Writer's block, an owner's guide: Your (backside) (sic)
“Steve Martin said writer’s block was an excuse to go out and get drunk. Can you imagine Balzac or Dostoevsky getting writer’s block?”
[Frank McCourt] playfully suggested a command might be to “Get off your (backside) and write” or maybe “Get on your (backside) and write.”
These remarks by Frank McCourt are from newstimeslive.com.
Published on May 1, 2006 at 8:01 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/115.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Exercises and tips
Here’s an automated little version of an activity I wrote about months back.
And here’s something so intimidatingly thorough I decided not to look inside at all. Tell me if it’s broken.
Published on September 1, 2005 at 4:39 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/exercises-and-tips.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Relieving your writing anxiety
For all the reasons I gave before, I am still not putting much time or energy into this weblog right now. If you want to see what I’ve been writing lately, try this online depression screening test [link suspended]. If you came here for what I claim to be writing about - the psychology of writer’s block - take a look at these tips from writer Lynda Blake.
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Published on August 5, 2005 at 12:20 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/relieving-your-writing-anxiety.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Writing in motion
Rocker PETER GABRIEL has the perfect way to overcome writer’s block - he hops on a train.
The former GENESIS frontman discovered many years ago that lyrics and song ideas flow when he’s taking train journeys, so if he’s ever struggling to complete songs he goes travelling.
He says, “I have this theory that the brain is stimulated by peripheral motion.”
And so on… from contactmusic.com
Published on July 22, 2005 at 8:18 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writing-in-motion.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Writer’s block: random advice
I’m still preoccupied with pressing psychotherapy stuff, but I thought I’d drop in here and yell out some advice that you might or might not find useful, and then run: so here are a couple more of those lists of things you can do to avoid or cure writer’s block.
Jerry Oltion’s 50 strategies for making yourself work (”Put two or three CDs in the player and stay at the keyboard until they’re done. That’s not just background noise; that’s the sound of you working.”).
And Ink Shrink, (”If you have the luxury of time, go to bed”) and don’t fail to “click here” at the end.
That’s all, folks.
Published on May 28, 2005 at 11:46 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writers-block-random-advice.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Having time to write can cause writer’s block
Ahhhhh. The summer break. So much more free time! I’ll really get a lot done on my dissertation.
Sound familiar?
It’s a universal belief. Free time = get more accomplished. Too bad it’s not always true. What are the reasons that free time doesn’t necessarily lead to productivity?
- and so on. Good stuff that you know I agree with; in fact, the very thing I was talking about yesterday. This, by Gina Hiatt, comes from the ABD Survival Guide newsletter, which I recommend highly for anyone interested in coping with writer’s block. It’s too bad the newsletter archives are a few weeks behind: so why don’t you just go ahead and subscribe to the ABD Survival Guide mailing list. Subscribe to mine too, it’s still
Published on May 17, 2005 at 1:04 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/having-time-to-write-can-cause-writers-block.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Preparing for writer’s block
Some refreshing ideas in Doug McHone’s CoffeeSwirls . Mainly aimed at bloggers, these suggestions for prevention, or at least providence, take us away from the usual cures for writer’s block. I haven’t looked around the rest of Doug’s site because I only came over here to write a learned article about intrinsic motivation, and… oh, okay, give me a few minutes.
I’m back. Well, then, the guy writes from a point of view that isn’t mine. That was obvious from the start, obvious from the first couple of tips on the writer’s block page. His viewpoint gets no less obvious as you keep reading. That’s a good thing, for he is following his own advice about transparency, and because why would the world need two people who think the way I do.
I particularly like #4 (”Challenge yourself to be transparent”) because authenticity is one of my own goals in writing, in being with therapy clients and in private life: and it’s one of the goals that blogging helps me with.
For bloggers, I liked “if you get ahead, schedule posts in advance.” That won’t happen for me until I make time to master cron on the new server, but it’s a great thought. What I sometimes do is to backdate some of my stuff, with the same hope of creating an illusion that I write every day, when actually I write in messy spurts.
I’m not copying his suggestions in detail for you, why would I want to retype them? There are ten of them and if you read them all and connect with one, that’s worth the effort of your mouse-click. Go on, read it.
Oh, and - after nine months of being a blogger who resisted this - here’s the obligatory picture of my cat.
Published on April 23, 2005 at 1:48 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/preparing-for-writers-block.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Hack your way out of writer’s block
It’s been a while since we looked at a fun list of ways to smash your block quickly, so here’s one I enjoyed from Merlin Mann’s www.43folders.com.
His whole site is entertaining in an idiosyncratic way I can’t quite describe but can recommend you to check out. And look, he just wrote [broken hyperlink removed] “Lots of people had been suggesting I read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird…” you and me both, buddy. For wasn’t I just saying the same thing.
3. Also, by the way, if you don’t know what “43 folders” means, check that out here; it’s a way of organizing your time and work, apparently very fashionable with concrete-minded nerd types. Personally, I still swear by the registry methods of the United Kingdom civil service, which you can research in spy novels or somewhere because I am still busy writing about writer’s block.
Published on April 9, 2005 at 12:26 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/hack-your-way-out-of-writers-block.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Cures for writer’s block- or are they?
Write in response to an ad in the personals.” “Go to the zoo. Find the monkeys, watch their antics and write about the relative who most resembles one of them.” Here’s a list of ways to start writing which, despite being dressed up as a hyper-important global newsflash, is still interesting and attractive.
It’s not a patch on my own list of cures for writer’s block, of course.
And this stuff works. These techniques are good ways to get yourself producing words.
So what’s wrong with them, why am I still digging for more understanding of the challenge of writer’s block and for more clues to productive writing?
Because my personal definition of writing happens to be about purposefulness. What’s the use of writing about what I had for breakfast, or ten uses for blue things, when I’m supposed to be producing a novel, a textbook or an academic paper?
Yes, there are answers to that question. If this sort of thing works for you as a warmup, hey, great, let me be the first to encourage you. But if it’s all you write today, there was never any point to starting.
So I still search, but as I hinted before I feel like I’m getting there; I’ve identified the area I really want to approach, study and describe; I’m circling it now and pretty soon I’ll close in on it.
Published on January 13, 2005 at 6:46 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/cures-for-writers-block-or-are-they.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Cures for writer’s block
1. When the writing doesn’t come, stay at the desk for the planned number of hours. It’ll come.
2. When the writing doesn’t come, leave the room, take a walk, get into a positive mood. You can write later.
3. Always write in the same place. Just being there triggers your mind to write.
4. Always write in different places: in the coffee shop, on the bus. The variety and the sights trigger your creativity.
5. When you don’t know what to write, write anything. Try this: write for eight minutes about earwax or car batteries. Don’t let your hand stop. Go!
6. When you don’t know what to write, put down the pen, focus on your project, read the last page, carry on.
7. Always write in a quiet room with no chance of distractions.
8. You’ll find music, television or the bustle of a coffee shop are all helpful: they displace the fears and distracting thoughts.
9. Never discuss a project with anyone while it’s taking shape. Any comment at all can stunt its growth. Exposure can crystallize your idea when it should be fluid.
10. Share your developing work with a writer’s group. It gives you a deadline, encouragement and different ideas.
Copyright 2004, David Jung McGarva, Encino and Woodland Hills.
Published on August 17, 2004 at 11:30 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/cures-for-writers-block.html
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