Writer's Block?

What is writer's block?

For me? I don't get it, but what I do get, if you want to label it that, I see as other things entirely...than "writer's block".

I see what some call writer's block as merely, boredom, stress, or overburdened processing time. Essentially. I see buying into a belief in writer's block as a kind of victim mentality.

Processing time - When I write, my mind has a store, a library of where I'm going. I easily create as I write whatever it doesn't have previously available to draw upon. During the process, when I stop writing, when I hit that point at which I'm not sure where to go, it simply means my overt, external recording of what is in my mind has caught up to my processing, my creating.

At that point, I just need some time to catch up. It's as if I have a buffer in my mind and I've dumped it. So now it's time to refill it. Time for it to build up another set of concepts, scenes, and characterizations. Where fully formed thoughts have been used up and perhaps even the fundamentals, the building blocks of those things and orientations related to them have been used up.

IF you see that as being stopped, stumped, locked up, then I guess you could say you have writer's block. But isn't that simply a natural occurrence of the creative process? If it goes on for an extended length of time, and we all have different speeds at which we work, then it is labeled writer's block. I would argue at that point however, you have skipped out of normal processing times and moved into another issue entirely.

With time, you, it...eventually buffer back up. When I can finally write again...for a while. IF I write slow enough, I never hit that block. Or if you like, emptying that buffer. For some, they can write seemingly forever without ever emptying that buffer. But that's just an impression.

For others, it empties quickly, daily. Some of this obviously relates to the quality of what is being written. The closer one gets to being "genius", the less time it takes, or the deeper the meaning, or the more condensed the content, or the more prosaic it appears.

Part of what I do in the creative part of writing is to write myself into a corner, to set up multiple issues to be resolved later. Then try to creatively extract myself from that corner, to eventually hit a satisfying ending. Both for myself and the reader.

When one hits real writer's block, as I see it, if it's neither boredom or stress, you then have either written yourself into such a corner that you cannot successfully extract yourself from it or, you have so used up your buffer in a way that it cannot be refilled.

When that happens, then you either have written something that is fundamentally flawed and needs to be tossed out and started over, or you have written so far above your ability to extract yourself from the complications or the mess you have created, that you cannot resolve it, cannot finish it.

I ran into that myself in a way, in my as yet unpublished novella, "The Unwritten."

I took a year off from it and worked on other things. Until one day it suddenly hit me how to resolve the story and end it. As it turned out that was not quite true. I actually was simply seeing a path forward.

I followed it and it did lead me in the end to a viable ending. That ending however then led me onward to an even better ending until finally, I did end it with a satisfying conclusion. But I didn't see that as having broken if you wish to call it, the writer's block.

How do you correct that inability to complete a project?

Sometimes honestly, it requires dumping a story and starting over again from scratch. Some stories can become so convoluted and unresolvable, unfixable, that they should just be dumped. Or, you can strip them down to their bare essentials and work to a more viable ending.

Some merely abandon their work and simply don't stick it out. Hopefully, if they do abandon it, they keep it so that later perhaps, they may suddenly have an epiphany of how to complete it and still have it available to do so. Nothing is more frustrating to realize an ending, or an escape from the trap, only to realize, you have deleted the effort, destroyed the writings.

Whenever you find that your buffer is empty and is not refilling, not untypically that has to do with boredom or stress. Or something in your life is overtaking, subsuming your creativity. Stealing your mind, your attention to the point that you cannot write.

In those cases simply walk away. Change channels. Move onto another very different pursuit. Stop thinking about it. Take a break, Go on vacation. Have a drink. Go hiking. See a movie. Whatever it takes. However long it takes.

Sometimes I'll just research what I'm working on because the problem very well may be that I'm simply lacking information or knowledge. So I'll research a word, look up its synonyms or antonyms. Or research the concept or situation, scene or scenario or series of such things. It's merely another way to refill that buffer.

For some it's to go seek entertainment, or sex with a lover. Or to experience something creative, art, music or film, a play, a sports event, or whatever works best for you. Exercise is very useful as it supercharges the brain with oxygen.

Then come back to it later and try again, always keeping in the back of your mind that you do plan to return to it, to finish it. Because I find when I do that, my mind keeps crunching away on the issue or issues until it's resolved. It's a kind of perseverance you need to build in yourself if you don't already have it. My mind is always working on problems where I don't see it continuing on. I've found in playing a musical instrument that over time, even when I don't practice, I do keep getting better. It's a very similar thing.

