Tag Archive for: Writer’s Block

Clicking Our Heels – Distractions!

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Are you easily distracted? Is so, by what? Here’s what distracts us:

Robin Hillyer-Miles – Social media.

Saralyn Richard – Social media can take me off of a plot line faster and longer than anything else.

T.K. Thorne – Questions like this. Lol, just kidding. Other stuff on my computer—email, FB, trying to stay up with news, but really I think it is the desire to get those things “out of the way” before concentrating on writing.  Then somehow, it is nighttime. I need to work on that.

Shari Randall/Meri Allen – Everything! I usually write in a room with lots of windows, and I am the Gladys Kravitz of my neighborhood. Every dog walker, delivery truck, or bicyclist catches my eye. But when deadlines approach, I have to put myself in “writer jail.” Writer Jail means a carrel in the library. No distraction = deadlines met.

Bethany Maines – Social media! Sometimes I’ll put my phone on Do Not Disturb and then move it further away from me. I also got logged out of Facebook on my laptop (my primary writing device) and have consciously never logged back in, which has saved me on multiple occasions. And yes, I could log back on, but I would have to go look up my password and it’s so much easier to not to do that. So laziness is working for me in this instance.

Kathryn Lane – My biggest distraction from writing is the research I do for my novels. Although it’s part of my writing process, I enjoy it so much that I over-research. And I know it, but it also motivates me to write.

Mary Lee Ashford – Hands down, social media and mostly Facebook. I so enjoy hearing what everyone else is up to and chatting with friends near and far. I love seeing people’s dogs and cats, hearing about their travels, or celebration. And then pretty soon an hour has passed. What I have to do is log on first thing in the morning with my coffee in hand and let myself be “social” for a bit. Then I have to move to a different device and get busy with writing. With a break for lunch or a water or coffee refill, I check in on what’s going on but I really have to limit my social media time to before or after writing.

Anita Carter – streaming a British mystery show.

Lois Winston – Life in general and a retired husband, not necessarily in that order!

Barbara Eikmeier – Sewing. I sew every day because I have a lot of sewing deadlines for my day job. If I wrote as much as I sewed I’d be a very prolific writer!

Debra H. Goldstein – Life. There’s always something unexpected!

Linda Rodriguez – At this stage of my life, physical illness and pain. It’s been different at other stages.

Donnell Ann Bell – At this point I can honestly say my 89-year-old mother. She’s in transition from her home into assisted living. I’m doing a lot of travel back and forth.

Dru Ann Love – Since I’m not a writer, my biggest distraction from working on my blog is being sick or having something more important to do.

Gay Yellen – My very patient husband and our life together.

Lynn McPherson – My big fluffy dog doesn’t like to be ignored.

Writing Through The Dark… Or Not

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 Writing Through The Dark… Or Not

By Cathy Perkins

One of the mantras you hear a lot if you’re an author is you
can’t wait around waiting for that drunken hussy of a writing muse to show up
for work. Instead, it’s BICHOK. You have to put Butt In Chair, Hands On
Keyboard.

There are, of course, dozens of reasons this is true.
Writing is, after all, a craft. Part of improving is doing. Practicing.
Challenging yourself in new ways. Putting the words on that page.

So why are so many of us staring at a blinking cursor, if we
even heave our protesting butts into the chair? Why are we cursing at that
cursor?

I considered this last night during my 3 AM round of
insomnia.

Sleep deprivation is an easy target. Lack of sleep has
been linked to poor cognitive performance. This includes a laundry list of
negative attributes including poor focus and concentration, low creativity,
erratic behavior, inability to multitask, and increased mistakes. While there is
a clamor about “creative insomnia” these days, the sad truth is we need sleep—and
that’s before we explore the myriad ways sleep deprivation messes with the rest
of our bodies.

What if you’re getting enough sleep? Or you’re trying to get
enough sleep? Maybe you have to look a little deeper. Maybe it’s time to
acknowledge the stressors underlying that lack of sleep.

