Writer's Block Doesn't Exist...Seriously.

There is a term in which writers have dubbed "writer's block". This is a made up disorder, it is not a parasite that has lodged itself deep in your creative receptors of your brain; no, it is not a clinical disorder that will cause you to lay on your bed for hours wondering how you could be plagued with such an ordeal.

Now, before you run screaming from this post shouting that there is a great writing conspiracy--just bear with me.

There are symptoms that every author experiences which have led to the development of said pseudo-affliction. Every author at one point in their writing experiences the moment where they find themselves cryptically, hypnotized by the blinking cursor on their white computer screen. Others will find that they have paced obsessively in their hallway until their carpet pulls from the seams.

This simply means that your writing has officially become...hard! Dun dun dun!

Hard? What does this mean? I have a story, poem or thought in my head it should just flow out onto the paper! At the beginning this usually happens, authors are so excited about their future masterpiece the words just spew out everywhere. There always seems to come a time, however, when an author finds themselves suddenly...stuck. Aka writer's block was developed. Being stuck doesn't mean you're blocked, it shows you have  difficult part in the story you need to work through.

In my series I was stuck for two days, would you like to know what it was over? I didn't know how to write my character from his bedroom into the kitchen! Sound ridiculous? Well I was determined to not just "tell" my reader He stood and walked into the kitchen, it's pretty bland. I wanted him to be stewing over an internal conflict, or I wanted it to be jazzed up a bit. So yes, it took me two days to write it.

I wasn't blocked, I knew what I wanted to write, I knew the direction I wanted to go, I just found that all of a sudden the sentence was not flowing! It wasn't coming. Writing became hard.

Okay, well for the sake of argument let's say Writer's Block doesn't exist. How do you get over the "stuck moments".

Advice I received in one of my editing classes has helped me through the hard moments of writing.

Force yourself to write something. Even if it is a thought you had about the ending of the story, or a stanza from the end of  a poem. Write something. Staring at the cursor only frustrates you and hurts your eyes.

Take a breath, walk outside, go get some caffeine, something. Then come back and write again. It's a phenomenon, when you keep pushing through something reawakens your creative genius and you will find that you can get that character to walk in a jazzy fashion from the bedroom to the kitchen.

Take away, remember to take breaks during your writing and then keep writing. Don't take two days like I did and just push the story aside, that is how writers forget about their work and take it up again 15 years later!

Keep going, you'll make it!

Happy Writing.