For the most part, if you refuse to buy into the concept of writer's block, you may never experience it.

I have seen far more amateur writers, hobbyists, wannabe writers, who claim writer's block over that of professionals. To be sure, when you are feeling less creative or self-assured in your writings, they may not be as qualitative, or beautiful as when you feel you are in the zone.

Regardless, keep writing.

I find a hybrid form is most useful. I write screenplays, and plays, poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction and even time-wasting posts on platforms like Twitter or Facebook. These are all different formats and jog the mind when jumping from one to another.

One might argue that I have writer's block on say a short story and then work on a screenplay, I'm getting blocked on one and simply moved to another.

One could argue it's a matter of semantics.

Find creative workarounds, think out of the block

I just don't see it that way at all, though. It has to do with processing, exercising one's skill sets. IF I go out on an obstacle course and physically run it, at some point I will hit a wall and need to rest, or sleep, or eat and then I can continue. For some that may be minutes. For others, hours. If you're a Navy SEAL, an Olympic athlete, or someone like that, it may be days even before you find you need to recharge.

Regardless, we all process and exercise at different rates and speeds and endurance levels. One needs to learn those limits... as young as possible in one's life...and how one works most efficiently, effectively and functionally. One needs to build those endurance levels up. And know how one works best in the creative field or perhaps in any field, in the most creative and functional ways.

So do I buy into the concept of a writer's block? No. I hope you can see now why.

Whether or not you buy into it is up to you. I just don't like feeling like I'm being victimized, or being a victim, of something I may very well have full, or mostly full control over. It never hurts to have tricks to find your way to productivity, no matter what the issue. And you just have to ask yourself what you buy into and how much you will allow it to affect you in a negative way. And how to turn that negativity into productivity. So...

Writer's block?

On Being Creative and Writing

I've been asked, as have so many other creatives...

"How do you come up with your ideas for things you write?"

Well...I have a thought, I put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard and, produce. I heard an author once say that the difference between hobbyists or amateurs and professional writers is the latter writes down their good ideas for later and they throw away, nothing. Saving it for a future story. Not infrequently it happens at bedtime, so I keep a notepad by my bed. Or I may get up and go to my keyboard and writer it out, dumping it all into a file for later.

I have a file on my laptop and desktop for ideas and another for titles. I have an "ideas" folder in my short story, screenplay and my novel folders.

A spark happens, an idea hits me, the framework for that idea shoots through a tunnel into the future in my mind, in a multi dimensional pathway from concept to fruition. That journey into a new reality begins. As I write, the structure further reveals itself to me. Logic and satiation fill in the cracks and crevices as I experience the story unfolding within and before me.

At some point I hit a juxtaposition, or a void. At that point I have emptied my mental and creative buffers and need to come up with something new. And that I think, is what interests people.

Brian Eno, once of Roxy Music fame and then from his own, studied art for a short time. He and his cohorts were like many others at the time interested in John Cage's book Silence (1961). Music can be art and why cannot one listen to a waterfall or the wind and experience the same euphoria one could get from say, Beethoven? Eno getting involved with Robert Fripp and his with King Crimson were all expansions of previous leanings.

Six Melodies, by John Cage.

I was very into avant garde and experimental music since my childhood in the 1960s, as well as some classical, pop (as a kid) and much rock music. From as far back as I can remember I have been attracted to the unique and unusual and the beautiful. I didn't even hear of the aesthetic of the ugly until the late 1980s and it went against everything I had believed in to that point. Yet, I had loved horror films and books and I did get it on a visceral level.

I bring all this up because of the need and desire for creativity, for uniqueness and the unknown and for the fascinating. It is a quest always for more and beyond.

Concepts like the synthesis of systems and ideas, the dynamic rearrangement of information, the rearrangement of the echoes of one sense upon or in place of another or synesthesitic observations, all organized to be highly pleasurable and\or productive have always fascinated me. And yet again and again I find myself falling back into formal structures.

And so I continue to bide my time, to explore, and to strive for that uniqueness that I hope one day to uncover. And of course, to share.

