Useful Writing Junk

10 Ways to Kick Writer's Block in the Booty

First, and immediately contradicting my title, let’s not call it writer’s block. The word “block” sits like cement in my soul, and instantly conjures that (profoundly scarring) drowning scene from Aladdin. You know the one:

Source (memetic commentary added by yours truly)

Source (memetic commentary added by yours truly)

OK, so it’s actually a ball and chain for Al, but the association remains strong in my mind. “Block” is just too heavy and impermeable. Besides, when I experience writer’s block, it’s less like slamming into a concrete wall, and more like wandering into a misty valley. My vision closes in and I find myself off-trail and paralyzed by uncertainty. Where did I come from? Where was I going? Where did I leave that bag of gorp (Cotton-Eye Joe)?

In those moments of writer’s fog, I question everything. My ambition is locked by my irrational fear of imperfection. I worry that one misstep will ruin whatever project I’m working on. Panic swells in my chest at the thought that I’ll never straighten out my plot or settle on the right, impactful wording. I see no way forward, and my brain feels too soupy to puzzle out a solution.

But the cool thing about fog is that the sun eventually rises and burns it away (unless you’re in a mysterious, eternally-misty forest, in which case, maybe you have bigger foes to face).

Human brains are all about cycles. You probably know a little about 24-hour circadian rhythms, but you also have ultradian rhythms that repeat within those 24 hours. Our energy fluctuations during the day can be described by ultradian rhythms, and research indicates that our best balance of focus and energy levels throughout the day can be achieved by breaking our “work” time into 90 minute chunks of productivity, followed by a short, 15 minute breaks.

What I’m trying to get at is that we all naturally cycle through different levels of focus and productivity, and while we can coordinate with our cycles to some degree, there will always be periods in your days, weeks, months, years, and beyond that are simply, unavoidably “down.” Your writer’s fog could set in for a few minutes or a few weeks, and while it seems scary and frustrating while you’re lost in the mist, take comfort in the knowledge that it’s a temporary and normal experience.

That said, I do have a few methods to help burn off the fog a little faster. I’ll start with the obvious one that sits at the top of every list like this:

1. JUST WRITE, YOU COWARD

I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m not saying it will be good. But it will force you forward, even if every word you write is garbage that you’ll erase later. That just means you explored a route that didn’t work out, which narrows down the direction you’ll eventually take your work. It doesn’t matter if you feel like you’re just running circles in the fog, because at least you’re running. Plus, you’re practicing your craft, and even when you don’t think practice is improving your performance, neuroscience says it probably is, and you’re making future endeavors easier to tackle.

2. PULL A TAROT CARD

craft-2728227_1920.jpg

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I’ve been embracing my inner witch lately, and sometimes this witch likes to pull a tarot card to help her view her challenges from new angles. I even draw a card or two when I’m in my fog, like a mini writing prompt when I’m stuck between paragraphs or on tough lines of dialogue. A number of folks have written about using tarot cards as writing prompts not just to get out of the fog, but to guide plots and deepen characters. I use a physical deck for my draws when I can (for the Aesthetic of it all), but I also have a free app on my phone. There plenty of free online decks to play with as well.

3. DANCE PARTY

You’re slumped on the couch, folded over yourself as your laptops overworked battery burns your lap, your eyes glazed, with the same line of a Boyz II Men song repeating in your head because of some subliminal connection you made with one of the lyrics while you were deciding between boring steel-cut oatmeal or the irresistible enchantment of magic-hatching dinosaur egg oatmeal at Kroger earlier that day.

You’re stuck, which means it’s time to dance! Throw on some jams and get wild! Not only are you shifting your attention and giving yourself a little break (which we talked about earlier as being a normal and necessary component of productivity), but exercise stimulates the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that deals directly with focus, concentration, organization, and planning… All things that you need to get back in the writing zone.

