That New Page Smell

Writers' Wednesday!!!

No matter what writers write or what tools they use, they all start from a singular point - a blank page.

A blank page has a lot in common with pristine new snow, an immaculate new car, or even a fresh-from-the-box cell phone.  Many people don't want to disturb it's perceived innocence by altering its state in any way.  Until you violate that space, you're not a writer.  You're a... uh... modern art admirer.  Or something like that.  But, definitely not a writer, which was my point.

Here are a few tips to get you going using that space for its intended purpose:

1. Tromp through it, carve it up, and leave your mark.  Don't write on it.  Draw.  Completely free form.  Use your non-dominant hand and scribble like a snowboarder or snowmobile driver that doesn't care where they're going.  Just fill up the page.  Eventually, you will start writing words.  The process will invoke clarity of intent and you won't even know where it came from by looking at your mess of a doodle.
   
2. Spill, stain, or stink it up.  I think we all have the same thing in mind when we get a new car.  "I'll never eat or drink in it.  I won't track any dirt in.  I'll keep it clean as long as I own it."  The irony there is we never truly own it until we've trashed it.  The reality there is we never really own it until the lending institution writes the title over to our name.  The point here is to slap words down in any order that comes to mind.  Play a one-person game of word association if you have to.  Just fill that puppy up with a big ol' block of words.  Chances are, they'll start to make sense to you and you'll be writing.
   
3. Drop it.  You know that feeling you get the first time you drop your mobile phone/handset?  The frantic putting back together of battery and case.  The close inspection of every square millimeter of surface area whilst it boots back up.  The sinking feeling of failure over the scratch that took you ten minutes to find.  Now...  Do you know that feeling you get the thirty-seventh time you dropped it?  That's the feeling you want when you write.  To get there, write "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" until you either get to work or grab an ax.

Blank pages aren't a writer's enemy.  They're our canvas.  It's up to you decide if you want to go for photorealism or a single brush stroke.  (Or it might be up to whoever hired you, but that's another discussion for another day.)

Can't Force Deadlines

Writers' Wednesday!!!

Usually, it's that you can't force creativity.  However, creativity works under looming deadlines more often than not.  Saying that you missed a deadline because you didn't want to force your creativity won't work.  So, what's a person to do if the creativity still hasn't shown up in the zero hour?

Get uncreative.

Slap down those cliches.  Hit all the predictable points.  Put archetypes smack-dab in a metaphor and wrap them up in deli-sliced cheese.  Do this early enough into the process so that you can fake it until you make it.

Chances are pretty good that you'll get out some great work in a second or third draft of derivative drivel.  In this regard, it's not so much what you write as it is what you right.

I used to miss deadlines by a day or two consistently.  In junior year of high school, my English teacher nicknamed me "Mr. Late."  (not my only nickname, but the only one relevant here)  I pursued perfection and waited for inspiration.  Had I turned in my papers on time, I would have received all A's.

Thankfully, it was a lesson I learned well.  (I'll never forget the look on her face when I held up my paper as she was habitually skipping my desk.)  I can do good work on time.

If you're feeling pressure of an upcoming deadline, stop being creative long enough to get ahead of the game again.  I don't suggest plagiarizing.  It takes more time to look up and copy something than it does to just be unoriginal and obvious.

Deadlines can even be worked into your structure very well.  They help set parameters.  Love your deadlines.  The more you use them to your advantage and don't stress the creativity, the better your productivity and creativity will be.  Make them living-deadlines.

Writer's (Chopping) Block

Writers' Wednesday!!!

There's no such thing as writer's block.  It's a myth.  Made up by trickster spirits like goblins, sprites, and fauns. And if you believe in writer's block, I've got a unicorn farm priced to sell.

A few noteworthy issues that keep the legend of writer's block alive more effectively than that silly photo of Bigfoot:

• Subconscious awareness that you shouldn't write what you're trying to write because it's wrong
• Laziness
• Dawning realization that you don't know your topic well enough
• Break time

I suspect that the majority of what people call writer's block has to do with the first issue.  Admit it.  We all get these marvelous epiphanies of the best story we've never written and then the deeper we get into it, the more we realize it's one of those microwave burritos that stay frozen in the middle and that doesn't matter a whole lot, because if it was cooked all the way through, it'd still be a horrible, tasteless mess.

I thought I had writer's block for a couple weeks about ten years ago.  (It wasn't writer's block.)  It was a plot hole large enough to run a super highway through.  I paved around the hole, finished the story, and only realized a few years ago that the screenplay I wound up with had two scenes that touched on my original story idea.  The whole script was otherwise well-written crap that the brads barely wanted to hold on to.

The second issue merits elaboration...  (but I don't feel like doing it).

A lot of people say, "write what you know."  I say, "write what you love."  If you truly love a subject enough, you will enjoy researching all the aspects of it necessary to build the backstory and knowledge base you will need.  The love will shine up through the page (or screen) like blowing kisses to your reader (audience).  Having a love and understanding of your subject means gushing all over the page.  You'll be too busy trying to fit all the words into the parameters of your format to be able to blame anything on the writer's block fairy.

The last issue of my (not entirely exhaustive) list deals with recharging after mental fatigue.  If you've been pounding at the keyboard for sometime, have cracked your knuckles to the point where you bend them mindlessly even without the satisfying popping noise, and/or find yourself making five detours on the way back from the bathroom, then you have just been warned to reconnect your charger, my friend.  Not writer's block.  So, take a walk, shower, nap.  Go dance, exercise, cook.  Just get away from the writing until you have got to get the words down or else the Universe as we know it will cease to exist.

I'm sure there are many more issues masquerading as writer's block.  Anyone care to share some?  Wanna comment on the points above?  Be my guest!