When you CAN'T WRITE: Work on your writing anyway, or turn to a more "fun" writing endeavor?

When you CAN'T WRITE: Work on your writing anyway, or turn to a more "fun" writing endeavor?

I wasn't sure how to word my title, but maybe others will relate to this:

There are many days when I feel as if I've hit a wall in my writing and can't make progress. When this occurs, do you tend to take on your writer's-block-fighting techniques (for me, it's sitting down and treating my writing like my FT paid job), or do you let yourself work on something else that's still related to writing?

For instance, when I can't work on my novel, I'll still write that day. I'll handwrite in a journal, write a long email to my mom, or maybe ramble on for a long, long time on AW. I've still written that day, still practiced my ability to construct a sentence, practiced taking on a particular written voice, wrote something geared toward a particular audience, and even worked on something that I value. However, I still usually feel that this is a cop-out, especially because I KNOW it also acts as a procrastination device in terms of working on my novel.

I'm sure for some people writing anything at all can be a method of working through writer's block, but this is usually not the case for me. So, do you tend to force yourself to work on the writing at hand, or do you use writing in general as your writing for the day and an acceptable break from your project?

JetFueledCar – Oh I like that! I need to distinguish between fiction vs. goofing around writing. You’ve obviously been more diligent than I have by doing so. I usually only have 1 or 2 WIP at a time, and now I’m at a weird state in which one is mostly done and one has only recently been started. I also do need to get over myself and do more fiction writing challenges, not simply insist that I must devote all that brainpower to my WIP . . . even on days I don’t actually work on them! Thank you for these suggestions—I’m going to steal them from you and put them into practice.

LJD – I love outlining, but, yes, sometimes I go into compulsive mode and take way too long on it, especially in terms of adding too many details, putting everything in “perfect” order, and formatting. I love that you chug along no matter what, and it inspires me to do the same. Does it get hard for you near the end of a WIP? Maybe it’s done from beginning to end, but there are some middle scenes that need to be added? This is always a giant hurdle of “waiting for inspiration to strike” for me. Also, sometimes I feel like my forced writing comes out forced. I can accomplish a solid paragraph word for word over the course of an hour, OR I can wait to feel like writing and get several pages down in a snap.

DanielaTorre – I love doing this as well, but sometimes I get too caught up and spend days on end editing mid-work.

Queen Yinin – I do tend to edit paragraph-by-paragraph as I go, so editing sessions are usually the more laborious rewriting of rewrites and elaborate copy-pastes. Very easy to get too caught up in it, but I like this suggestion. Stepping away is nice as well, but especially since I’m on “island time” now, it seems that one thing always leads to another, and suddenly it is 11 p.m., and my laptop’s battery is dead.

CuddlyClementine said:

My ways for coping might be different because I struggle with a whole load of mental illnesses, but when I have those bad days and I really can't face looking at my MS I go through the folders and folders of writing from when I was 15-16 and give myself a good laugh. I thought that stuff was good and it is just simply awful. I look at how far I've come and realise I probably can face it. If not, I edit. Editing is fairly simple, easy on the mind and you actually get stuff done and feel like you did something useful. If none of that works it's probably because the mess around me is making me feel sad, so I clean the house. When I'm done I feel refreshed and can most likely tackle editing, if not writing.

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Good tips! I haven't been diligent about keeping older writing, but sometimes I do read old college essays just to remind myself that what I wrote was relevant and seen by other people at some point.

Editing is a mixed bag for me. I can never simply look for grammar, spelling, awkward sentence structure, etc. Editing usually turns into the rewriting or insertion of a scene.