can't write

Try writing something simple and see where it leads. Don't worry about the subject matter too much or anything else. Once you begin the act of putting together a story, it can get you back in the flow.

jerry phoenix said:

. . . .i feel like i am all written out. ive got nothing say, no story to tell.

. . .

Click to expand...

Try writing about that, eh?

--Ken

Take a break, go live life, after you've lived some life and you still have no stories to tell maybe consider doing something else.

If after your break you miss writing and can't imagine not doing it, then figure out something to write.

You can have one day off. Then, back in the chair. Write anything, even if it's not your usual style. Just do it anyway. It doesn't even have to be anything you intend to complete. Just write something. Stay in the habit, or it'll go away.

The best advice I ever got about this (not that I always follow it) is to write through the block.

Just write, even if it's about nothing. Something will come of it eventually.

Find some writing exercises and try your hand at those. One of them might spark something.

Google "Writing exercises."

There was a time back in the 90s where I'd gone almost 4 years without actually writing anything. I found a writer's website that had some exercises, started doing an exercise each night, some I even repeated. And then, like a clog breaking loose in a pipe, the ideas started flowing and I wrote a 13,000 word short story, a 195,000 word novel, and have just continued.

I started a writing blog for short excerpts. I go in knowing the excerpts are throw-away because they're already "published" online and no one will have them. It's a no-pressure kind of situation. Even if it sucks I leave it up there, but the lack of pressure usually helps take of that edge that makes things stilted and sucky. It helped me, at least. Maybe you need some throw-away writing? Not so much pressure to be conventional and correct?

a day you take off every week is a good thing. A week you take off every year is a good thing.

A week you take off because you just finished something is the surest way I know to stop writing for months.

Another trick is to pick up a book or story you like by someone else, and start typing it. It's not unusual for this to turn into a jumping off point for something of your own. (Just don't forget to delete the other person's work once your own takes off!)

Go out to your local mall with a notebook and people-watch. Think of the people and situations you see there as potential characters. Go do something you haven't done before, some one-off class that you think might make a good story and jot down notes. Get out of the house and away from your computer but still keep yourself in 'story' mode. I used to go to a tea shop and hang out, reading something related to my story. Unfortunately, that store closed but now that a local mall has put in some comfortable chairs and made the center court more 'hang out' friendly, I might spend more time there. (Which is probably the point of it all - getting people into the mall and using it like that in the hopes that they'll actually be tempted to spend money in the stores there.)