Stress.

Interestingly enough, a number of the articles I read about
creativity and stress actually focused on the role of a creative outlet in
reducing stress. But as I explored this topic, the preferred “creative outlets”
stressed repetitive motions: walking, gardening, talking with friends,
activities that are too often curtailed these days by COVID-19-induced
isolation and bitter winter cold.

Isolation. Cold. COVID-19. Darkness. Now those are some major
stressors.

As I read more, I found useful discussions about psychological
safety that doesn’t create crippling performance pressure. Basically, you need
to let go of forcing yourself to “be creative.” If you’re already stressed, those
threats simply trigger more fight or flights reactions—the most primitive,
least creative part of your brain. Instead of demanding creativity, relax. Tell
yourself, what if…

Let’s play around with this idea…

Of course, these articles also advocated, you guessed it, stress
reducing activities like walking, gardening, and talking with friends. Or “going
to your happy place” such as a favorite coffee shop or roaming a museum or art gallery.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to those creative inciting activities
too.

In the meanwhile, the helpful ideas include:

1) Meditate. Calm your mind.

2) Walk. Get outside if possible. Let your mind relax.

3) Read. Turns out it’s a stress buster.

4) De-clutter. Research says decluttering your workspace can
also clear your head.

5) Live life. Winter and COVID will end. Go enjoy every
minute.  


An award-winning author of financial mysteries, Cathy Perkins writes twisting dark suspense and light amateur sleuth stories.  When not writing, she battles with the beavers over the pond height or heads out on another travel adventure. She lives in Washington with her husband, children, several dogs and the resident deer herd.  Visit her at http://cperkinswrites.com or on Facebook 

Sign up for her new release announcement newsletter in either place.

She’s hard at work on Peril in the Pony Ring, the sequel to The Body in the Beaver Pond, which was recently presented with the Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award. 

Untitled Post

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Gay Yellen: Block that Gift!

A wonderful friend threw a fabulous launch party for me in 2014 when my first book, The Body Business, was published. And several months later, she bought me a gift I’ll never forget. She said that the moment she saw it, she knew I had to have it.


I knew she meant well, so instead of recoiling in horror at the otherwise harmless paperweight, I thanked her for her thoughtfulness. But just to be safe, I hid it in a closet, far away from the room where I write.
The Gift

By the time I finished the second book in The Samantha Newman Mystery Series, the gift was out of my thoughts. That book was such fun to write!


I’d planned to launch Book #3 in 2020. But in early January, an unidentified virus brought me to my knees. It was March before I could sit at my desk to do mundane tasks like open mail and pay bills.

Then my husband’s brother died. And my mother died a month later. By May, I found it impossible to concentrate on any project that called for clear thinking. Add to that the general distress we all suffered last year, and. . .

. . . Book #3—all 70,000 words of it from 2019—lay dormant. More than once in my struggles, that elegantly wrapped gift haunted me from the closet. I considered slinging it off the balcony. 

By last summer’s end, I managed to return to writing with a short piece for the Jungle Reds and my monthly Stiletto Gang post. Which made me wonder why, if I could  put 500 words together for a blog, I still couldn’t manage a few more to complete my book?

Words are words, right? So, what’s the difference?

I think I’ve figured it out.

Writing Fast vs. Writing Deep
In my magazine days, part of my job as managing editor was to oversee the monthly deadlines of our staff writers and contributors. When it was time to lay out an issue, if a scheduled piece was M.I.A., or a writer went rogue, delaying the print run was never an option. I had to find or write a filler. Fast. 

I got good at writing fast. Laser focus and a hard deadline was all it took. Similar to writing a monthly blog post. But it takes much, much more than that to write a book.

Novel writing is deep. It’s immersive. It requires sustained concentration, plus the mental energy to wrangle multiple loose threads into a complete, coherent whole. Which was impossible for me to accomplish in 2020.

Really, I’m fine. . .