4. TALK IT OUT

When you’re buried in your own writing process, it helps to bring other people into your world to help dig you out. Call a parent or sibling and chat about what you’re stuck on. Trap your significant other in a car with you and ramble about what you have so far, and where you want to go next. Join a writing group! Make a post on a writer’s forum! Line up your collection of antique, porcelain, totally not haunted dolls and show them a PowerPoint presentation about your fledgling novel! It’s lovely if your audience has input (as long as we’re not still talking about those porcelain dolls), but even if they don’t, the simple act of vocalizing your concerns can help you work through your problem.

5. MEDITATE

Everyone knows that meditation is a scientifically supported method of improving apparently every aspect of your life. And I was like, pffffft, yeah, OK, science is a liar sometimes. And then I downloaded an app to try some guided meditations and… it actually does seem to help? I use meditation to manage my anxiety, help me sleep, and handle moments of extreme emotion. More and more, I’m also using it to shift myself from “work mode” to “creative mode” after I get home from the office. A 5 to 10 minute meditation refreshes and relaxes me, and while I haven’t specifically tested it out on writer’s fog yet, it seems like just the sort of thing to clear the air and get my focus back.

6. EAT BRAIN FOOD

My most hypocritical suggestion is to eat stuff your brain likes. Well, not the pleasure centers of your brain that evolution has taught to repeat “SWEET THING TASTE GOOD; EAT MORE TO SURVIVE WINTER”, but your actual neuroarchitecture. Foods like blueberries, salmon, spinach, and beets can boost your brain in both the short and long terms. It’s harder to get trapped in writer’s fog when you’re taking action to keep general brain fog at bay.

To immediately bolster your focus and improve your chances of defeating the fog, try a snack of a square of dark chocolate and cup of green tea when you’re feeling slumpy.

7. TREAT YO SELF

Not a fan of my spinach solution? No sweat! Sometimes, you need to prioritize your emotional health in order to move forward.

My writer’s fog often sets in when I’m feeling extra stressed. I panic and tell myself to work harder, but that’s not always the solution. When I’ve tried my other in-the-moment methods of resolving the fog and am hitting a wall, I give myself permission to relax and do something that makes me feel good. Maybe that’s hiking, or maybe it’s playing a video game, or maybe it’s detonating a bath bomb and applying a charcoal mask. Whatever it is, it’s a way to lift my own spirits so I can return to the battlefield refreshed and emotionally prepared to try again.

(Of course, it’s tempting to rely on this option to avoid writing… Be mindful of whether you’re practicing self-care or just procrastinating.)

8. SHIFT YOUR CREATIVE FOCUS

No writer is just a writer (and everyone is a writer or storyteller, by the way). You are a creative force, and just because your writing is stuck doesn’t mean the rest of your talents are too. Feel free to switch it up. If you write prose, try poetry. Better yet, toss word-based creativity aside, buy a cheap paint set, and go to town! If you play an instrument, spend some time practicing or composing. Heck, get your hands on some playdough and sculpt fake food just for funsies, and then lick your fake food to confirm that yes, playdough still tastes like salt and toddler hands.

Don’t worry about quality. Don’t worry about purpose. This is about letting your creative juices flow, even if that entails inventing a new and terrible kind of grilled sandwich, because if a calamari and cottage cheese panini isn’t creative expression, then what is it? An abomination, obviously. Still, the point stands.

9. SET THE MOOD

Creating a writing-focused setting for yourself is critical in terms of beating and preventing writer’s fog. If you usually write propped up in bed, try making it a little more formal by writing at a desk or table. Take control of your environment by clearing the clutter. After all, a messy work-space has a negative relationship with productivity.

Perhaps most important of all: treat your writing seriously by giving it a specific, uninterrupted block of time. Even if you can only set aside 10 minutes each day, dedicate that time exclusively to writing. That means no checking Reddit between paragraphs or texting your boo to complain about the problematic meme you saw when you weren’t supposed to be looking at Reddit. The muses are jealous hoes. They’re not going to help you if you ignore them on dates and text other people.

