A Fix For Those Who Are Suffering...

Hey all,

I don't usually tread these grounds, but I recently overcame a three month bout of writer's block and thought I would share my antidote.

To summerise in four words: Stephen King's 'On Writing'

This is the book that helped me. It may help you, or it may not, but it wasn't the book that helped really, more the content included.

It started while I was reading Stephen King's 'Misery', which follows the story of an imprisoned author who is forced to write for his number one fan. Around the middle, the MC begins to enjoy the rush of writing again, and goes into detail of what is running through his mind. This helped get the mental cogs going in terms of my own writing, and that's when I started reading On Writing.

The difference with On Writing is that it focusses even more on the workings of a novelist's mind. The in depth detail of his mind (and his explanations on how better to use yours) really helped pull me out of the quicksand of writer's block and also helped improve my writing. It got my blood flowing and rushing and before I knew it my fingers were gliding across the keyboard again.

Just thought I'd throw it out there and hopefully it will help someone break free of the wretched block!

Best of luck!

midazolam said:

I do have to ask about your signature, though - you enjoyed every single book you read this year?? I started about 60 books and finished maybe half of them. Even Stephen King disappointed me this year (attempted to read three of his, 2 were DNF).

It was a tough year in books for me, which may at least partially explain my writer's block.

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I don't know, maybe it was just good choice. A lot of what I read was books I'd seen on the shelves for years but never really picked up. I enjoyed them all, but there is only a handful I'd read again. I was disappointed with a few, one of them being a Stephen King, but I mostly made it to the end of each one. Some I smashed through in a matter of days, others took weeks or even months to finish. It takes a lot for me to put a book down, I'm a very curious person and hate leaving a book unfinished. I have to know what happens, even if I end up hating the ending.

I was distracting myself from my writing mostly so this year I won't be reading as much, but I do intend to try the Song of Ice and Fire novels at some point.