Post-election writer's block blues

Similar experience for sure. You have my sympathies and you'd have any advice on a way out of it if only I could find some to give. So far nothing I've tried has worked. I'm hoping it's just a matter of time.

Yep, a bit of a disturbance for the train of thought there But overcoming that is easy, just think that if your book is successful, your life will be stable enough and no such disturbances will affect you at all. It's a bit like dangling an imaginary carrot in front of yourself and just making an extra effort to reach it

My train of thought:
I lost my grandmother on Monday.
I lost the election on Tuesday.
I WILL NOT lose NaNo too.

It has been an awful month. No one could blame me for not winning. Except me. I need something good, something worthwhile, something to hold onto. My family is shattered. My country is wounded. But NaNo holds strong. Keep going. There's still time. You can do this.

It was tough for me to write the morning after. Since then, writing has gone okay. But for whatever reason, I'm struggling to read.

I went through a traumatic experience last summer, and it significantly impacted my ability to write anything new. I couldn't even write about what happened--the fantasy short I started that referenced it was too painful to work on. I still break down when I try. I need more distance.

Yesterday, for the first time, I wrote 900 words that I really liked. Today it's up to 2k. Small potatoes compared to my normal output, but I'm grateful beyond articulation that I can do this again now. The last time I wrote something I liked was in early August. Everything since then has been dust and ashes.

So I went into an editing cave. That's a nice comfortable place to be. I studied story structure of different narrative forms. I worked my way through my TBR pile. I took notes on some of my favorite tales. I jotted down story ideas but didn't push myself to write them yet. I re-watched all my favorite movies and took notes on them, too. I researched agents and publishers and started querying a novel.

Basically, I filled my mind with the equivalent of comfort food. I tried to make it productive because you're right about wasting time only making things worse. Sometimes you just need some distance. I'd recommend finding something you can be productive with--even if it's cleaning a closet. Allow yourself time to heal.

Take notes on your feelings if you can face it. I'm fairly ruthless with myself, and I hate to waste perfectly good pain. If I'm going to hurt, I at least want to get something out of it. But you know your own psyche best.

Your ability to write isn't gone. Nothing can take that from you--it can only be surrendered. Your outline will still be there when you're ready for it.

I compartmentalize. I'm a visual person, so I visualize myself sorting out "election emotions" and "writing stuff" into two piles. To the election stuff I say "thank you, I'm aware that you're there, and I'll come back to you, because you're important, but for right now, I have writing stuff to do." And I set aside that pile (move it off my mental desk onto the mental floor or whatever) and then turn my focus to writing stuff and say, "okay, what do you need from me today?"

This works for me because the reason why I'm being blocked is that I feel like the election stuff (i.e. all the family drama that has ensued in my personal life) is more important, and the idea of ignoring that to do something that feels personal and almost "selfish" upsets me. Like my priorities are misplaced. But I also know it's not so important that I can't continue writing for a couple hours a day, and then go back to it. Visualizing helps me to acknowledge my concerns as valid (rather than ignoring them) and then move on.

So Curlz, Maggie, LJD, Cathleen, and Silva have their own versions of "Suck it up, buttercup"--the successful writers' attitude adjustment, not the Iowa bill. Looks like sound reasoning.

I've made due with baby steps. Winning NaNo is out the window, but I'm committed to raising my word count every day. The Weds After, it was 12 words. But there were 12 new words. One sentence. I made myself do it even though I was crying and my screen was a blur. I've been on a roller coaster since, feeling angry and needing an outlet one day so I get 1500+ words, curled up like a prawn 2 days later and satisfied with 100. I just had to add to the WC. Every. Day.

Now things are evening out, writing-wise I'm psychologically okay with not winning as long as I don't quit. I'm only outputting about 700 words per day but that's fine, too. I had to allow myself some grace--not something I'm good at.

You're writing for kids. They're going to need stories to escape to, a little make-believe safe place. You could provide that for them. Start with 12 words, one sentence, and see where it goes. Be the person that wrote the books these kids are reading.

I haven't got back to my usual monster comics yet, but I made a point of putting in the work. Which included formulating a cartoon about the election that wasn't just spite-filled ugliness (at my fifth try or so), then a blog post about how I made that cartoon and how it helped me get back to that. (Not sure if it helps here or if it translates to NaNo projects, but here you go. It gets more political the further down you go, so feel free to stop at any time if it's too much.)

Baby steps.

I was in a similar place after 9/11, with a webcomic launch being scheduled for later that week. Wasn't easy but I was darned if I'd let some stupid terrorists decide when to schedule my comic, so I went for it (a week later, though). Concentrating on that helped a lot. It's a good line of work for that, once you're in.

Also, if you're on a wirintg software like Scrivener or YWriter, use the full screen mode and switch off your browser. Bad things don't go away when you don't see them but they sure get easier to handle when you don't see them all the time.