All of this mood-setting has long-term benefits, too. You’re training your brain to focus longer and to pick up environmental cues (the desk, the time of day, etc.) that signal it’s time to write.

10. FORGIVE YOURSELF

You can try all these techniques and more and still find yourself stuck, and that’s OK. That’s normal and expected. You aren’t any less of a writer for losing yourself in the fog now and then. First, forgive yourself for that.

Second, forgive yourself for imperfection.

The single biggest hindrance to my own writing has been my fear of making mistakes and looking foolish. The writing process is messy and complex, and it’s so easy to look at a first (or second, or third, or fourth) draft and cringe at the jumbled yuck of it all. Nothing discourages quite as potently as your own biased self-critique.

Accept that your writing is never going to be perfect, because no one’s is. We’re humans. we’re MADE out of jumbled yuck. As a creative person, you’ve probably spent a lot of your life looking at your own yuck under a microscope, and that can really skew your perspective. It’s great that you want to analyze your imperfections and improve yourself, but don’t let that stop you from getting out there. Take it from my favorite fictional teacher:

Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy!

Useful Writing Junk 3: The Virtue of Repetition

Hold up... this is only my third Useful Writing Junk? Yikes. What kinda seat-of-the-pants blog am I running here? Don't answer that. My ego can't handle the truth.

So much in writing (and any creative endeavor) revolves around the ego. It takes a degree of narcissism to say to yourself, "I have a story to tell, and by gum, people are gonna want to hear it." And yet, contradiction of contradictions, creators of all kinds can have such fragile self-esteems. It's what chokes us back and stops us from sharing all the things we want to share. Once we do put our work out there, it's what keeps us clinging to every Amazon review, every fluctuation in website traffic, every offhand comment from a family friend.

Creators need constant reassurance about their work, even when they feel in their souls that their creations are valuable and good. Or, they feel that way just enough of the time to justify making their work public. Need a source on that? Talk to my poor, long-suffering wife about all the times I've snuggled up against her in bed at O dark thirty and demanded to know if she thinks I'm a good writer.

There's a reason for this dichotomy, and Ira Glass sums it up pretty terrifically in a 2009 interview. Check out his words in motion in Daniel Sax's short film (and click here for a transcript and some additional info):

In summary: creators enter the game because they have good taste, but it takes practice and practice and practice for their work to live up to their own standards. 

I have this friend. She is intelligent and observant and creative and has incredible taste. I know her taste is great because of the interesting podcasts she's introduced to me, and the diverse array of books on her shelves, and her strangely intimidating streak of perfectionism while recreating a Bob Ross landscape. 

Why, would you look at that. Source

Why, would you look at that. Source

She's considering writing a story, because she has a number of stories floating around in her inner world, and is ready to bring them out. However, that involves exposing some ego. Like I said, the girl is hecka smart, and knows what she's getting into. She knows that the content she's starting out with will not meet her high expectations. It's frustrating enough to shut down everyone but the most tenacious (and/or most foolish). 

Her brain does to her what mine does to me, and it's what tons of artist brains do. We write a little bit, recoil in horror when it isn't the perfect thing our egos believe it should be, and have to talk ourselves back from the ledge. Giving up on our writing starts to look really appetizing and really safe. It feels better to say, "I'm a crappy writer and I'll never be able to do this" than to say "I need to keep working and working and failing in front of everyone until I like my writing enough not to puke on it."

But like Radio God Ira Glass says, we just need time to catch up. We need to build up a mountain of work, and hopefully within that mountain a diamond will form. 

I had lunch with another friend this weekend, and she mentioned that she and her mother read my first (and currently only) novel, Necessaries. I duck-taped my ego to the back of my mind and asked what they honestly thought. She said it was funny, comparing it to the witty writings of Douglas Adams, which was nearly enough for my ego to bust through the duck-tape forcefield and scream in triumph. But she also admitted that she and her mother could tell it was a first novel. 

