a week. He tore up pages, he got frustrated and he failed over and over and over again. In his autobiography, Asimov shares the tactics and strategies he developed to never run out of ideas again.
Let’s steal everything we can.
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1. Never Stop Learning
Asimov wasn’t just a science fiction writer. He had a PhD in chemistry from Columbia. He wrote on physics. He wrote on ancient history. Hell, he even wrote a book on the Bible.
Why was he able to write so widely in an age of myopic specialization?
Unlike modern day “professionals”, Asimov’s learning didn’t end with a degree—
“I couldn’t possibly write the variety of books I manage to do out of the knowledge I had gained in school alone. I had to keep a program of self-education in process. My library of reference books grew and I found I had to sweat over them in my constant fear that I might misunderstand a point that to someone knowledgeable in the subject would be a ludicrously simple one.”
To have good ideas, we need to consume good ideas too. The diploma isn’t the end. If anything, it’s the beginning.
Growing up, Asimov read everything —
“All this incredibly miscellaneous reading, the result of lack of guidance, left its indelible mark. My interest was aroused in twenty different directions and all those interests remained. I have written books on mythology, on the Bible, on Shakespeare, on history, on science, and so on.”
Read widely. Follow your curiosity. Never stop investing in yourself.
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2. Don’t Fight the Stuck
It’s refreshing to know that, like myself, Asimov often got stuck —
Frequently, when I am at work on a science-fiction novel, I find myself heartily sick of it and unable to write another word.
Getting stuck is normal. It’s what happens next, our reaction, that separates the professional from the amateur.
Asimov didn’t let getting stuck stop him. Over the years, he developed a strategy…
I don’t stare at blank sheets of paper. I don’t spend days and nights cudgeling a head that is empty of ideas. Instead, I simply leave the novel and go on to any of the dozen other projects that are on tap. I write an editorial, or an essay, or a short story, or work on one of my nonfiction books. By the time I’ve grown tired of these things, my mind has been able to do its proper work and fill up again. I return to my novel and find myself able to write easily once more.
When writing this article, I got so frustrated that I dropped it and worked on other projects for 2 weeks. Now that I’ve created space, everything feels much, much easier.
The brain works in mysterious ways. By stepping aside, finding other projects and actively ignoring something, our subconscious creates space for ideas to grow.
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3. Beware the Resistance
All creatives — be they entrepreneurs, writers or artists — know the fear of giving shape to ideas. Once we bring something into the world, it’s forever naked to rejection and criticism by millions of angry eyes.
Sometimes, after publishing an article, I am so afraid that I will actively avoid all comments and email correspondence…
This fear is the creative’s greatest enemy. In the The War of Art, Steven Pressfield gives the fear a name.
He calls it Resistance.
Asimov knows the Resistance too —
The ordinary writer is bound to be assailed by insecurities as he writes. Is the sentence he has just created a sensible one? Is it expressed as well as it might be? Would it sound better if it were written differently? The ordinary writer is therefore always revising, always chopping and changing, always trying on different ways of expressing himself, and, for all I know, never being entirely satisfied.
Self-doubt is the mind-killer.
I am a relentless editor. I’ve probably tweaked and re-tweaked this article a dozen times. It still looks like shit. But I must stop now, or I’ll never publish at all.
The fear of rejection makes us into “perfectionists”. But that perfectionism is just a shell. We draw into it when times are hard. It gives us safety… The safety of a lie.
The truth is, all of us have ideas. Little seeds of creativity waft in through the windowsills of the mind. The difference between Asimov and the rest of us is that we reject our ideas before giving them a chance.
After all, never having ideas means never having to fail.
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4. Lower Your Standards
Asimov was fully against the pursuit of perfectionism. Trying to get everything right the first time, he says, is a big mistake.
Instead, get the basics down first —
Think of yourself as an artist making a sketch to get the composition clear in his mind, the blocks of color, the balance, and the rest. With that done, you can worry about the fine points.
Don’t try to paint the Mona Lisa on round one. Lower your standards. Make a test product, a temporary sketch or a rough draft.
At the same time, Asimov stresses self-assurance —
[A writer] can’t sit around doubting the quality of his writing. Rather, he has to love his own writing. I do.
Believe in your creations. This doesn’t mean you have to make the best in the world on every try. True confidence is about pushing boundaries, failing miserably, and having the strength to stand back up again.
We fail. We struggle. And that is why we succeed.
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5. Make MORE Stuff
Interestingly, Asimov also recommends making MORE things as a cure for perfectionism —
By the time a particular book is published, the [writer] hasn’t much time to worry about how it will be received or how it will sell. By then he has already sold several others and is working on still others and it is these that concern him. This intensifies the peace and calm of his life.
If you have a new product coming out every few weeks, you simply don’t have time to dwell on failure.
This is why I try to write multiple articles a week instead of focusing on one “perfect” piece. It hurts less when something flops. Diversity is insurance of the mind.
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6. The Secret Sauce
A struggling writer friend of Asimov’s once asked him, “Where do you get your ideas?”
Asimov replied, “By thinking and thinking and thinking till I’m ready to kill myself. […] Did you ever think it was easy to get a good idea?”
Many of his nights were spent alone with his mind —
I couldn’t sleep last night so I lay awake thinking of an article to write and I’d think and think and cry at the sad parts. I had a wonderful night.
Nobody ever said having ideas was going to be easy.
If it were, it wouldn’t be worth doing.
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Filed under 2016, Writing Tip Wednesday, writing tips
Stuck in your story and don’t know where to go? Maybe this will help.
by David E. Booker
Locked Room Challenge
Among some science fiction writers there is a challenge known as the shortest story. Someone once said the shortest science fiction story was: “Last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.” Then somebody else made it shorter by writing: “Last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a lock on the door.” Ernest Hemingway reportedly wrote the shortest story that went something like this: “Newspaper ad. For sale. Brand new baby shoes. Never used.”
What does this have to do with being struck?
Ernest Hemingway at typewriter
Or maybe your character reads the ad or has to place the ad. Why did he have to place the ad? Did he lose a child? Did she break up with a man who had a child and she can’t return the shoes because they are a discontinued brand, but she has to do something with them. Does she need the money? Maybe they were expensive shoes. Or maybe they were bought years ago and she forgot she had them still and is now moving and can’t take them with her.
Or think of a scene of your own. But it has to be a scene where an important decision has to be made and one that affects the character emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually – at least two of the three.
Often a writer is stuck because he doesn’t understand something about at least one of his characters, and doing this can help uncover a layer of the character that is important to the story. Who knows, what you write might even become a scene in the story or novel you are working on.
Filed under 2016, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Next, the Advanced Course is all about writer’s block and how to cultivate just enough to keep yourself procrastination happy.
Filed under 2016, CarToonsday
Unable to get started writing. Try this suggestion from well-known writer William F. Nolan:
You sit frozen at the keys. Just can’t begin writing, How to break free again, start the words flowing? You need something to ignite the creative spark. Well, people, I have one sure solution to your problem. Get up. Go to a bookshelf, take out a collection of stories’ pick one — and read the first half of a chosen story. Stop. Then write your own end half, using elements from the printed first half. Then go back to the first half of the printed story, and write your own version of the first half. Presto! You have a brand new tale! Sure, you can’t sell it since it has the plot and characters from the original printed story, but it got you going again, right? Got the creative juices flowing. Now you’ll be able to take off on a story of your own. Works every time.
Filed under 2016, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Sometimes the building blocks of writing are a bit mislaid.
Filed under 2015, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
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