Somebody shoot me

[three seven]

It's 11.45pm here and, aside from a couple of hours when I got so bored that I did some rewrites on something I'm not even developing, I've spent the whole day trying to come up with something... anything. I've written 313 sodding words, and you know what the worst part is? This is the best day I've had in weeks. D'ya ever just feel burned out?

[Coco82]

I feel you. i'v had times when I'm dry for weeks and weeks.

[ElizabethJames]

Late night writing. Dang. You're bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘You smashed my tail light.’
‘I hit you that hard?’ Allan squirms.
‘Afraid so.’
‘God, I hate this kind of stuff.’
‘Yeah, well.’
‘You’re Cindy, aren’t you?’
‘Do we know each other?’
‘I’ve seen you at PTA meetings. I’m Allan Tweedside.’
She cuts her eyes back and forth, trying to link this bald-headed man to her shadowy recollection of someone named Tweedside.
‘Did you used to have hair?’
The question scares him. He rolls the window up another inch.
‘Are you okay?’ she squeezes the words through the narrower opening.
He focuses his good eye. Cindy something. Standing in the rain outside his car. Sleepy gray eyes. A long-sleeved purple tie-dyed dress. Piled-up dirty blonde hair. Dangly earrings. Pineapple face. No tits. He marvels at the speed of his shallow assessment.

[Ivonia]

I know how you feel. Some days I absolutely do not want to look at my work (with spring semester kicking in now too, that's even less time I get to work on it).

I don't know if it'll help you, but try brainstorming ideas elsewhere besides your work place. A coffee shop can sometimes do wonders to help me kick start ideas (I seem my best ideas when I'm in a public area for some reason). Bring a CD/tape/MP3 player filled with your favorite songs if that will help to let you boost your idea generators (I work best when I'm listening to ambient music, to help me imagine being in the world for my story).

If you feel that burnt out, then just do something else in the meantime if you can (like if you don't have a deadline looming). Like I said, there are some days I just don't feel like doing any writing at all, and I do other things like surf the web, watch movies, or sometimes take a walk (when it's safe to do so, don't go out at night of course hehe).

If you feel like writing, then do some freewriting. You'd be surprised the things you can come up with. I was once stuck on my story, and just started writing about four chapters ahead, because I had solutions worked out already for that scene. As I wrote it, the story just came out on its own, surprising even me with the things I wrote, and it helped me to not just break through the block, but smash it down completely since the ideas I wrote down filled so many other plot holes I had.

Of course, everyone's different, and not everything I suggested may work for you, but I suppose it couldn't hurt.

[HConn]

If you feel burned out, stop writing and start reading.

[katdad]

I've had occasional dry periods like any writer. When I'm particularly enervated, I go out and party, drink beer, play pool, shoot my pistols, play pool or darts, go to the beach, see an opera, chase women, and generally recharge my batteries in various ways.

If you still want to get shot, do you prefer a random drive-by or a more specific, hands-on assassination attempt? Close range handgun or shotgun, or long distance via sniper rifle? (ha ha)

[three seven]

do you prefer a random drive-by or a more specific, hands-on assassination attempt? Close range handgun or shotgun, or long distance via sniper rifle?
If you could unload a pair of nines into me whilst leaping in slow motion from a flying motorcycle, Big Willie Style, that'd be great.

Thanks for the words of wisdom and/or sympathy - I've managed to spend the whole of today eating doughnuts in lieu of thinking, and I feel thoroughly refreshed, if a little bloated.

[Gala]

What if you were hiking toward Indian Garden in the Grand Canyon, and all a sudden thought, "I don't feel like hiking any more."

So you turn around and go back.

What if you were running a 3K race, and at 2.5k thought, "damn, I'm thirsty. Screw it. I'm too old and tired for this nonsense."

Often when one persists through the wall of fatigue, burnout, negative self-talk, and external voices telling you it's okay to stop dead in your tracks, a second wind erupts from the cells and the soul.

You may indeed be burned out because you've been writing 2 or 5 thousands words a day; you need to rejuvinate.

But just maybe the hottest creativity is on the other side of that wall. Have you ever persisted through that wall? Good, then you know it's not worth it to keep going.

Take care.

[sqrrll]

I am with HConn. Nothing inspires me more to write than reading a good novel.

One other thing that helps me when I am thinking up ideas is to just sit down somewhere by yourself and let your mind wander. No guidelines, just let your imagination do what it wants.

The last resort is to watch the Eagles win the SuperBowl. E-A-G-L-E-S!!

[sc211]

Definitely recharge. Willie Nelson said he felt that way once, that he'd never write again, and someone told him to just wait and let the well fill back up again.

From a Stephen King interview...

For me, a lot of times the real barrier to getting to work – to getting to the typewriter or the word processor – comes before I get there.

I had one of those days today where I thought to myself, “I’m not sure if I can do this.” I have a lot of days like that. I think it’s kind of funny really, that people think, “Well, you’re Stephen King, that doesn’t happen to you,” as if I wasn’t really the same as everybody else.

But I had to do this tense scene, and I wanted to do it right, and I didn't know if I could. And what that means is that I dallied by the teapot, and I read the sports twice, and I said to myself, “Well, you shouldn’t be doing this. You know the Red Sox won; what else do you need to know?”

And then I said to myself, “Well, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if you went down to the Y and had a workout.” So I did that, and finally I got back, and the same thing always happens. I sit in front of that word processor, and I say, “Why did I stay away? It’s so good to be back here.”

And then there’s always those first few things where you feel awkward, and there’s a feeling of being ina medium where you don’t precisely belong. But then you acclimate. There’s nothing really very magical about it. If you’ve done it day in and day out, the cylinders all sort of fire over. I think the best trick is experience. After you’ve done that a certain amount of time, you know it’s gonna get better.


Die like an Eagle... :D

[katdad]

The last resort is to watch the Eagles win the SuperBowl.
Jeez. It's gonna be a long time before he gets back to his writing if he waits for that....

[reph]

Has anyone found it helpful to start writing any old thing, something easy, maybe silly, and not related to the project at hand, to loosen up the part of one's brain where the ideas are stored?

[maestrowork]

Yes, Reph. Sometimes I go back to an old piece and muck with that when I'm stuck with my current project, just to get away and keep my juices flowing.

I also take LONG drives. They tend to help unblocking any clogs in my brain.

[XThe NavigatorX]

*Bang!

[three seven]

*Ouch!

[macalicious731]

Jeez. It's gonna be a long time before he gets back to his writing if he waits for that....

Haha, I'm with katdad on this one... Pats all the way! :D

[stormie267]

Maybe you're trying too hard. Last summer I had to just get away from the computer, notebooks, etc, and not even think about writing or submitting. I took a two week break. I didn't go anywhere special, I just didn't write. But I read, as usual. That's something I've done since w-a-y back. After two weeks, I was fine and ready to get back to writing.

[three seven]

Ha-ha! Hahahahaha!
Over the last 48hrs I've spent approx 1hr trying to write, 15hrs sleeping and the remaining 32hrs dossing around. I've played with the dog, added a load of stuff I'm not going to buy to my eBay watch list, smoked a lot, run out of petrol TWICE, complained to the council about them not emptying my bins, had a ten-minute conversation with someone who dialled the wrong number, put up a couple of shelves, watched a bit of TV, rolled toy cars around my desk and generally emptied my tiny brain of any semblance of rational thought. I think you know where I'm going with this.
By bedtime last night I had three novels queued up, and before waking this morning I dreamed a fourth from beginning to end. You guys were right, I'm cured! Genius!