And it's true. Necessaries is an open wound of a book, in some ways. When I published it, I knew I wasn't completely satisfied (but let's be real: I'm never going to be satisfied with my own work). However, I wanted to toss it into the world, as if it were an anchor and the world were the sea, and the anchor line was wrapped around my leg, and... OK, so, the metaphor is that I forced myself into the deep end, knowing I might crush my pride in the process. 

But now it's out there. It's the first lump of a foothill on the road to my eventual mountain of work. There are things I love about it. There are many more things that I know I can improve with enough repetition. 

The takeaway on this weird third edition of UWJ (oooge?) is that sometimes the best thing you can do for your writing is to keep doing it and ignore the protests of your ego. Given enough practice and quantity, you'll start to close the gap between your creations and your taste.

I'll leave you with this excerpt from David Bayles and Ted Orland's Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one - to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Thanks for reading my pounds of writing, and I hope you go forth and produce pounds of writing yourself.

Kinda Campy

I didn't know this was a thing, but it turns out, this thing is totally a thing.

What thing? Camp NaNoWriMo!

I'm cheerchime on NaNo sites (so come say hi to me and be my buddy!!!!!)

I'm cheerchime on NaNo sites (so come say hi to me and be my buddy!!!!!)

If you're familiar with me, you're probably familiar with National Novel Writing Month, AKA, NaNoWriMo. It takes place in November and it challenges participants to write a novel in a month (50,000 words worth, to be precise). 

I just learned about Camp NaNoWriMo, which takes place in April. It's like a nano-NaNo (haha, get it? Nano, like tiny? I'm sorry.). You set your own goals, which is nice, because a full 50,000 words is NOT gonna happen for me this month. You also get placed in a virtual cabin of writing mates, which is adorable. The folks in my cabin are already introducing themselves and their projects, which include editing short story collections, finishing a novel started last November, and writing an online course.

This month, I'm going to try to write 10,000 words for Resolution. It's a low goal, but it's more than I've written for the story so far. I'm also taking a very important financial planning course, so I don't want to overextend myself and jeopardize my studies!

So, if you have any kind of writing project you're working on, you should give Camp NaNoWriMo a shot! It can be as big or as small a challenge as you'd like it to be. If you decide to do it, let me know, and we can cheer each other on! 

Happy writing, everyone!

Useful Writing Junk 2: 8tracks

Look, I know this is a cheap one, but nothing helps me get in the writing zone like a good playlist (with minimal vocals). Pandora is swell and YouTube is doable (provided you're using an ad blocker), but the best place I've found for writing mixes is 8tracks.com. Writing the chipper, optimistic beginning of your fantasy adventure? Look up "fantasy" and "instrumental" and you're well on your way. Writing a death scene, you evil, character-killing jerk? 8tracks has depressing soundtracks for days.

PLUS, you can make your own mixes out of existing uploads or your own stuff! For example, I made an instrumental playlist for my office based on a story I used to tell myself as a kid. Give it a listen:

And this has been the super-short sequel to my first Useful Writing Junk installment. I know, it feels a little weak, doesn't it? I promise I'm working on more stuff. Unfortunately, there's this whole wedding thing to take care of, and some poop-filled puppies, and evenings filled with networking (now THERE be some blog fodder), and an ongoing personal battle with the awful gross yucky memories that are resurfacing from last year's trip into absolute insanity. Things are a little tough right now for me, but I'll pull through, and will hopefully have some fun new things to share with you! I mean, the best holiday of the year is just around the corner!

But for now, get into your writing space, turn on some emotional tunes, and get creatin'!

Useful Writing Junk 1: Blurb.com

Welcome to the first of a series of posts about sites, tools, techniques, and probably even foods that I've found useful while writing. A number of people have asked about how I do what I do (not that I do terribly much), so I've collected a few of the things that have served me best in my writing journey. Hopefully, you can get some good use out of this stuff too!

