Writing Through Writers Block

Writing about how writing through writers block is all good and well when the tank is full and the brain is buzzing—enter writers block, and writing is impossible. None of the ideas take root for longer than a sentence, and every sentence looks flat and colorless. Grinding out one sentence after the next feels like punishment for a crime you didn't want to commit, and the longer you spend laboring over words, the less you can think of to say. It's a vicious cycle. Most good writers say that the best way to break writers block is to write through it. I've said it myself, on days when I wasn't experiencing the dread sensation. But days like today, it's difficult to take that advice. Terribly difficult. It feels like every word on the page is awful. And it doesn't make sense, and the jokes aren't funny, and the witty insights that are usually so good just sound like I tried too hard.

But, even though writing through writers block is so hard, and so awful, there is good news. It doesn't last forever. And you can always edit.

Because maybe tomorrow, when your brain isn't slogging under the weight of ill-clarity, and you look at your work again, you'll see that it wasn't as terribly awful as you thought, and without that word that's clogging things up over there, and that other phrase that's in the way there, it could be really not too bad, maybe might even be good!

A Month of Sundays

Authors are notoriously dilatory. They seem to live by months of Sundays, rather than the typical gregorian calendar month. Although it is hard to get your writing written, with dogged determination, a will of iron, and a hard deadline, it's a little easier. If you're going to make a commitment, keep it. It will earn you long term respect.

And if you realize you can't keep it (Aunt Bertha passes away, your computer falls into the Adriatic Sea, a piano falls on your head and erases the rest of your plot-line), tell whoever you're writing for as soon as it happens. Not three weeks after it was due.

Don't be a 'month of Sundays writer.' Be an, 'on time, good condition, just like I promised' writer. It'll get you a lot farther in the long run.