My Blocks (Of which there are many)

scheherazade · Aug 6, 2008

No wonder I find it hard to write, with so many can'ts running through my head.

1. Can't write a good story because I don't understand literature.

2. Can't write a story to live up to the praise my classmates or teachers have bestowed on my recent work.

3. Can't fit it in the day because I need to clean my messy apartment or take my lazy butt to the gym before I indulge in writing.

4. Can't make a living at it so first I need to build myself a satisfying career that frees my mind to write at the end of the day.

5. Can't make myself happy with my current career so I have to take night classes to build a new career that will free my mind to write at the end of the day (but can't write because I need to do neverending homework first).

6. Can't find the energy to wake up early or stay up after the daily necessities are taken care of.

7. Can't come up with any ideas to write about even when I do sit down to write.

8. Can't build a plot even when I do start with a scene or a character.

9. Can't write realistic stories because I lack life experience.

10. Can't think of any more can'ts right now, but I'm sure they're there, just waiting to sink my writing motivation.

#2 is really tripping me up right now.

As wonderful as it is to have people who know writing give me personalized feedback about my strengths as a writer and encouage me to continue writing, I always feel like each new piece I write is inferior to those other pieces they've praised. One peer in particular gives me an incredible amount of support and regular assignments to keep producing, but has also called some of my past writing "profound" - and that's very difficult to have that standard looming over your head when you're writing new stuff. Sometimes I feel like the praise is an attempt to coddle my fragile ego, and I don't trust it fully. And yet at the same time, I accept that, perhaps by accident, I wrote a line that someone considers profound. But now there's no way this crap I'm writing now can ever measure up. So it's a success block. I'm too afraid to show stuff to people who know my writing anymore, because I fear they'll see it as inferior to my other stuff...

Maryn · Aug 7, 2008

Kindly allow me to assign a writing exercise. Drop and give me 10--ten cans, that is.

FWIW, it helps if you give yourself permission to write utter crap. My own can list would have I can write large amounts of crap first. That doesn't mean I get to show it to anybody, just that it's a perfectly adequate first step.

Maryn, who hopes she can help rotate you 180 degrees

scheherazade · Aug 7, 2008

11. Can't succeed at writing because I fail at everything else in life.

stormie · Aug 7, 2008

scheherazade said:
2. Can't write a story to live up to the praise my classmates or teachers have bestowed on my recent work.

That is a very common way to feel, but it's a very big road-blocker. Happened to me when I first started submitting my work and got high praise from an editor. I froze. My way around that was to write something totally different and submit to another market. I still do that today if I feel that bit of icicle forming on my brain. Later, if I have something pressing that has to be sent in, I can go back without that self-doubt.

Listen to Maryn, too. Her advice is good. Now, force yourself to do what she advised. There are times when you have to.

scheherazade · Aug 7, 2008

Maryn said:
FWIW, it helps if you give yourself permission to write utter crap. My own can list would have I can write large amounts of crap first. That doesn't mean I get to show it to anybody, just that it's a perfectly adequate first step.

This is totally, totally true. I'm a huge advocate for writing s#!tty first drafts. But still, I find the pressure of having to workshop something can sometimes make me forget that. If I don't now anyone in the workshop, I can suck it up pretty easily and be content to workshop what I've got. But when I'm in a class with people who know my work well, and especially when I'm in a class with this one peer who consistently writes very, very strong stuff, I have so much more anxiety about performing.

It's kind of ironic in a way. If people know my work, they should be more likely to read my weaker work and think, "Well, she must be having an off day," whereas strangers would be more likely to think, "She's not a very good writer." But I just hate it when people have expectations that I fail to meet!

I think what I need to work on is to learn how to revive a lousy story. Part of my performance anxiety comes from the fact that my strongest stories so far have been the ones that started out strong from the first line. My weakest stories have been the ones that didn't know what they wanted to be or how they wanted to get there. So then I start to feel like if I don't create some incredible beginning, this story is destined for crapdom. That places so much more pressure on the opening paragraph.

I think I'll start a new post in the Roundtable on how to resurrect a crappy start...

scheherazade · Aug 7, 2008

stormie said:
My way around that was to write something totally different and submit to another market. I still do that today if I feel that bit of icicle forming on my brain. Later, if I have something pressing that has to be sent in, I can go back without that self-doubt.