The Bright Side
These days, with comfort tea to bolster me, I’m back at work on Book #3. I’m glad to be going deep again, and so very grateful to have made it through. Fingers crossed for getting it done by spring.

I hope you survived last year intact, and with enough resilience to weather the ill winds that still batter us. May our beloved country be restored to health. And may you have a sweet 2021.
 

Gay Yellen is a former magazine and book editor. She writes the award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series, including The Body Business and The Body Next Door. Book #3 in the series is slated for release in 2021. Gay would love to hear from you, here, on Facebook, or at her website, GayYellen.com.


Spark

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by J.M. Phillippe
Sometimes, I feel stuck. Sometimes, all I have in me is a stream of consciousness dump…
I am fumbling for words, searching my memory for rich sensory details, imagery and metaphor, a perfect picture painted with perspicacity, brought forth from my fertile imagination. 
I am new again, raw, an amateur who is just barely beginning to understand what creative writing is. I am spilling out consciousness on the page in rambling streams of poorly relayed emotion. Write what you know, but what do I know, anyway? What stories are mine to tell?
Oh, and I thought I was dark before, thought I had some sense of loss or grief, of the thousand natural shocks, but I am only a Horatio, battered witness of the twists and turns all around me. Transferred trauma, and they tell me to take care, but care has been taken to take such time away. I have no time. I have no energy to use what time I have.
I don’t take the time. I don’t spare the energy.
I sleep too much and not enough.
I fall back on the old words, the easy words. It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rings out. Once upon a time, in a land far far away. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Call me Ishmael.
In the room the women come and go, talking of Michaelangelo. And how should I presume?
All words are old, all words used so many times already. Should I dig up my vocabulary books, reacquaint myself with the archaic and obsolete, so that I may impress myself with my own prolix prose? 
And the seven (less or more?) great plot lines continue to unfold, over and over, and as Aimee Mann sings, “But nobody wants to hear this tale, The plot is clichéd, the jokes are stale, And baby we’ve all heard it all before.”
The only thing that’s mine is my voice. The only thing that can be new, the only thing that could make a story I tell different than any other.
But my voice needs words.
Words words words.
Lost in page counts, lost in deadlines, lost in pressures and anxieties floating all around me like ash, so thick it coats you, so thick it chokes you.
But even in the ash, a spark may fly, a tiny flake of potential floating on eddies, looking for the right tinder to settle on, the right wind to blow, and kindle standing by, waiting to burn.
I am a pile of kindle, ready to burn. I am waiting for my spark to find me.
***
J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

The Perfect Soundtrack

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by J.M. Phillippe
Living in New York City, headphones are a necessity. They not only help you pass the time on long commutes, providing your own soundtrack protects you from the more…natural soundtrack of life in the city. I like an up beat while walking to work, something that quickens my pace to keep time to it. Mellow music makes a bus ride home nice and reflective. 

Progress notes, the bane of every social worker’s existence, are made tolerable by a lovely oldies playlist I can sing along to. Even housecleaning, a chore I have loathed since childhood, can be gotten through best with a good music mix.

And there is not a single novel, story, or even blog post I haven’t gotten through without a playlist. In fact, my first novel, Perfect Likeness, pulled heavily from the music I was listening to as I wrote it. Sometimes, finding the perfect song can make or break the chapter I am working on. If I want to write something fast-paced and action filled, heavy bass and little words helps me find the right flow to move the scene along. Songs that make me sad help me get in the right head space for those moments in a story where I need to go deep.

Music is the only actual cure I know for writer’s block (besides not leaving the blank page until there is something, however bad you may think it is, on it). I have been known to put down a song lyric as a starting point, a way to get the creative juices flowing. In fact, some stories owe their existence to a lyric I couldn’t get out of my head.

