What works?

When I was at my writers’ retreat at Moniak Mhor I was taken by the fact that the journalists in the group just sit and write. It’s their job after all, so they seemed unaffected by the usual angst that surrounds the stereotypical writer. They had a story to tell and they had the discipline to sit down and tell it.

Today I was following a LinkedIn discussion about writer’s block. The question was Help, how do I get over it? so I thought I’d look at the problem here. While I’ve had spells of my life when I’ve not written much I don’t think I’ve ever had writer’s block. What I have had is a feeling that writing a novel is such a huge undertaking that it needs a very special day to be the right day to work on it. But what I’ve realised is that the only way to find that special day is to make it yourself. One of the journalists said (I think quoting someone else), ‘you’ve just got to keep typing until it turns into writing.’ So with that in mind I make my novel writing days special by typing. So what do I type – all those half ideas scribbled in notebooks and on pieces of paper, that once they become a Word document take on a better shape. That while they are being typed the ignite ideas in other parts of my brain, and take a more coherent form.

I type things that I’ve started for competitions and submissions, I type blogs and Good Reads reviews. I make writing my work, but also my play, and somehow, hopefully the big tasks get little nibbles taken out of them in amongst all this typing. And gradually the little nibbles turn into bigger chunks and the joy of writing comes back so that it’s not a task to be tackled, but a joy to be experienced.

I’m currently re-drafting pieces I’d scribbled on Reading and Writing for a potential publication for World Book Night which one of my fellow G2 writers is compiling, so I’d better get on.

If you’ve any tips to share on Writer’s Block that would be great.