This is true. I've noticed that, after getting praised for the first chapter of my novel, I pretty much blocked myself on writing the rest of the novel (though part of this is also because I'm not sure where the plot is headed, and I have to choose between two completely different but equally compelling potential plot directions).

So I deliberately started playing around with different stories - new characters, different tone and setting, maybe changing up the voice a little. Then I received praise for some of those story starts, and some encouragement to continue expanding those other stories. That, apparently, was the motivation I needed to write a new scene for my novel.

Actually, come to think of it, maybe this is a bit of a trick that might work for me. I actually enjoy defying peoples' expectations about story content. If someone is expecting a novel excerpt, I give them a new story. If someone is expecting subject matter or characters similar to my last story, I write something completely different. Maybe I can somehow use this defiance to remind myself that I'm already not meeting their expectations of content so therefore it's not as big a deal if I don't meet their expectations of quality. It's a bit of a stretch, but it might help.

Also, the other thing I have to do, which probably isn't the best strategy but sadly it helps, is to deflate their praise a bit. When I receive the praise, I revel in it, I repeat it in my head for a few days and think about what it means and how excellent a writer I must be. But then I tuck that aside and then remind myself that the reviewer also really liked Story X, which I thought was mediocre. Or I tell myself that I trust that this person is honest when giving me praise or criticism, but that the praise is exaggerated because this person thinks it will help me get over my fear of writing. My writing wasn't really "brilliant" or whatever ridiculous word they used. It was just good. And I can certainly write good stories again.

scheherazade · Aug 7, 2008

Reasons why I should keep writing:

1. To meet my weekly page goal (quantity, not quality; necessity is the mother of invention).
2. Writer's high doesn't come on until you've written several paragraphs.
3. To disprove my parents that writing can be worth it.
4. Because I apparently can write really funny, clever stuff.
5. Because I'm not good at anything else, so maybe I was just designed to write.
6. When I'm being silly I often write more interesting stuff than when I'm trying to be a Serious Writer.
7. To have something of value in my life.
8. To use all these blank notebooks I bought.

9. To get all the crappy stories out of my system so I can free myself to write good stuff.
10. Cuz what else have I done this summer?!

Broadswordbabe · Aug 8, 2008

Two books I'd really recommend: Bird by Bird (Ann Lamott) and Write: 10 Days to Overcome Writer's Block. Period. by K Peterson. Both very different, but sincerely useful and fun too.

qwerty · Aug 8, 2008

scheherazade, you are being too hard on yourself. Chill out, relax, writing is to enjoy, not beat yourself up over. You know you can do it, but you seem to be worried about letting others down if you don't perform to expectations. Theirs, not your own.

When I was at school I was expected, by peers and tutors, to be always top of the class in English and writing excersises. Sometimes I wasn't, but I refused to let the pressure get to me.

Trust me, I'm old enough to be your gran.

scheherazade · Aug 8, 2008

qwerty said:
You know you can do it, but you seem to be worried about letting others down if you don't perform to expectations. Theirs, not your own.

When I was at school I was expected, by peers and tutors, to be always top of the class in English and writing excersises. Sometimes I wasn't, but I refused to let the pressure get to me.

Yeah, but sometimes it's nicer to be the underdog and to be challenged to prove yourself. I've recently developed a small informal circle of writing peers and their encouragement has been hugely, hugely inspiring to me (basically taking writing from an "i'd like to but can't," to "i will fit this into my life however i can, and i will write things that people enjoy or admire, and when i feel compelled to give in to my internal naysayer i will have other people kicking my butt back in gear").

So caring about what other people think has been really helpful to get me to a point where I'm producing and where I believe I have strengths as a writer. They point out things in my writing that I would've considered unremarkable. I wouldn't have thought twice about cutting a certain line or scene, and then someone else will tell me how profound or funny or essential this element is to the rest of the story. The downside of this relationship is that I think a lot more about my audience, and then I measure everything based on whether it will make the audience happy. It's a good attitude to take to some extent. But then I get frustrated when I'm not writing stuff that I think will please them. I feel like I'm defective at literary analysis and that makes it harder for me to know when I'm writing something that will be deemed "brilliant" or something that will be "good, ,but not your best work." Maybe that's my problem. I get kind of angry when people give excessively strong praise to my work because I don't necessarily see what they see in it. So how am I to know whether my next story is strong as I write it?

