The Writer Behind the Words (8 page)

Trick your mind in any manner you can think of just so that you can write. Write even as your fingers tremble and your mind tells you (in the voice of all your discouragers) “No, no, no! This is no good. STOP!” Write until the blank page looses its power and is destroyed. Jump into the icy waters of a blank page and write yourself to shore.

I
don’t really believe in
writer’s
block, because blocks happen to most artists. Its symptoms are common: sleepless nights, pacing, hair pulling, depression, and crumbled paper. The reason? Fear. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear that an idea is too big or too small, fear that you’re unworthy, fear that you have no right to be a writer, fear that you’re not a “real” writer, or fear that you may not be the genius you’d thought (or at least hoped) you were. These fears strike all writers at some time in their lives.

Those writers who aren’t paralyzed by it learn to pat fear on the head or look at it with amusement as one would regard a child throwing a tantrum. Others face it with white knuckles, determined not to surrender to the monster of doubt. Some cry through it. What they all have in common is the ability to keep writing. They may not continue working on the manuscript that originally brought on the fear, but they work on something, something that will get them through it.

Scared? You’re supposed to be. You’re baring your soul to a public that might throw tomatoes at you or worse, deem you brilliant at a level you can never live up to. Writing is all that will save you. Keep at it.

Ways to Overcome a Creative Block

• Talk into a tape recorder. Or dictate to a friend.
  
 

• Pretend you’re one of the characters in your story and write about an average day in your life.
  
 

• Write a letter about your problem.
  
 

• Come up with other writing projects to work on. It usually helps to work on different projects so that when one project stalls you can work on something else.
  
 

• Be outrageous. Make something really strange suddenly happen in your story. Like a purple dinosaur being discovered or the hero contemplating a sex change.
  
 

• Procrastinate. Listen to music or watch TV. Surround yourself with other artists.
  
 

• Use affirmations. You’re probably beating yourself up.
  
 

• Stop. Tell yourself positive things. “I’m a great writer and I deserve to succeed.” “I serve, the universe provides.” “I have limitless ideas.” “I am wonderful, talented and creative.”
  
 

• Take pictures and write about the images.
  
 

• Eat a different food or wear something you usually wouldn’t. Write about how you feel.
  
 

• Take a nap.
  
 

• Write about how awful you feel.
  
 

• Interview someone local. Most people are willing to share their stories.
  
 

• Try to write the most boring story or article you can.
  
 

• Bribe yourself. “If you do this then you can do that.”
  
 

• Read the comics and come up with a different gag or storyline for some of the strips.
  
 

• Take a walk.
  
 

• Pretend you’re a tourist and write about your neighborhood.
  
 

• Write a personal ad for the kind of story or idea you’re looking for. For example: “Desperate Writer seeking novel idea, preferably of the romantic sort with lots of twists and turns. Any race welcome. Must be long and interesting…” or “Lonely Writer in search of short affair with mystery and danger.”
  
 

• Write a limerick.
  
 

• Play hooky.
  
 

• Watch a movie then retell it from a different viewpoint.
  
 

• Time yourself. Write something (anything!) for ten minutes. Don’t judge it, just get it down and then you’re free to spend the rest of the day doing anything you wish.
  
 

• Breathe. You’ll be okay.
  
 

Sleep On It

I know a writer who, when faced with a creative block, asks herself a question right before going to sleep, and then always wakes up with the answer she needed. I find that it works for me. This is how she does it.

Before going to bed, tell your subconscious your writing problem. After giving it the responsibility to solve the problem, fall asleep and don’t think about it. The key is to trust your subconscious to come up with the answer you need. The subconscious never sleeps so it can work on it all night for you. It doesn’t have the same censors as the conscious mind, so it will come up with ideas you never thought possible. The benefit is that you won’t lose sleep and you will wake up refreshed and ready to go the next day with the solution you need.

S
o now the page is no longer blank; instead it’s been vandalized. A perfectly good page wasted by crap. Take a deep breath and keep writing. Not everything you write will smell like roses, sometimes it’s just the fertilizer. If you’re really having a hard time, take brief breaks. But not for long, otherwise depression may settle in and soon you’ll fear you’ll never start again.

You don’t have to feel smart, special or good enough to write. Write despite your moods. That’s what professionals do. Keep going. Spread the crap until something grows.

You don’t have to behave like a child to be creative or to have a mind full of wonder and imagination. I am always annoyed when people offer adults advice that you have to “think like a child” to be artistic, joyful or wonderful. Personally, I have found some children just as closed minded and boring as adults. Ever try to tell a two year old something that they know is not true? Some will become very upset. As an adult you have had varied experiences and you can accept the absurd.

Your mind is powerful. People (children included) create the unusual to fill in parts that need logic. For example, if they wondered why rain falls and didn’t know, they would come up with a story about a man who is crying in the sky, which sounds perfectly logical. The ancient Greeks weren’t necessarily being imaginative when they created their myths. They were coming up with explanations for then-present mysteries. Still don’t believe me? Try telling a religious group that their sacred text is a collection of myths by imaginative storytellers. I suggest you disappear quickly thereafter.

