If you’ve written for any period of time, then you’re familiar with that feeling you get when you suddenly can’t get a word out. You don’t know what the next word, sentence, paragraph, event is. You think you’re the worst writer ever, that no one else has ever had this problem, that you’ll never write again.
Hopefully, you don’t give up on yourself at this point, and you realize you’re just suffering from writer’s block, a temporary condition.
How do you deal with writer’s block? For me, I switch to another project or an entirely different craft. I might go for a walk or crank up WinAmp and dance. I read. I play a video game.
None of those ideas appeal to you? Consider these suggestions from prolific writer Scott Ginsberg. They all center on walking away without really walking away, and are beneficial not only for the project you’re stuck on, but for developing future projects.
Remember, writer’s block is not a permanent state. Don’t give up on your writing. You can nearly always find some sort of workaround.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 10:33 AM EDT
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One of the challenges I find stumping many of the students I help edit their writing is trying to capture what they hear people say in writing. The most common errors I catch lately are “could of”, “would of”, or “should of”.
I’ll ask the student if that phrase makes sense. They have no idea; they just wrote it because they hear people say it. They use the actual phrase correctly, at least, but the have no idea how to translate it into a written word.
Let’s think about this. “Of” is a preposition. It’s a word that describes the relationship between two objects, in this case indicating direction, origin, cause, a part. In the sentence, “I should of gone to the store with you,” what is the word “of” signifying? There’s no direction in there, no sense of origin or cause, no part. Further, because “of” is a preposition it needs an object, a noun, to form a phrase with it, but the nearest noun is already in a prepositional phrase with the word “to”.
As it stands, this sentence makes no sense.
This is because what’s actually being said is “should’ve”, the contracted form of “should have”. Look at the sentence with the correction: I should have gone to the store with you. Contracted, the sentence reads: I should’ve gone to the store with you. “Have” is a helping verb to help clarify when an action took place. The sentence now makes sense.
You’ve probably also realized that “could of” of actully “could’ve” and “would of” is actually “would’ve”.
Writing like you talk is great advice, but then you absolutely must read what you’ve written to see if the words themselves make sense together. If they don’t, do a little research and figure out how to make it all work correctly. (Or ask. Some of us like questions…) When all else fails, grab a dictionary and look up the words you are using.
Nothing will make you look like an incompetent writer faster than misusing simple words.
Posted by Rebecca as Resources at 7:49 AM EDT
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This actually isn’t as bad as it sounds. I’m not talking about plagiarizing here. I’m actually talking about writing a piece built around ideas you’re given.
A couple of months ago, a writing student approached me to help him with a writing assignment where he had to build the beginning of a piece from someone else’s reactions to a series of questions. (His story was well beyond my sense of good taste, but I went along for a bit, anyway.) It seemed to me an odd way to develop a story, especially since he really was trying to herd me toward giving him the reactions he wanted.
For a couple of days, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to try to write something not inside their own head.
Then I started organizing my writing list in preparation for my editing list winding down. The largest project on it: to complete my 2005 NaNovel, appropriately named A Deck of Plot Ninjas. I had no idea what I wanted to write that year, and in a fit of desperation decided to have everyone scribble ideas on cards, thereby creating a deck of plot ninjas. I had no idea what was in the deck. I had no story concept. I was just as unaware of the novel as I had been all along.
When midnight on November 1st came, I pulled out the cards, drew five off the pile, and started writing. Fortunately, the first cards provided me with a location and a main character, and the story just fell in line after that. (Unfortunately, the odd-year virus I seem to suffer from in November hit like a ton of bricks, and I didn’t get to finish that month.)
A Deck of Plot Ninjas is driven entirely by random thoughts in other people’s heads. I’ve named characters. I’ve built what I can around what the cards say. It was a fun experience, and one I’m looking to complete this summer (finally).
It’s by no means a conventional way to write, but it’s an interesting experiment that tests your creativity.
Posted by Ceara as Uncategorized at 8:04 AM EDT
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A fellow writing teacher who knows I write outside of work once asked me if I actually follow the prewrite-draft-revise-edit-publish cycle in my own writing.
“Of course, I do.” I thought it was an odd question, and then I stopped to think about the first part of that.
In prewriting, you can do several things. You can map out your topic. You can write out an outline. You can write ideas for the paper on index cards and then sort them into an order that makes sense to you. In each case, you are trying to organize your thoughts before you put them down on paper.
I’ll admit it, in both my fiction and nonfiction writing, I definitely have pieces where, with only the topic in my head, I’ve sat down and written an entire piece. Amazingly, the piece usually doesn’t need a complete rearranging during the revision process, but I chalk that up to the fact that I tend to overorganize by nature.
Sometimes, though, I do organize. Sometimes, I just have a bunch of sticky notes or notes in EverNote that I sort as I write. Sometimes, I have a bare skeleton outline, or a very thorough outline. Recently, I actually laid out the Dead Bunny book in index cards to sort out some sequencing issues before I start pulling that one together.
So, yes, I do sometimes follow the cycle to the letter. Other days, it’s all in my head.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 7:39 AM EDT
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