Another Note on Writer’s Block
September 21, 2024 by Harvey
In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Reminders
* A Writer on Writing
* Another Note on Writer’s Block
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“Sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you’ve been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you want to be. The person you are.” HG Wells
A New Short Story
“Beats All You Ever Saw” (the old version) went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out.
If you enjoy it, tell Everyone. If you don’t, shhh! (grin)
Reminders
Today is Saturday.
For the Bradbury Challenge…. Just a reminder to get your story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.
Remember, if you finish a story earlier in the week, you can send it to me early too. It never hurts to avoid pushing the deadline.
For the September Challenge…. a reminder that you can write through all day Monday. Just email me your weekly total numbers sometime Monday night.
I hope everyone’s writing their buns off.
In the meantime, I’m going to share A Writer on Writing with you. It’s a new occasional segment of TNDJ.
If you’ve had a breakthrough or an epiphany or just want to talk about what works for you, email me or leave a comment, and you too could end up in TNDJ.
A Writer on Writing
(a note from Peggy K.)
The words slowed to a crawl, and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I checked the word count: about 35,000.
Yep, that’s about the 30% mark, when all the setup is done and stories often hit a wall. A less-experienced writer would claim they’ve lost interest (or whatever) and move on to another story.
Me? I recognize it for what it is: a reason to cycle back and refresh my memory as to all the things the creative voice has set up, feeding them back into the subconscious to stimulate the next phase of the story.
Another Note on Writer’s Block
Dean Wesley Smith has an interesting article in Of Interest today. I suggest you read it.
I’ve figured out the difference between his take on writer’s block (for his upcoming classes) and my take:
I personally see writer’s block as an inane excuse for not doing something you enjoy. Why inane? Because why would you want to NOT do something you enjoy?
To me, it’s like making up an excuse to not go on vacation or to not go camping or fishing with friends or whatever else you enjoy doing.
But life rolls, appointments, etc. are not excuses for not writing (hunting, fishing, whatever). They are Reasons. There’s a difference.
That said, I have suffered writer’s block occasionally over the years. Long-time readers of the Journal have witnessed it. For me personally, every case was caused by the same unreasoning fear I speak out against so often in TNDJ.
Some (maybe) can overcome that fear completely. Others can keep it at bay to varying degrees. I have become expert at keeping it at bay.
By Dean’s definition (in his post) I still suffer from writer’s block everytime anything happens that requires me to avert my attention from writing: a trip to Sierra Vista, doing a necessary chore, driving 10 hours to attend an event for a family member, etc.
But as I said, those are reasons not to write, not excuses. On rare occasions when I know a waiting room will be involved, I’ve carried my laptop with me and spent time writing anyway.
By my definition (an inane excuse for not doing something I enjoy) I might still suffer occasionally from writer’s block.
The difference is, these days I’m confident that the words will be waiting on the other side, so I just wait it out (usually no more than a few to several minutes) or power through it (Just Write the Next Sentence).
My point is, ANY writer can do that. Any writer. Even you.
As I’ve said often in this space, if you want to write, Sit Down and Write. For goodness sake, walk it off or suck it up. Nobody’s stopping you but yourself.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying sit down and write an outline or a character sketch or a fictional world. When I say Sit Down and Write I mean sit down and write the story. Practice. Put new words on the page.
And if you want to write an authentic story, don’t “make stuff up.” Write what the characters give you.
The Writing
This no internet in the Hovel thing is turning out to be something of a blessing.
Yes, it’s a major inconventience. Yes, I only check and answer emails (and do other online things) a few times each day now, because I have to do them up at the house.
But while I’m in the Hovel, most of the time I’m either writing fiction or casting about for another story idea. And I don’t have any lack of those.
Today in Numbers you’ll see that I even outsmarted myself. I’ve written several short stories in the past week or so.
But when I started the new one yesterday, the thing took off. Now it will might be a long short story, but it might be a novella or a novel.
Even if it’s a novel, though, I’ll make use of any spare time to keep writing short stories. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to cram everything about One Event into a story.
And that’s all a short story is. It has nothing to do with length. A short story is a story that focuses on One Event.
This is kind of an appropriate place for another reminder: I keep saying WHAT you write doesn’t matter. What matters is THAT you write.
What’s going on with me right now is the perfect example of that. If you want to be a fiction writer
Set a daily word count goal. Then keep an eye on your average.
Base your goal on 1000 words per hour (so 500 per half-hour or 250 per quarter-hour). FYI, that’s only 17 words a minute. So if you have 2 hours per day available to you to write, make your goal 2000 wpd, etc.
Base your goal on whatever time you have available.
Then put yourself in a chair and write for the time you have allotted.
Here’s to you, Writers. Whatever you’re doing with your writing, keep it going.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Has mindreading technology arrived? Story ideas abound. (Thanks to Dawn for this link)
Telling Lies A gentle reminder that I do not always agree with items to which I post links in Of Interest.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1110
Writing of Stern Talbot: The Origin Story
Day 1…… 4327 words. To date…… 4327
Fiction for September…………………….. 59238
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 690352
Fiction since October 1…………………… 843026
Nonfiction for September………………… 20320
Nonfiction for 2024……………………….. 295160
2024 consumable words…………………. 835129
Average Fiction WPD (September)……… 2961
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 13
2024 Novellas to Date……………………. 0
2024 Short Stories to Date………………. 14
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 95
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………. 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………. 251
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. They will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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Well... I don't know any more about DWS. I lost most of my interest when he started pushing his course sales to the nth degree. Now he's latched onto this writer's block thing, and he's gone all-on on that. He surely has a lot of overhead now that he's renting condos and office space in LV. I guess pushing that is one way to pay for it. But seriously? Everything is writer's block? Uh-huh. Shure it is. Keep on selling, Dean. It's all about the overhead, after all - for some of us.
There. I said it.
I don't consider real life - a job, family obligations, running errands to pay bills or buy groceries, and such - to have anything to do with "writer's block".
To me, "writer's block" is simply when you get stuck in the writing. For me, it's almost always because I went wrong somewhere in the writing, usually because I let my critical mind tell me which direction the writing SHOULD go instead of just letting the creative mind do its thing. Reading back through what I've already written usually results in the problem jumping out at me. If I correct it, I can move forward again.
Seems like some folks, like DWS, are shoving anything that keeps someone from writing under the heading of "writer's block". All that does is muddy the issue, rather than give it any clarity. I guess that's not surprising, given he offers courses in breaking through it. Understanding it doesn't need a whole course. It just needs to be more clearly defined instead of being muddied.