I used to collect soundtracks, back when people would still buy CDs. I loved them because they were carefully curated playlists that helped move a greater story along. Some of my favorite movies are also my favorite soundtracks: Dirty Dancing, O Brother Where Art Thou, Singles, Forest Gump — just to name a few. Without their soundtracks, those movies wouldn’t even exist, and certainly not stand out in our minds the way they do.

Books don’t come with their own soundtracks, though I often think they should (if the copyright issues could be worked out). If you had to pick songs to go with the book you are currently writing or reading, what would they be?

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the newly released short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

Refilling the Well

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 by Sparkle Abbey

It
is finished! We turned in book 8, Raiders
of the Lost Bark. Yay!

Once
we turn in a book, the question we get asked most often is, “What’s next?”

Besides
getting more than five hours of sleep a night?

We
refill the creative well.

Writing
is exhausting and primarily a solitary occupation. It’s easy to become isolated,
spending months thinking, planning, plotting, writing, and rewriting. It
requires a significant amount of mental energy to stay focused on a creative
project for that long. Yet we only get better by practicing our craft, which
means more writing.

By
constantly writing, we drain our creativity. At some point we have to give our minds
a break. So how do we give back to that source we’ve so thoroughly drained for
months?

Well,
after a quick celebration with margaritas (you knew that was coming, right?),
we begin to take a short mental break from the work and make “refilling the
creative well” our main focus. Since we don’t have a beach close by we have to
come up with other ideas.

First
we reintroduce ourselves to our families who have probably only seen the backside of
our heads for weeks. Then we may catch up on all the TV shows our families have
recorded for us. Read the books that have been stacked on our nightstands or
added to our Kindles while we were on deadline. We try to catch a movie or two,
and make a concerted effort to restart our exercise plan of daily yoga and
walking. If possible, we’ll attend a writing related workshop or conference. If
we had hobbies, we’d probably take them up again after neglecting them for
months. 
Our
favorite way to refill the well is to spend time with our family and friends. We
laugh, make new memories, and experience the world through the eyes of our
grandchildren. Is there anything better than that? We don’t think so either.

Then
after a couple of weeks, once we’ve caught up on housework, social media, and paying
the bills we re-evaluate our goals. We prioritize. Refocus on the steps needed
to take us further in our writing journey.

And
then we start the madness all over again, because writing is our passion.

What
about you? How do you refill your well?

As always, if you’d like to stay up on the latest news, new releases or upcoming appearances, sign up for the Sparkle Abbey newsletter at www.SparkleAbbey.com

Putting on the Sequel Panties

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by Bethany Maines

As my writing goal for this year, I am determined to get my
third book in the Carrie Mae series fully outlined and at least one draft
done.  Carrie Mae (for those who
haven’t picked up Bulletproof Mascara or Compact with the Devil) is the at home
make-up sales company that is a front for an international, all-female,
espionage organization.  And my
heroine Nikki Lanier is one of their top agents.  My original plan for the series involves 5 books, but life
(marriage, new business, new baby, changing book deals) has managed to delay my
production speed. I made this goal in January and as of Sunday had made zero
progress toward that goal.  Every
time I went to open up my notes I got pissy and decided to do something
else.  It got so bad, that I
actually did the dishes one day instead of working on my outline. If you knew
me at all that’s like saying I decided to have root canal instead of going on
vacation.

