Friday, April 18, 2014

Blog Assignment #10 - Blocked

I write a lot of different things; poetry, flash fiction, short stories, novels, screenplays. It's generally a fun escape for me. I create a world, and let my mind enjoy all the possibilities. But lately, I've been dealing with a bit of writer's block.

It's not uncommon; but, unless I know the cause it's not easy to over come.  So what tends to cause me to get writer's block.

#1 - Not the work that wants to be worked on. 

So I found that with a million and one pieces of writing in my head, I can't choose which on t work on, so I stop all together. Or I'll pick up a short story, and put it down to work on my novel. But I need to add lines of dialogue to my screenplay. And don't get me started on when my loved ones piss me off, and poetry wants to spill from my finger tips. Starting and stopping will always bring me to a point of not starting again.

#2 - Lack of a proper story. 

Sometimes I have these epic scenes in my head, and believe that they are apart of this great story. So I write them down, and try to add to them. But I comes to a point where everything is so forced, and there is nowhere to go with it. So I stop, and can't restart.

I saw an interview with Stephen King, where he talks about this occurrence.



#3 - Wrong Format

This goes hand in hand with the previous cause. There are times when I'm feeling grumpy, and feel a poem flowing out (Yes I only write poetry when I'm grumpy). But as it flows, I find myself adding random dialogue. Oops. Wait. Random dialogue in a poem. Not right. So I go back and take out the dialogue, and everything is ruined and I stop writing. But had I been writing a flash fiction or short story, everything would've been fine.  Same goes with writing a short story, that is bigger than the word count permits, or a novel that has incredible visual aspects that can't be successfully conveyed in the written format. Knowing the true format of the piece could be the difference between a completed piece or a blocked writer.

In the end, the only way I've beat writers' block is just writing. The semantics can work themselves out, but I need to write. Sometimes, I just start writing nonsense. Eventually my brain decides that it wants to join the process and make everything make sense. And I'm unblocked.




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