A good example of this in my catalog of writings is in my latest novella, "The Unwritten" coming out in the sequel to my first book to be titled, Anthology of Evil II. In the novella, I decided initially to take three disparate universes and write about them, then at some point bring them all together in some way. That is all I had to start with.

It was a singular journey that took me two years to finalize. Once I returned to it, my mind having had worked on it in the dark recesses of thought over the period of my putting off writing the last half of the story, had worked much of it out, unbeknownst to me. It flowed out of me onto the page and it somehow all came together.

That is the way of it so very often.

I had studied what creativity is during my university years. I felt crippled, unable to be creative. Until I realized what it is. Creation. The more you have to bring to that creation, the more you learn in life, the more you practice things, the more interesting and useful will be your creations.

My point being, learn your craft. Learn all you can about everything. Try to experience and produce all types of, all forms of whatever your craft is. And then... the creative happens. It will happen.

Bring your creative voice, or vision to us. Because we want to see it.

On Creativity

On the professional networking web site, Linkedin, I made a post myself on a thread on creativity. Yes, yet another post on the never ending stream of online threads about creativity. To paraphrase, I said that putting creativity "on the back burner" as someone had said, is the gestation period, which is different for everyone. I need to take in the information necessary to create a piece, then simply create it; typically, to write it.

Maybe it's just calling it different things but I don't see that as creativity, per se. Synthesis more likely. Once I have the info I need and start to write, the creativity comes from choosing the obvious next step. With each scene, the description, narrative or dialog that I write builds upon itself. Much of the "creativity" involved is in the "seeing" or imagining of what should come next and then, how it should develop. As many people say, at some point it starts to write itself. And it should, if you can see the logical options available. 

I've heard writers say that readers (or viewers in film) should almost be able to mouth the words a character is going to say next, as it should make that much sense to the readers (or viewers) that they might know what is coming. When I'm writing I take that to mean that I need to try to hear what should come next in my own mind, then try to find a way to twist that so that what comes out will leave the readers/viewers to think, "yeah, sure, I see that, but oh, well now, that's interesting and not quite what I had expected."

We serve up to them an interesting, intriguing situation. Then lead them down a common path, twist it, and play it off of what they expect to hear, making it fresh and intriguing. 

Therein for me anyway, lay the creativity. Give people what they expect, then please them with what they don't see coming, giving it some relevance to them. The more the better.

Most of this talk on creativity is simply about what should come next. Of course picking a good starting point helps but it's not necessary. It's the same in outlining ahead of time. You have a situation/scenario, how should it develop? Where should it go? I find many times that I start a story in the middle and end up adding to the beginning and ending. Still, I always have the intent to end up with the beginning as far as possible toward the middle as I can work it.

If I start with an ending in mind, do I backtrack from there? O do I start at a random beginning and fill it in to make it work? There's certainly different ways to do all this. But in the breakdown I see the creativity as a small thing in. Or maybe I just try to see it that way so as not to overload myself? Like tricking myself into thinking it's really not all so hard to do (it is pretty much, but if you see where I'm going here, don't let that stop you). The point is, it really shouldn't be so intimidating. Don't let it become that. It just looks big from an outsider's point of view. Many times that outsider is a new writer being intimidated by themselves until finally, they have writer's block. Or give up altogether.

My editor, Ilene Giambastiani had this to say about that:

"I think every writer has a unique process. Some like to know every step of the story ahead of time, and so they outline like crazy. Some are content to let the story unfold in a more organic fashion. I think it is up to each writer to keep working on the honing of one's craft, and trying new ways to stimulate the creative process. IMHO, being too comfortable with one's process is not a good idea. Nothing like a bit of sheer terror to spark the creative process!"

Good advice. My response was:

"I agree. But to me this relates to several issues writers have problems with. Like "writer's block" and the definition of "creativity". In fact when I got my degree in Psych I took the opportunity by designing my own independent study class to research what Creativity is. What does it mean to be creative?"

I continued:

"I once shot a phenomenology video about creativity for two Phenomenology Psych Professors of mine at WWU. I had to turn it in at the end of the quarter, along with a journal detailing what I did and, a paper about the experience. 

On a side note, one of those Professors showed it to all of his classes and I ended up with a kind of celebrity status on campus for a while, which was not only uncomfortable but somewhat annoying. Not half of the trouble of the notoriety was constantly getting stopped between classes and trying not to be late. The discussions were all interesting but after a while it got old. Also, I had a few technical issues with the equipment that forced my end product into something I simply hadn't intended. Those technical difficulties were something that plagued me later on while being a Producer on public access cable in Seattle in the early 90s.

