1. Read over and revise the previous day’s (or session’s) writing. It’s a nice warmup for easing into the flow of the story and getting new words going.
2. 10 minutes timed writing about anything at all. If you don’t stop until the 10 minutes are up, you did it right.
3. Think about the 5 senses, look at the scene you’re writing, and imagine how and what the characters see, feel, hear, smell, taste.
4. Baby steps. Write for ten minutes on the work in progress, take a break. Work another ten minutes, take a break. You can fill up a lot of pages with baby steps.
5. “If you’re blocked, lower your sights.” This is my favorite Lawrence Block quote, and it’s very true. Quit thinking about the book’s future sales or performance. It doesn’t have to be the best novel ever written. It just has to be YOUR novel, and written.
6. Play “how many ways”. How many ways could this scene be written, or how many ways could it end? How many ways can your character communicate the piece of information that has to be said? Iambic pentameter, rap, sign language. Sure, you’ll come up with silly ideas that won’t work, but you’ll get out of a mental rut.
7. Read. Reading greases the wheels of the imagination.
8. Start with a starter sentence, and go on from there. If you can’t think of a starter sentence, there’s always the classic, “It was a dark and stormy night”. Raid your bookshelf for somebody else’s sentence and use that as your starter.
9. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Instead of thinking of writing the whole book and feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, focus on writing this page. This scene.
10. If you really can’t get yourself going, maybe something is wrong with the story. Write for 10 minutes about the project, how you feel about it, what you suspect is causing you to stop. I often get hung up because there’s something I have to go back and fix in the first act in order to set up the story’s correct development in the second and third acts.
11. If you already know what’s broken, go fix it. Don’t be a Nazi about not making changes until the bitter end. Fixing it now will save you work.
12. If you can’t figure out what’s broken and can’t move forward, ask a friend or two to read it for you and give feedback. Even if you don’t have a regular critique partner, there’s probably a writer in your acquaintance that you can ask. In return, be willing to read their broken story and help them out when they need it.
13. Write something else. Yes, if all else fails, put that project aside and write something else. Keep moving forward. Prove to yourself that you can still write, build up your confidence, and eventually that tangled manuscript will unsnarl itself and you’ll move forward on it again.
All very good suggestions!
Thanks, Charli! A visit to your site always
perks me up for writing.
Thanks, I could use this today.
Thanks, Lauren. It always helps to have a starting point. *g*
Tracy, that’s the bestest compliment!
Hope it helps, LA.
Great list, Charli. I’m printing this out and plan to try several of your methods.
Nic, it’s always nice to have a cheat sheet. *g* I firmly believe you can never have too many tricks up your sleeve when it comes to conquering the blank page!
#1 usually gets me out of a rut. Those are really some great suggestions!
Lesley, #1 is my tried and true way for getting started, but when that isn’t enough, I drop back and punt. *g*
All great suggestions, Charli. #1 and #3 are favorites of mine.
NJ, I do 1-4 all the time. *g* And I’ve worked my way through the entire list when I had to!
Great list. Thanks for the suggestions.
Ann, we all need a kickstart.
This one is soooo true
If you really can’t get yourself going, maybe something is wrong with the story.
Shi, that’s the one that gets me every time. The worst is when you can’t immediately put your finger on the problem.
I had to take #7 off my list – it became too easy to get caught up in reading instead of writing.
Great list though – I know where to look when I get stumped next.
Heh! I’m the opposite, Ember. I write myself into the ground and have to remember to stop and refill the well.