In an earlier post, I talked about my decision to self-publish Necessaries. I didn't really touch on the how part of it. To be honest, I didn't put a ton of thought into the platform I chose. I'd heard good things about one site in particular echoing around on tumblr, and after glancing at some other awkwardly-designed websites, I gave Blurb a chance.

On Blurb, you can design photo books, ebooks, magazines, and (obvs) trade books like my novel, then publish those directly through the site or make the books available on the Global Retail Network. It's a pretty straight-forward process, and if the help section of the website doesn't get you out of a jam, their customer service department certainly will.

I like lists, so let me lay out the pros and cons of my experience with Blurb.

PROS

  • Ridiculously affordable. Let's be real. If you're a writer, you're probably not swimming in a pool of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck. On Blurb, the software and the publishing system is free... ish. In order to keep your book on the site, though, you have to buy a copy. But considering your copy of the book will probably cost about $7 and there is almost always a 35-40% discount running, you won't be breaking your bank. Once it's on the site, it's there forever (if you want it to be!).
  • Decent free book-formatting software. Blurb uses a program called Bookwright for book designing. It's a handy program, though it takes some getting used to (see cons). Once you understand the program, you can make some snazzy, very professional books.
  • Access to the Global Retail Network (GRN). This is a huge plus if you want your books distributed as widely as possible. Once you've uploaded your book to Blurb, you can submit it to the GRN, which will make it available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ebay, anywhere you can think of to get a book. I just Googled myself (hush, you) to see make sure I wasn't making stuff up, and found more people reviewing Necessaries than I previously knew of on different sites. Which is pretty damn cool. The more places you sell your book, the fewer excuses your audience has not to buy it.
  • No minimum orders. You get discounts for bigger orders (starting as low as 10 books), but you don't have to buy cases and cases of your book just to have some copies on hand. 
  • Great customer service. When something goes wrong, real people are there to straighten things out. However, things do go wrong, which leads me to...

Cons

  • Things go wrong. Big time. Maybe my wack-a-doo luck has been working against me when it comes to my book, but I've had several BIG printing issues. The very first order I made vanished in the mail, and it looked like I wasn't going to have my books in time for a book fair. It was a panicky time, and though eventually customer service got it sorted out for me and reshipped, I nearly missed my first author event.
  • Bookwright can be devastating if you don't watch it very carefully. I had a massive printing issue with the edition of Necessaries I was trying to get on Amazon. I'd made some small changes to formatting after getting some feedback on the first printing, and though I read through several pages to make sure all was well, all was not well when I got the books and discovered a series of out-of-order pages. I think I lost a decade of life in the ensuing panic as I tried to pull the thing off of Amazon. Bookwright is great when it wants to be, but dangerously fickle. 
  • No editors. This is a given with self-publishing, but you don't have a professional who will look at your book design and OK it for distribution. Printing errors can go unnoticed, weird page designs won't be questioned. Everything about your book and its appearance relies on you.
  • Page limit. At least for trade books (paperbacks, hard cover novels, things that aren't picture books), you only have about 400 pages available. That may seem like a big number, but any sci-fi or fantasy writer can tell you it's not. I had to mess around with fonts and margins for a few days in order to get the right number of pages. Your LOTR-style epic isn't going to fit unless your font is so small that it requires a magnifying glass.
  • No marketing. Again, another self-publishing given. It's all on you, kid. However, you can purchase advertising on Amazon or Facebook, and those campaigns can be successful if you do your research on running them right.

All in all, I do recommend Blurb, but recommend that you first be very familiar with their Bookwright software, have several friends who are willing to critique your book design, and budget in extra time in case you need to re-order a set of books. I also suggest you hold your horses before submitted to the GRN. Sell or give some copies of your prototype book to your friends and family first. Then, if they find a glaring mistake, you don't have to go through the hell that is trying to strip the screwed up book from Amazon.

Next time, I might try traditional publishing. Or if I do self-publish, I may try going directly through Amazon, because I've heard good things about that system too. How about you? Any writers out there who have used Blurb or another publisher for their books? Tell me about it in the comments!