How do you deal with extreme writers block?

[Gingerbread Demon]

Anyone have ideas on how to deal with extreme writers block?

16 pages into my story which I wanted to end this year and make copies to send out to publishers but for the last 4 weeks I just can't seem to put words down. I am getting ideas and recording them on a voice recorder but they're just not flowing into pages.

I am getting thoughts on directions for where things should go and character ideas. I am recording those and keeping them, but it's just now flowing into the main story just into my notes..

heeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!!!!!!

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Find someplace quiet and relax.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

I find it's helpful to talk with other people about it. Other writers are good but they don't have to be. We internalize writing so much, that when you do have a blockage we often don't look for outward help.

 

[Gaith]

When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

 

[auntiehill]

Go somewhere and do something where you phsyically can't do anything but focus on THAT thing---driving, taking a shower, pulling weeds in your garden, etc. When you are physically occupied doing something, your mind is freed up.

Some of my best creative ideas have come to me when I'm in the shower or on a long drive.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Try some oblique strategies.

 

[trekkiedane]

I light a fag, and the moment I do that: inspiration hits... I rarely get to smoke it!

 

[eyeresist]

I feel for you. Probably the best thing to do is set aside a weekend to write the end of it (assuming this is a short, not a novel), and make a deal with yourself that it doesn't matter how shitty it is, because you can always do it better later. Just push to the end. You can even amuse yourself with how terrible some of it is. That doesn't matter.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I feel for you. Probably the best thing to do is set aside a weekend to write the end of it (assuming this is a short, not a novel), and make a deal with yourself that it doesn't matter how shitty it is, because you can always do it better later. Just push to the end. You can even amuse yourself with how terrible some of it is. That doesn't matter.

It's a novel sized story. If it were a short story I'd write the whole thing no matter how shitty it comes out.

I want it to be somewhat passable.

Having said that I know the ending.. It's going to be a very bleak ending.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I'd take a break, go read something else or watch various TV shows & movies. Sometimes writer's block occurs when you're too close to whatever you're writing and you need to take a step back for a bit, IMO. Overthinking a story can be almost as bad as not thinking enough about it.

 

[Starkers]

Horrible as it may be to say, I think you have to consider if you want to finish it.

Often writing is about pushing on through, like a marathon runner, and it may be (probably is) that if you can just kickstart the story again it will flow and never stop till you reach the end. That said sometimes you have to accept that, for whatever reason, a story isn't working. I started one novel and I think I knew very early on that I couldn't do justice to what I was trying to achieve, but I blindly staggered on until finally accepting defeat at around the 25,000 word mark. It wasn't easy to jettison it but in hindsight it was the right call to make.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I feel for you. Probably the best thing to do is set aside a weekend to write the end of it (assuming this is a short, not a novel), and make a deal with yourself that it doesn't matter how shitty it is, because you can always do it better later. Just push to the end. You can even amuse yourself with how terrible some of it is. That doesn't matter.

I would go further and say that if one is serious about getting any writing done, do it every day. Whether you feel like it or not, whether you think you have anything interesting to say or not. Practice, practice, practice. Just getting yourself into that kind of routine can help break your mental blocks.

 

[Amaris]

Right now I'm writing other stories. I have massive writers block on one particular story, so I figured I'd try to work on other stories, and maybe that creative flow would break through the dam on that particular story.

 

[BillJ]

I light a fag...

I think that's considered a hate crime here in the U.S.!

 

[Taylirious]

Walking in the morning gets a lot of ideas flowing for me.

 

[Timewalker]

The July session of Camp NaNoWriMo is going right now. If you register, you'd have access to a huge community of people there to talk to about these things.

You don't actually have to submit anything, but there's a lot of good advice available on that site.

 

[eyeresist]

I'm currently stuck in the middle of a novel. It's not that I don't know what happens next (I've planned it out), it's that I'm acutely sleep-deprived. I am trying to re-adjust my lifestyle....

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I had my ending worked out and my beginning, it's the bit in the middle I am having issues with. Having said that I did crank out 3 or 4 pages.. So it's happening slowly

 

[Amaris]

I usually have trouble framing how I want to do or say something. Finding the right words, and putting them together the right way causes me many headaches.

 

[eyeresist]

^ Sometimes you realise you didn't exactly know what you meant to say until you stumbled upon the right words.