Writer’s block.

This is something every writer has to contend with at some point.  It’s not a lack of ideas, but struggling at how to put them on a page.

It’s like when you imagine the awesome cake you are going to bake, and then find out you have no icing sugar and the shop is closed.  Now what are you going to do?

Well you could give up on the cake.  Or you could look up how to make icing sugar on the net, throw caster sugar and cornflour into a food processor and walla! Improvised icing sugar. 

Ok so it turned out a bit floury and gritty, but hey, at least I tried.

Oh yeah, this post was about writing wasn’t it?

Well, I find one of the best ways to get over writer’s block is to just write.  Grab a pad and stream of consciousness write down anything and everything.  Eventually something will click.

Another exercise I read about was to go away and describe something.  Anything.  Like eating a nut.  What does it smell like?  What is it like as you bite into it?  How does it feel on your tongue?  What about when you chew it?

Sometimes it gets those words flowing again.  Sometimes you just get to eat a nut, which is a nice anyway.  (Unless you have a nut allergy, in which case, don’t do that.)

So this week I got another story for the sci fi collection first drafted.  I am both looking forward to, and dreading reading them back.  Sometimes things that made perfect sense when you were typing them become complete gibberish when you read them a week later.  Fingers crossed there won’t be too much of that!  I guess we’ll see how that goes next week!  

In the meantime, I’ve added a new link to the resources page, from those masters of storytelling, Pixar.  Enjoy!