In the end, I learned what creative is. To be brief here, it is to create. Pretty simple, right? Create, creative. Many of us think it is about some unattainable process, some undefined genius where the end product that results from it has been born of some magical ability. That does exist or seems to, but is really an altogether different thing. 

The other issue that keeps cropping up with this thing about being creative has to do with what is called, "Writer's Block". Which I almost want to call, "Writers' Block". A subtle distinction. So, never mind....

I think that with both issues, one need only to look at the smallest particle of what those things are. If you do that, as I stated in the initial post, life just ain't so tough in being a writer. One step in front of the other and eventually you have crossed a continent. What seems at first impossible is in the end workable with time and effort.

Where it can get tough sometimes is in pleasing others, in selling a work, or in becoming popular in the Industry, Craft, Art, or media. Those are also separate issues. We just choose typically not to see it that way. 

To do "Art", to be a "Writer", requires doing it, learning it, practicing it. It requires showing your work to others, taking their "constructive" comments and discarding the rest and then, doing it all again and again. It is not letting our fears hold us back because we're not, "good enough". You're as good as you want to be. True or not, that is the thought to hold on to if you ever want to get anywhere. Have you ever noticed some artists seem to get somewhere, but aren't really that good, yet their attitude is such that people simply seem to buy into it? We all need a little of that to achieve success, but the effort also needs to be there, and the quality. 

The point of all this really is this, do not get caught up in the romanticism and elitism of what "creativity" is or what others think it should be. it is what you need it to be. But to be accepted, you have to convince others and make them see what you see. If you can't do that, then the creativity is all yours, and yours alone. Only you can decide whether that is good enough for you. Most of us however, want others to see and believe in what we have created.

The important part here is to just do it, learn from it, and do it again. 

It is when you find after some time and effort that you are not progressing, that then is the time move on and go to something less "creative" and find another venue to be productive in. If that is even possible. Because to create is to be creative. The issue there is in being accepted as being a "creative" in a "creative" field, like the Arts. 

Sometimes our "bliss" is not what we want it to be. Recognize that. 

If your bliss is not in being a "creative type", then find what it is and find your passion for it. Or find somewhere that the two can compromise within you to allow you to be something that gives your life meaning. Meaning above and beyond. It certainly beats being miserable all your life just because your capabilities and talents aren't what you imagined or wished them to be. If and when those two things match up in life, it truly is a wonderful thing and yes, then it's easier to get into that productive, creative "zone" that people talk about. But not everyone has that perfect "zone". You see those types (but not always) in places like the Olympics, as famous artists or authors, even Doctors, or Space Engineers, or whatever. But you may know them by name. 

Still in the end it's your choice. It has to be. 

The wonderful thing about being a human being is that you can decide your destiny. It's not typically easy. Not for most of us. Good hard work pays off. But also luck, making your own luck, being in the right places at the right times, knowing the right people for your need and, in never giving up on a dream that is reasonable for you to attain. Even if it is unreasonable, you can still attain it (within reason). There are two meanings for "reason" here. One is if it is improbable or worse, impossible. The other is if it can happen but cannot happen within all known realms of information. Many great things have been done when someone did what all others assumed to be the impossible. On the other end of the spectrum, some have wasted entire lives and never gotten anywhere and what they achieved was never of any use to anyone, anywhere at any time. Just do your best not to fit into that last category.

You'll never fly simply by flapping your arms, but it doesn't mean you can't invent a way for you to fly.

Whether you are born into being someone creative or not, whether it's genetic or environmental or both, work with what you have and make it be what you need. Don't let your need be something you cannot attain, but don't let yourself think you can never attain the unattainable. Sometimes our reasoning changes on things and what once was unreasonable can quickly becomes reasonable, and mundane. Consider the cell phone and what it was like in the 1960s to contact others. Think about the personal computer, iPads, Smart phones and so on. These were all things that were unreasonable and yet, someone made them reasonable. 

You can become who you want to be. 

Just make educated, well informed decisions on your desires, have a little imagination (or a lot) and push the envelope. Most importantly, just start to make something where there once was nothing. 

And then creativity can be yours, too.

#creative #writer #author