What to do when your passion and energy to write has died?

drybonesreborn · May 5, 2007

Well, I took a break, two months..and nothing productive has come out. I had a few characters written down for an Atlantis story....and well it's gone. I can't even draw well anymore, my work is like a second grader.... ugh.

Anyone feel this? The death of writting?

blacbird · May 5, 2007

Talisker.

caw

Devil Ledbetter · May 5, 2007

Write a sex scene.

blacbird · May 5, 2007

Talisker, and research on a sex scene.

caw

Storyteller5 · May 5, 2007

What inspires you? Read some great writing or check out some great art.

Your other option is to just write and give yourself permission to write crap for a while. Give yourself a limit a day - say 500 words or 1000 - to write anything. Somedays it might be "this is crap and I don't feel like writing anything because I ran out of milk at breakfast and my phone bill came today..." Sometimes just the habit will wake up your creative side.

sunna · May 5, 2007

blacbird said:
Talisker, and research on a sex scene.

I go back to a map; I don't know why but seeing an image of the world I'm working on/in always gets my imagination up & running again. Or at least awake and cranky.
Other than that, what StoryTeller said sounds right - set a limit and make yourself write something, even if it's nothing coherent.

StolenTurtle · May 5, 2007

What I do when I feel like that is just write. Write about anything, write about nothing. Write about something funny or heartbreaking that happened to you today. Write about not having anything to write about, but KEEP WRITING. I find if I just continue to jot down ideas (no matter how stupid) and keep them, a few weeks later I'll go back and read them and realize I have a few great story concepts that I hadn't noticed when I originally wrote them. I find myself piecing different story ideas together and coming up with something AMAZING.

You wouldn't believe how many stories I've come up with by doing just that. Your muse will return, I guarantee it.

drybonesreborn · May 5, 2007

Thanks for the tips guys.

Kristin Landon · May 5, 2007

Consider also that you may be one of those people who's got a creativity well. I have one, too, and sometimes it runs dry—I hate everything I write, I can't solve plot problems, my characters infuriate me. . . .

What helps me then is to stop taking anything out of the well for a while (to give myself permission not to write and not to beat myself up about not writing). Instead I spend some time putting things in. Read new books, listen to music, watch movies I enjoy (ideally ones I haven't seen), go for walks, talk with friends (but trying to listen more than talk), maybe take a short trip if I can—basically, get outside my own head and start taking in new images and ideas.

A week or two of this can make a big difference, I find.

imagegod · May 5, 2007

Write a story about a writer who can't write a story...or an artist who can't (fill in the blank)...or a (fill in the blank) who can't (fill in the blank).

Write who you are...where you are in order to help you (or your characters) go where they want to go, do and get what they want most of all in order to become who they most want to be.

maestrowork · May 5, 2007

Work at McDonald's for a month.

SpookyWriter · May 5, 2007

maestrowork said:
Work at McDonald's for a month.

Or better yet, sleep with McDonald for a month. Seriously though, I've been writing for bunch of years because I enjoy it. I think you must enjoy writing or it becomes too much like work. Then again, if you are inspired by the virtues of money and publishing credits I can understand how you might get burned out. The chase for an elusive prize is always the most difficult to overcome.

Do write a blurb or a thought. Take time away from the story. Write a different story. Go on vacation. Whatever it takes to spark that love of writing, just discover it by accident.

I also find that talking to fellow writers in person helps. When I am down and don't feel like writing then I will pop over to a writers group and just listen for a bit. I thrive off their desires to write and publish which gives me that same desire and inspiration.

Good luck

Claudia Gray · May 5, 2007

One thing I do when I'm feeling a bit burnt-out on the writing itself is research. It's still getting me closer to my goal, even if it's not words on a page, and usually finding out interesting details I can use fires me up to hit the keyboard again.

engmajor2005 · May 5, 2007

There's this book called The Writer's Portable Therapist. What it has you do–free-writing excercises for twenty minutes–you could do on your own, but it offers some great prompts and some straight-to-the-point advice.

If you'd rather not spend twelve dollars on the book, here's how each excercise goes (the author calls it the "Free-Flow Writing Method").

Five-minute breathing exercise:
Breathe in for a count of five. Hold it for three. Breathe out over a count of seven. Breathe from the diaphragm, nice and slow and even. Do nothing else these five minutes. Clear your mind of distraction; maybe listen to soft music but other than that nothing.

Twenty-minute writing exercise:
Write, by hand, for twenty minutes. Do not correct spelling, do not revise or edit. Just write. If your brain blanks out, then write nonesense or (as I did) "I'm thinking" or "I'm stuck" over and over again. If, after twenty minutes, you want to keep going, keep going. But don't stop until you've cleared twenty minutes.

It worked for me. I was having an emotional slump and spent some time with this book. If nothing else, it allowed me to let some of the poison out, so to speak, and got me writing again.

kristie911 · May 5, 2007

I went through several months just recently where I didn't write a thing. I had ideas but they seemed to come and go and I couldn't manage to grab one and make it go somewhere. It was because I was on an anti-anxiety med...now that I'm off, the writing has started again. But during that time, I would journal sometimes, just to try and make something happen...it didn't bring the creativity back but it helped me feel like I was doing something. What I didn't do was beat myself up over it...that wouldn't have helped anything.

Just give it some time...do some reading, maybe some journaling, just look at an object and make yourself write a paragraph about it...anything to keep yourself from feeling bad. Don't worry...the creative spark will light again!

Sean D. Schaffer · May 5, 2007

Drybonesreborn, give yourself permission to write cr*p. And find something that inspires you; write about it. Your present genre might just be fizzling out on you, so find one that inspires you to keep going.