So Monday night I gave myself a stern little talking to and
opened my notes.  I can’t imagine
going through someone else’s writing notes and attempting to make sense out of
them. Going through my own notes is like trying to track an elusive animal
through the underbrush.  I followed
the traces of my own thoughts and began to realize that I was further along than
I remembered.  My outline was more
complete and my research was fairly cohesive.  But just as I remembered what I’d been planning to write, I
also remembered why I stopped. 
The first problem I had was that my plot involves pot
smuggling on the Canadian border and Washington State just legalized plot.  Thanks a lot Washington.  Thanks for deciding that if the medical
research indicates that pot isn’t all that dangerous maybe we should stop
spending money on prosecuting people and also try to make money off of it.  Or in other words, thanks for making my
writing life more difficult.
The second problem was more emotional. As I had been working
through the plot I came into a strategy conflict with my writer’s group.  They thought the novel was a too much
of a leap ahead in my story arcs and wanted at least one short story before the
book to fill the gap. I wasn’t convinced they were right and, even worse, I
wasn’t convinced they were wrong. 
The more we discussed the matter, the less certain I became.  And of course the more uncertain I was,
the more grumpy I became about the whole project.  So then I put it aside to “think” about it.  Which is writer code “I give up.”
But now I’m back, dang it.  I refuse to give up on my characters! I will revisit the
advice from my writer’s group.  I
will put on my big girl panties and make some decisions.  Because if I can’t dictate what my
fictional characters are going to do with their lives then I’m not much of a
writer now am I?
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery series and Tales from the City of Destiny. You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube
video or catch up with her on Twitter and
Facebook.

Writing – Bah Humbug and Future Promises

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Writing – Bah Humbug and Future Promises by Debra H. Goldstein

The holidays are over.  The Christmas music that began playing on my favorite radio station in November has changed back to easy listening.  Although the station will probably have a Christmas in July weekend, it is pretty safe to say the songs, tinsel, advertising, and holiday spirit are gone.  Bah humbug has returned.  It feels pretty good.

No, I’m not Scrooge.  I actually like the kindness and gentle spirit that is attached to the holiday season.  I love to see the lit candles of Chanukah twinkle.  I enjoy watching shelter children picking out presents for their parents while their parents choose toys for them at the Birmingham YWCA’s Santa’s Workshop or volunteering to help meet a family’s wishes through the Angel Tree or Temple’s Adopt A Family Program.  My issue is that I don’t like to be banged over the head with this “spirit” only in November and December.  I prefer the year ‘round approach.

I often wish I could apply my all year charitable approach to my writing.  I envy the person who sits down and writes a set number of words a day.  For me, trying to write is very similar to enjoying the holidays.  I write in sprints – easily distracted by the music and lights of everyday living.  When the writing is going well, I celebrate joyously and concentrate on the work.  When my ideas aren’t fresh or exciting or I’ve received a rejection letter, I find it far easier to lounge in front of the television than my computer or to pick up pen and paper.  

In the past, I’ve been a master of excuses as to why I’m not writing.  Excuses like I need to be in the mood (compare this to the holiday spirit), my office is upstairs and I don’t feel like going up the steps, or I would write in a notebook but then I would have to transcribe my thoughts to a computer.  Other excuses for the notebook could be a) if I leave it lying around the neighbor’s dog might eat my work, b) if I put the notebook down, I may forget where I put it, or c) if I close the notebook I may not find the page I wrote on again.  

I really wonder what excuses others use and what is the motivation that helps one write consistently?  My next blog will not appear until 2014. In anticipation of it and the New Year, I want to resolve to apply the year ‘round approach to my writing.  It isn’t going to be easy.  How do you do it?  Will you help me or join me in this New Year’s resolution?

Whether we succeed or not, may 2014 be a happy, healthy and prosperous year for you and yours.
                                                                       ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Debra H. Goldstein is the author of Maze in Blue, a murder mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus in the 1970’s.  Her short story, “A Political Cornucopia” was the November Bethlehem Writers Roundtable featured story.    

Writer’s Block–Do You Suffer From it?

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I just read a really good blog about writer’s block and though I left a comment I really wanted to write more so thought I’d do it here.

Though I don’t really suffer from writer’s block, I do procrastinate about clicking on Word and my latest work in progress. Instead, I check my e-mail, read posts on Facebook and write one or two, read some blogs I’m following, and maybe write a blog or two.

Though I don’t work outside the house, I do some writing jobs that bring in money and if I have one of those, it will always come first. (Yes, my books bring in money, but not right away like some other things I do.)