Imagination isn’t ignorance. There’s a story of a small tribe that planted tin cans because they believed they could grow automobiles. Because they grew everything else they thought this next step was logical. Some people would call this imagination. I would not. Now, if someone who knew that you couldn’t grow automobiles out of tin cans came up with the above idea, that would be imaginative to me.

Imagination is knowing the truth and coming up with a different way to look at or perceive something. You are imaginative now. You don’t need to jump into mud puddles or play hide and seek unless you want to. You can see the inconceivable. You don’t need to be a child or childlike to do so. Those with less education and children at times
do
see or have dazzling insight because they have less of a framework to work from; however, don’t let that stop you from seeing things in both a complex and simplistic fashion.

I
f you want to kill your confidence faster than a hasty rejection, bad review or degrading critique, compare yourself to others. It doesn’t matter if the writer to whom you compare yourself is good or bad, you’ll still feel miserable. Why? Because if the writer is bad you’ll wonder why they’re a bigger success than you are (published, better paid, better looking or, Gasp! younger). If they’re good, you’ll know why and wonder if you should even attempt to foist your inferior product on the unsuspecting masses. So stop!

Comparison is as useful an activity as pulling out your own teeth. It’s painful and you’ll look bad. Write, write, write! Keep those blinders on. You’re supposed to write because you have something to share and it will be unique because of your voice, your style, and your perceptions. There are no original stories or ideas, just original ways to tell them.

If you’re feeling extremely down, take a hiatus from trade magazines. They applaud the chosen few and perpetuate the scarcity mindset, and you’ll hate yourself for not being one of the chosen few. Fortunately, you’re above that. There is plenty of praise to go around. Comparing will cause you to forget that you are lucky to be a writer. Many others dream to be, but just don’t have the courage and they’re miserable comparing themselves to YOU.

There’s a lot of literary prostitution in the arts. Many writers sell their wares only for the money. I’m not against the practice, I’ve seen it make people rich, but I’ve also seen it destroy souls.

If you can keep one thing, keep your integrity. Always do your best. Don’t be seduced into changing your voice or your style for money. This is not obstinacy, this is preservation. You must find the editor who gets your voice, because some won’t. You want to be proud of your work no matter how small. Some writers change articles or stories to suit an editor, then when the editor still hates the work the writer is left with a dead piece.

People read to be entertained or informed. Do your best to meet those needs.

If you want to freelance, choose an area that you know about or that interests you. Who cares if at the time health writers are making a killing? If you know a lot about gardening, then this is a lucrative field for you. Become the best at what you do.

Genre fiction make you cringe? Then don’t write it! Don’t let the marketplace dictate your work. Write only what you can write. That’s the path to success and brilliance.

O
f course, there will be times when you just can’t help yourself and you will compare. That’s when it will strike: A festering disease of the spirit. You’ll feel embarrassed and disgusted with yourself and with the person who has made you feel this way (basically yourself, again). Envy. It’s perfectly normal. Don’t ignore it. Own your emotions; ignoring them will only make you feel worse. I hate it when someone suffers a particularly bad blow (fired, dumped, hurt) and her (purported) friend pats her on the back and coos a silly platitude. “Sorry your dreams are now in ashes, love.
Don’t feel bad.”
What the #@$!? What planet do you live on? I feel awful! Angry, pissed and plenty of other things. We are writers after all, and our rantings can be long and fierce. But that’s what writers do for a living — feel. We feel everything, intensely, so when envy creeps up on us or grabs us in a chokehold, it lingers and rages. See it, feel it. However, some writers invite it to dinner and allow it to destroy their lives. I don’t recommend that.

How to Handle Envy

• Write a story of someone envying you.
  
 

• Sulk for a day (it’s allowed).
  
 

• Give praise. You don’t have to be sincere.
  
 

• Admit it. If someone tells you about their good fortune say “I’m so envious.”
  
 

• Give gifts (making someone else feel better can help make you feel better. You won’t feel like such a jerk).
  
 

• Have a tantrum. No one needs to see.
  
 

• Read about top authors envying each other.
  
 

• Remember when you succeeded at something and treasure that time.
  
 

• Buy yourself something.
  
 

• Get writing so that you can write something that will have people envying you.
  
 

Sometimes envy sheds a light on what we want. Annoyed with the actor who has written a children’s book? Write one yourself. Jealous of the friend with a great agent? Change your agent, or list the qualities you want in your relationship with your agent and aim for that.

If you envy someone for being younger, prettier, taller or anything else you can’t possibly achieve, write about it. Make a spoof of it. You may as well use your emotions for your art.

Still steaming because someone has what you want? Here’s a little tale to help you. Remember being a kid and seeing the ice cream truck come around the corner? You try to rush to the front of the line so that your order will be first, but another kid gets there first. Before you lunge for the kid’s throat, a wise guardian gently holds you back and says, “Wait your turn.” Do that.

T
he opposite of a creative block is a creative flood, and it can be just as damaging to the writer’s life. In this state, your mind is full of ideas and, at first, it seems like an abundance of riches. I’m not referring to writing flow (when time escapes you and the words spill forth), I’m talking about when words and ideas drown you. When you can’t focus on anything. When you have fifteen story ideas, twenty poems, five publishers you want to query, eighteen magazines you wish to write for, you’re designing a new writing space, and have identified sixteen agents you want to contact.