No Such Thing As Writer's Block?
Tuesday April 29, 2008
I recently read somewhere that there is no such thing as writer's block- that it's simply a function of fear. Do you think that's true? I'm not sure. I don't think I've ever experienced writer's block specifically, but I will admit to suffering from writer's laziness, writer's fear and a whole host of other writer's issues! I feel that (for me) the act of writing takes discipline, just like any other job I have held. If I am disciplined, things happen, assignments go well. If not, then there is no flow. Simple as that.
What's your opinion on writer's block?
Anyway, I address writer's block, getting ready to write, and many other subjects in this new article: Ten Steps to Prepare For Your Freelance Magazine Assignment. Check it out!
Comments
In my personal experiences, writer’s block happens from information overload. As a newly graduted philosophy student, papers had the same deadlines. WReading and writing became the norm. After a while, the ability to think goes away. For example, writing a paper on buisness ethichs on the last 90 pages of the classes book. Then turning around and writing a paper on how free will doesn’t exist due to the brain.
Having to write on two seperate subjects just tires you out. Therefore, you loose the ability to think clearly on one subject. That’s the only reason why writers block has occured in my case.
I don’t know about writer’s fear causing writers block, unl.ess writer’s fear has to deal with perfection. In that case you never stop writing. The writer’s block comes in when you try to state the main points without going on a tangent.
I hope this will help clear up what writers block is. It’s just something that happens with an overload of information(stress) and trying to be a perfectionist in writing.
C. Michael- awesome comment, thank you. Yes, I do recall that writers “nausea” from constant writing in college. It often felt like I was CONSTANTLY writing, but never writing naything of value, myself, I do recall being thoroughly wrote-out.
On the other hand, I don’t have that perfectionist problem, lol.
Fear, is the word I would use to describe writers block — at least in my case.
I never feel anything will be adequate, so I freeze when get ready to write. It is a forced issue with me, so I rarely complete the work I desire.
Writer’s block, for me, doesn’t occur as a result of fear, but rather from trying to manipulate information in a direction that isn’t correct. For example, I write fiction… if I have a character that I want to handle a certain situation a certain way I often find that the chapter won’t happen and progress stops, but if I let the work flow, and the character move where he/she wants, the writing is definitely less contrived, and often has a better result than if I tried to force its direction.
As for business writing, I’ve personally never had writer’s block in this area as there is a clear cut end point that needs to be arrived at…. essentially a goal that needs to be reached, so it’s a matter of going one step at a time, outlining and reaching a conclusion, sending, etc.
Hope this helps with another perspective.
I’m glad I could help, Freelancer. I feel that Jackie Henry nd I share a similar problem in fiction writing. The perfectionist problem comes up a lot in fiction writing for me. Yet it depends on th time of fiction. If I’m writing realilistic fiction, then I fall into more problems in trying to work out the characther motivations and such. Therefore, I run into the perfectionist problem. I keep re-writing the story over and over. Sometimes I’ll scratch a whole story and start over. I don’t stop wriiting, I just can’t narrow the scenario down to one theme for my characters to follow.
It seems to me, from reading the above comments, that writer’s block has different meanings and takes different forms, depending on the writer.
I find that discipline is vital. When I sit in my writing place and let words flow, they do. If I’m elsewhere, they may not come so easily. It’s after the words are on the page that the hard work comes. That’s when you decide what gets left out, and what needs fixing. One technique that works for me to break writer’s block is to start writing on a subject that I’m passionate about, like politics, or the current disrespect so many people seem to have for English language. A favorite pet peeve is apostrophes that are distributed indiscriminately, as if they were prinkled from a salt shaker.
My writers’ group has a joke about misplaced modifiers. Early on, when the group was new, a member wrote, “Walking across the clearing, the privvy appeared . . .”
Since then, modifying phrases that aren’t placed properly near the word they modify are “walking privvies.” Members gleefully announce, “I found a privvy!”
See what I mean? The words just come if you care about the subject. But to submit them, you must carefully trim and rearrange. I call it landscaping my story.