Wednesday 23 March 2011

I don't believe in writer's block. And yet.

I don't really believe in Writer's Block, if by Writer's Block you mean staring at a blank page wondering what to write. Maybe it's because I use prompts to get me scribbling; maybe it's because I like to brainstorm and re-read notes and I don't beat myself up over word count goals.

Here's the rub, though. I'm experiencing something I'd call mental block. I don't really want to write. I think I do, but then I never get round to it, so surely, that's more telling? I've been doing writing prompts from Janet Fitch's A Writer's Book of Days for a good few months now and they are pure magic - getting the creative juices flowing, inspiring me, sometimes forming the backbone of a new scene or idea. And I only make myself do 15 minutes. It should be possible to do 15 minutes every day. Surely?

And yet, for weeks now, I've hardly ever managed it. I just don't seem to have the motivation. Yet when I'm there, at my desk, doing it, there's nowhere else I want to be. It doesn't make any sense at all. I love writing. I love the writer's high that often follows it. I love my characters and their world.

Part of me, admittedly, just wants to be "done". Maybe I'm scared of the amount of work that deep down I know I still need to do to finish the novel I so desperately want finished and published and in the post to the people I'm dedicating it to and adapted into a screenplay by my hero. Maybe I'm scared that it isn't as good as I think it is and want it to be. Maybe I'm scared of the rejection phrase that will inevitably follow.

Any other writers out there got this problem? Did you work out what was holding you back? Did you find a solution?

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