I think this is my fifth or sixth post on that ever-present menace called Writer’s Block. Every writer gets it at one time or another, or so I hear. I certainly do. Writers blame it many things — you name it, it’s been the cause of writer’s block. For me, I blame it completely on the fact that I all of a sudden have no idea what happens next in my story. It happened to me AGAIN with TSG over the weekend. I was like, now what the fuck?
Had this been two years ago, I would have forced the issue (i.e., plowed through the story) until I felt like I broke through the brick wall. Problem with that is inevitably, what I would have written during the “break the wall” phase is pure and utter dreck. As in Delete and Write Again. Some people think that any writing is never a waste of time. But after eight drafts and countless mini-drafts of my first novel, I’m trying not to do this anymore. It just eats up so much time and energy and emotion.
What did I do to plow through my TSG writer’s block? Nothing. I let the story percolate in my mind over the weekend and just thought about it. Not in a “God, what now?” way, but more in a meditative Yoga-like way. Which incidentally I’ve started going to. I think it helped. My hero actually did something he wasn’t supposed to do and I caught him. Now I’m ready to put him back on the straight and narrow. If I’d plowed through with the wrong direction I would have needed to delete pages and pages again and probably would have made myself cry.
No writing progress this weekend but I’m happy to report that when I do open up the document, I now where to go.
