Getting back on the horse

Check out the games and prompts section.

Try setting out a small task for yourself, like a drabble. Instead of thinking "I'm going to start a 5K short story," tell yourself to write a 100 word drabble.

Set small goals for yourself, and I do mean small. Fifty words a day. What's a measly 50 words. Give yourself permission to stop at 50 words. Very quickly, that won't be enough and you'll find yourself writing much more.

Give yourself permission to write drek. It doesn't mean you HAVE to write drek, but just that you are going to write and if it's drek, so what. The point is to start writing again and build the habit.

Join one of the writing word pledge threads scattered around the boards and give another writer permission to if you don't post a daily word count.

Good luck!

Sit

Sit down each and every day, same time and same place. No internet, no games, no nothing. Put your hands on the keyboard and write. Do this every day for a month. If you want help from the muse, she has no know where to find you, and when you'll be there.

Do you have any ideas for a story? If so, don't set a word limit, just plot it if that is what you normally do and write it. Worry about possible markets later.

If you don't have any ideas, I agree with Soccer Mom, go through some writing prompts.

I'm with JAR on this one. Get your butt in the chair and write something. Stuck on ideas? Look around you. There's probably a notebook, that could perhaps be a notebook a character found, filled with cryptic notes or love confessions or details about a recent murder. A pile of bills? What if they were the bills your character's wife always handled, and now she's gone, taken by cancer or a car accident or a lover. I have a box of blank envelopes and a box of discarded clothing within a few feet right now. Both of those things have stories. (clothes: did the person discarding them get fat, get skinny, die, disappear? envelopes: why such a big box? are they already addressed? To a prisoner, to a lost love, to an unborn child marked with a year, to be filled with letters from the parent who knows they'll not live past the child's first birthday but has much to say?)

I keep a file with nothing but story ideas/outlines. I've got myself covered with short story ideas up to next April right now.

And you are, of course, doing a great deal of reading, right?

Hey.
I thought this was going to be about riding.
I feel so used.

Sc00t, you're reading and thinking. You can make yourself write, right?

I cranked out eighteen short stories in six months. For the last month I've been pretty 'impotent' for getting my writing legs back underneath me. >.<

I suppose the best advice I got was, don't try to write your best work after a long absence. Just noodle with an particularly engaging character or interesting plot line. Don't put too much pressure on yourself and don't re-write or edit it half to death.

As far as writer's block is concerned... I'm not sure what to suggest. I'm back-logged with ideas until Doomsday arrives. >.< What kinda shorties do you prefer to write Sc00t?

-An

Yeah, I'm someone who needs to get back on the horse. I haven't really written much and part of it seems to be a motivation issue.

For me, and I had a while back reached the point of almost disliking writing, I'm now starting to experiment a lot more with "language based" strategies for writing. I first became inspired by an excellent book I have on innovative writing techniques, which is full of progressive exercises in exploring and playing with language. Breaking all the rules and blurring a lot of the traditional boundaries, such as those between poetry and prose.

Unlike when I am trying to start from the basis of an idea or theme for prose writing, I'm finding it almost impossible not to spawn unusual ideas by becoming freer to experiment. Having said that it is taking me down some unexpected paths, for example for the first time ever I'm becoming quite interested in poetry.

But even when sitting down to progress a short story now, I'll often begin by taking some time to first play around loosely with with words or phrases related to what I'm writing. To get my creativity flowing more. No rules, not necessairly any objective in mind. Just exploration.

Could be worth trying.

akiwiguy said:

For me, and I had a while back reached the point of almost disliking writing, I'm now starting to experiment a lot more with "language based" strategies for writing. I first became inspired by an excellent book I have on innovative writing techniques, which is full of progressive exercises in exploring and playing with language. Breaking all the rules and blurring a lot of the traditional boundaries, such as those between poetry and prose.

Click to expand...

Name of excellent book, please.

Siddow said:

Name of excellent book, please.

Click to expand...

LOL, this is where I always feel worried that someone else will wonder what on earth I'm on about once they read it. Differing tastes, and this book has a very different approach from most.

Just as an example... I am currently toying with the beginnings of a multimedia poem... i.e. presenting it using "Flash" so that the way I present text, snippets of images, perhaps some sound... becomes part of the work. Just for fun, experimental, no expectations of producing anything amazing... but it's the kind of thing that the book has started interesting me in.

Hope it's OK to post a link... not spam, just a book that does it for me personally.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1741140153/?tag=absolutewritedm-20