Ruv Draba · Aug 8, 2008

scheherazade said:
1. Can't write a good story because I don't understand literature.

Can write a good story because you have something to say, a felicity with language and the power to observe.

2. Can't write a story to live up to the praise my classmates or teachers have bestowed on my recent work.

Can write a better story because your classmates and teachers inspire you to.

3. Can't fit it in the day because I need to clean my messy apartment or take my lazy butt to the gym before I indulge in writing.

Can fit it in the day because you are clever enough to reprioritise.

4. Can't make a living at it so first I need to build myself a satisfying career that frees my mind to write at the end of the day.

Can grow your education and life experience to increase your powers of observation and language, and to help you reflect on what your writing will say.

5. Can't make myself happy with my current career so I have to take night classes to build a new career that will free my mind to write at the end of the day (but can't write because I need to do neverending homework first).

Can be encouraged that you are following in the steps of many successful writers who had strage day jobs and who took night classes.

6. Can't find the energy to wake up early or stay up after the daily necessities are taken care of.

Can pick the times that you are most creative and alert, and dedicate them to your passion.

7. Can't come up with any ideas to write about even when I do sit down to write.

Can recognise that you are choked with ideas born of your questioning and observations.

8. Can't build a plot even when I do start with a scene or a character.

Can capture your character at a point of change or definition, and write a short story about this.

9. Can't write realistic stories because I lack life experience.

Can write fanciful, imaginative stories because all young people can.

10. Can't think of any more can'ts right now, but I'm sure they're there, just waiting to sink my writing motivation.

Can realise that fear precedes self-discovery and change, that change is incremental and begins slowly, and can be patient enough to persist as it gathers momentum.

11. Can't succeed at writing because I fail at everything else in life.

Can get over your perfectionism.

My suggestion: stop bargaining for a better break. There's nobody to bargain with. Life often gets more demanding as you get older, not less, and a better break wouldn't actually help you write any better than you can right now - what you're lacking is practice, not opportunity or talent.

My other suggestion: stop worrying about whether your stories are deep enough. Settle for 'entertaining' with a bit of 'provoking' thrown in.

scheherazade · Aug 9, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
My other suggestion: stop worrying about whether your stories are deep enough. Settle for 'entertaining' with a bit of 'provoking' thrown in.

Not worried about depth so much. But the problem is that the most positive feedback I get about my stories isn't about entertainment or story or character, it's often about my use of humour or clever turn of phrase or more literary-style devices, and often they're not things I plan or even understand. It's hard to harness your strength as a writer when you don't really recognize it in your own writing or the writing of others. That's why I have to ignore praise for the most part and just focus on writing a good story, but I haven't quite mastered this aspect yet.

My latest can't: Can't start with a good plot in mind and write a good story. I can start with no story in mind and write a great few pages; sometimes I can figure out a plot and enhance it from there. But any time I try to start with a full story arc in mind, I end up writing a story with a lot of telling or just not that interesting. Not sure why.

It's good to get the can'ts out of my head and locked away in cyberspace. I still agree with most of the can'ts, but sometimes just writing them out makes them seem silly.

Ruv Draba · Aug 10, 2008

scheherazade said:
Not worried about depth so much. But the problem is that the most positive feedback I get about my stories isn't about entertainment or story or character, it's often about my use of humour or clever turn of phrase or more literary-style devices, and often they're not things I plan or even understand.

Okay.

It's hard to harness your strength as a writer when you don't really recognize it in your own writing or the writing of others.

The first is common; the second is a concern though. Is it that you don't read, don't understand what you read, don't care about what you read, or are you too afraid to express a view? Or are you exaggerating the problem?

Writers disagree about almost everything on the writing process except for the need to read broadly and extensively, and to form critical views about what we read.

This one's a show-stopper for me, Scheherezade. My advice is that if you're not reading or have no opinions about what you read then stop writing. You'll be wasting your time and the time of your critters.

