McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Any help for SERIOUS writers block?

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blackcouncilwannabe:
New to boards esp. this section.  Have been co-writing a book and have been unable to write anything for 6 months now.  AT ALL.

Co-writer is no help at all, btw, as we're doing this long-distance and she is unwilling to talk for the 15 minutes it would take to clear up some questions, so I've got to go-it-alone. She still claims to want to finish. Repeatedly. So I can only take her at her word I guess.

HELP! 

PS:  I hope this isn't a redundant thread

Dikaion:
I had writer's block for a really long time.  Ended up taking a college course that surveyed different writings from other genres than I am used to, stuff I would never read on my own, etc, etc.  It really helped.  I think just getting out of my comfort zone stirred up some creativity.  So I try to keep up with that and broaden my selection of what I read and also I try to write throw-away little things experimenting with other styles, genres, etc, like mental exercises.  Seems to help.  Especially when my brain gets bored with one specific thing because I've obsessed on it for too long.

RMatthewWare:
I've never understood the co-writer thing.  I don't think I could give up that much control, and I don't think I could wait when the creative juices are flowing.  Sure, I ask my friends for their opinions on my drafts, but I do the writing, the changing, the fixing.

But back to your question.  There are a lot of writer-related things you can do to get the juices flowing again.
1.  Read a book in your given genre.
2.  Participate in a writers forum (it helps to critique the works of others).
3.  Read blogs by other writers (I have a short list of bookmarked authors whose blogs I frequent, one of them being Richelle Mead.)
4.  Organize your notes.  I, at least, come up with ideas for things that have nothing to do with the book(s) I'm writing.  So, I jot down those notes on scrap paper.  Every once in a while that stack of scrap needs to be dealt with.  It helps to go through those ideas.
5.  Write a short story, even if you never publish it.
6.  Start something else.

Pinky Narfanek:
Sometimes if you know what happens after the part that's causing the block and try to write a bit about that, that can stir things up enough to get you going again.

RMatthewWare:
One thing I've realized is that when I'm struggling through a scene, I realize that I'm not doing it right.  If I have to force my writing, then I'm coming at it from the wrong angle.  So I sit back and think about how else it could be done.  That usually helps. 

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