If there is some housework jobs I really need to do, I’ll probably do them before I write. One of the reasons I do that comes from my bringing up–mom made sure we’d done all of our work before we did something fun. And since writing is something I truly enjoy, I don’t feel right doing it until all the more tedious jobs are done. (Funny how moms can still influence us even when we’re really old–and in my case, mom has gone on to her heavenly reward.)

Fortunately, I long ago figured out a way to not have a problem knowing what to write when I finally do open up that work in progress and that’s to stop in the middle of a scene, that way I know exactly what to write next.

Another trick is to go back and read what you wrote last making it easier to just continue on when you get to the blank place.

I truly love writing and with the book I’m working on now I have so many ideas for it they are spilling out of my brain. What I should do is change my schedule completely and write first–then do all the other things that need to be done. I’ll try, but I don’t think my many years of training and habit will let me.

I know a lot of you do your writing at night. Wish I could, but by evening I’m done. Brain is no longer functioning well enough to do anything challenging like writing.

Do you have trouble with writer’s block? If so, what’s your cure?

Marilyn

Writer’s Block

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I’m dealing with an intense case of writer’s block. I am so fearful of putting pen to paper that I have started and stopped writing this week’s blog about fifty times. (Wait until I finish the first one I started on television shows…that will surely put you to sleep and make you hope that my writers’ block continues for a long, long time.) I have been reading Evelyn’s daily recaps of Mayhem and wondering how in the heck she’s going to seminars all day long and then coming back to write. (And actually making sense, to boot.) So instead of wallowing in my writer’s block haze, I’ll describe some of the things that I do to counteract writer’s block and see if any of them speak to you fellow writers out there.

1. I perform the “one-woman show.” It is performed by one woman—me—and viewed by one being—my dog. (Except for the time I didn’t realize the contractor had come back to sand the spackle that he had put on the walls. He is still talking about how much he enjoyed my rendition of “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.”) It consists of dancing, some singing, and the occasional monologue, the general subject being “Why Can’t I Write Today?” Interpretative dance with lip-syncing usually opens the show—seen bi-weekly in my attic, or more frequently depending on when a manuscript is due—with Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” being a personal favorite to get things rolling. The end of the show usually consists of a slightly out-of-breath blocked writer falling into her desk chair and turning off her computer with the one finger that she can still use after all of the gyrations that went on during the one-woman show.

2. I read every cookbook I have, cover to cover, searching for that perfect coq au vin recipe. I haven’t actually made coq au vin yet because I usually get so hungry reading the cookbooks that I end up walking into town for a chicken salad on rye.

3. I call every friend I have who I know will either be at their desk at work or at home. Most of them have caller ID now and don’t answer the phone when they see my number come up.

4. I read. But not anything that is similar to what I write because I fear that I will start sounding like someone else. So, I read the manuals that came with my stove, dishwasher, and dryer; the tags on my pillows (some of which I have ripped off, despite their warnings); the back of shampoo bottles (there’s a lot more on there besides ‘lather, rinse, and repeat,’ you know); and papers that I’ve already read. I know a lot about what happened last week, but sadly, not enough about what’s going on right now.

5. I shop online. And yes, I do realize that if my writer’s block continues, I won’t be able to shop online because I won’t have an income. Interesting conundrum, yes?

6. I watch television. Interestingly, I just took a break from writing this blog and turned on the Food Network where, much to my surprise and delight, Anthony Bourdain (who I love about as much as anyone can love a chef who eats gross things for a living) was talking about writer’s block. He was sitting in front of his computer typing the words “chicken and ribs…chicken and ribs…chicken and ribs…” over and over again while attempting to write an article on his trip to St. Martin. God bless you, Anthony Bourdain for letting me know that I am not alone.

So, what do you do? I know what Evelyn does and I know what the writers in my writers’ group do, but I’m interested to hear your coping mechanisms. And if anyone writes back with the advice to just “shut up and write,” I promise you will receive an unflattering characterization in my next book. It might be just the thing to end my writer’s block, though.

Maggie Barbieri