For the rest of my post I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, and instead assume that you can tell, but just don't know why it's good writing.

My latest can't: Can't start with a good plot in mind and write a good story. I can start with no story in mind and write a great few pages; sometimes I can figure out a plot and enhance it from there. But any time I try to start with a full story arc in mind, I end up writing a story with a lot of telling or just not that interesting. Not sure why.

Let's carve your writer's mind into an observer's part (the part that watches the world and develops insights), an inventive part (which uh... invents), an expressive part (which turns your ideas into words) and a critical part (the part that deems whether things are good, and what's wrong with them). [There are other parts to your writer's mind - like a fossicker and a tidier-up, a whip-cracker and a time-keeper, but let's leave those alone for now.]

To be a good writer, I believe that each part of your writer's mind needs to work well individually - and in a harmony together. One reason that writing is hard is that there are so many parts, and their interactions are so darn complex. The reason that writers have such different processes is that the relative strengths of our parts vary, and learn to accommodate the other parts in different ways.

My background is as a scientist, and so my critical part is well-developed. My second strong-suit is observation (the scientist in me again). If you ask how an analytic observer approaches writing fiction, for me it was by critiquing a lot of fiction. That made me good at editing other folks' drafts but did nothing at all to exercise my invention and expression muscles. Silly Ruv! [Eventually I worked out that I need to exercise the things I'm less good at.

]

From what you've said in the last couple of posts, it sounds like your expression is a strong suit, and perhaps your observation too (why else would people be calling your writing deep?). It sounds like your invention and critique might need some exercise though. So here's some advice about how to develop those sides. This advice costs nothing - and that might be what it's worth! So, use it just if it helps.

Suggestions for improving your invention

Do you understand the anatomy of a plot? Do you know what setting, situation, character, objective, opposition and disaster do? I didn't, but I found some nice write-ups on them here. Roger L Ferrier's articles don't get cited much, but they're practical, no-nonsense and free. If you don't understand much about the anatomy of plot, I think that they're a good start as they digest a lot of what's in other writing books.

Do you have a particular problem in plot design? For most writers it comes down to design of setting, character or situation. There are some great resources about designing good settings and characters - I won't list them here. (Besides, when your settings or characters stink, your critters usually tell you pretty quickly. :tongue

)

Good situations come down to two elements though: action and dilemma. Action is doing something that's difficult or risky, and dilemma is being forced to make a choice where you're screwed either way.

Assuming that you can write character and setting, the entertainment in your story will probably come down to your ability to invent interesting situations and apply interesting consequences to your characters' choices.

A good way to practice situation-invention is to write short short stories. Try to capture in 200-2,000 words a situation that either defines your main character or changes it. Use action and dilemma to do so. Pay close attention to stakes and consequences. Lather, rinse and repeat.

If you set aside a couple of hours of writing per day, you should be able to churn out one of these every day or two. Start with a list of no-win situtions, where the stakes might include physical safety, social reputation, personal relationships, money, job security or anything else that people worry about. Write situations from the list.

Get your friends to comment on these but explain that they're just exercises. Get them to judge your writing - not you.

Improving Critique

Write structured critiques. Write lots of them. Focus on setting, character, plot, dialogue, expression, theme. Read stuff on SYW. Be brutal, friendly, funny. Be meticulous. Help other writers and you'll help yourself as you do so.

It's good to get the can'ts out of my head and locked away in cyberspace. I still agree with most of the can'ts, but sometimes just writing them out makes them seem silly.

Sometimes what happens with writer's block is that we hit a developmental plateau and then compound it with blame, denial, and self-justification - so we get stalled for longer than we need to.

I thought that your first post looked like blame and self-justification, but I thought that the post above looked more like trying to understand and solve the developmental problem.

That's a step forward, S! Stick with that. I hope that this smattering of advice may help.

My Blocks (Of which there are many)

scheherazade

Human

Maryn

At Sea

scheherazade

Human

stormie

storm central

scheherazade

Human

scheherazade

Human

scheherazade

Human

Broadswordbabe

I'd rather be a cat.

qwerty

exiled Brit

scheherazade

Human

Ruv Draba

scheherazade

Human

Ruv Draba