What matters here, though, is what do you personally want? You might not even want to write anymore. Don't force yourself to do something you hate, but make sure you really want to write and, if you do, then like I said above, give yourself permission to write cr*p.

Turtle07 · May 5, 2007

drybonesreborn, yes, I have felt that way before. Most of the time it turns out to be a writer's block and I get over it eventually, but there was this one time I didn't write for about three months.

How I got over it? I spent the three months reading my old stories and reading my fave books. I kept reading until an idea, any idea, sparked. It was hard and took forever for me get over it, but soon the mechanisms started creaking as they started working and then I'm back on track!

Feeling dead about writing and having the ability of not writing is pure torture. I hate it when that happens. So the only thing I do is get comfortable, make me a cup of hot cocoa, and read until I'm content.

Oh, also try seeing if u can somehow rewrite one of ur ideas to make it a completely new story.

bunnygirl · May 5, 2007

You could try taking a statistics class or attending a lot of dull meetings at work. My mind always flees into creative mode out of self-preservation when confronted by numbers, formulas, and people droning on and on about stuff that doesn't really matter.

But on a more serious note, I agree with the advice to allow yourself to write crap. Just write. Don't worry about whether or not it's any good or whether you'll be able to do anything with what you write. Write a scene that you've had in your head for a long time, even if you won't ever have a story for it. Or in a pinch, edit stuff you wrote before. That sometimes jump-starts things, too.

But most of all, don't sweat it. Worrying about it won't help and will likely only make it worse. We all have ups and downs, and if you give yourself permission to not be "up" all the time, the downs won't last nearly as long and won't be as traumatic, either.

Kristin Landon · May 5, 2007

I'm discovering that the best cure for "drying up" is a contract deadline. Somehow when you know you must produce something, your mind finds a way. And in fact I have never, ever been so productive, or so happy to be writing.

And it isn't crap, because there isn't time for it to be crap. :tongue

I mention this because I certainly worried during my previous dry spells whether I had what it takes to do this professionally. I have been greatly relieved to find during the past year or so that what must be done can be done.

Shadow_Ferret · May 5, 2007

drybonesreborn said:
Anyone feel this? The death of writting?

Yes. So much so I don't even feel I belong on this forum any more.

Bartholomew · May 5, 2007

I pick up a flute and practice the piano for a while.

Bartholomew · May 5, 2007

Devil Ledbetter said:
Write a sex scene.

That's actually a good idea.

Kristin Landon · May 5, 2007

Shadow_Ferret said:
Yes. So much so I don't even feel I belong on this forum any more.

I worked seriously on writing for fourteen years, and on marketing for ten, before I sold my first piece of fiction. Sometimes I did not want to keep on working. I had (still have) a critique group that met weekly and that at least expected some effort to write weekly, but sometimes I just could not do it.

You get tired. You get seriously tired. Sometimes life demands too much (kids, an illness, a job crisis).

I think you have to allow yourself to do this. If you aren't kind to yourself, the world of agents/queries/editors/publishers is not going to make up the deficit.

The world won't end if you take a break from writing every day, a break from the query/rejection mill, a break from pounding your head against the wall when you just can't solve your creative problems.

But if you've worked hard on writing before now, maybe that's because it's what you want to do, what you need to do. Maybe the break is not giving up, but rebuilding your strength for the effort that's finally going to get you there.

I've never known anyone who crossed that final boundary who saw it coming. I certainly didn't.

Anthony Ravenscroft · May 6, 2007

The good advice will seem contradictory if you try toi take it as a consistent bunch. Depending on the person, I've told 'em to take two weeks' vacation, writing absolutely nothing, period, nothing at all beyond filling out checks & such... & I've told 'em to keep plugging, to write bits or blurbs or proposals or letters.

There's no one-size-fits-all solution when burnout encroaches. You might have to try a few fixes before you find the one (or combo) that suits you best.

Lawrence Block suggested in two of his nonfiction books that it's best to set yourself a goal, like 500 words/day & three hours or less, & stick to it. Within those bounds, you're free to overwork, but you have to produce the minimum; when time or output hits your pre-set goal, then you're done for the day.

Shara · May 6, 2007

Kristin Landon said:
What helps me then is to stop taking anything out of the well for a while (to give myself permission not to write and not to beat myself up about not writing). Instead I spend some time putting things in. Read new books, listen to music, watch movies I enjoy (ideally ones I haven't seen), go for walks, talk with friends (but trying to listen more than talk), maybe take a short trip if I can—basically, get outside my own head and start taking in new images and ideas.

A week or two of this can make a big difference, I find.

I do this, too. Every once in a while I feel like I 'dry up'. The more I stress about not being able to write, the worse it gets.

So, I do what Kristin does, and give myself permission not to write for a while. I watch TV, I catch up with old friends, I play computer games.

Eventually, the muse will return, but sometimes you have to let it go at its own pace.

Shara

What to do when your passion and energy to write has died?

drybonesreborn

blacbird

Devil Ledbetter

Come on you stranger, you legend,

blacbird

Storyteller5

Say something...

sunna

StolenTurtle

drybonesreborn

Kristin Landon

imagegod

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

SpookyWriter

Claudia Gray

engmajor2005

kristie911

Happy to be here

Sean D. Schaffer

Turtle07

U know u wanna cookie...

bunnygirl

Token Rabbit

Kristin Landon

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

Bartholomew

Comic guy

Bartholomew

Comic guy

Kristin Landon

Anthony Ravenscroft

Scribble, scribble, scribble

Shara

Fix it in the Rewrite