The Writer's Wall

   For the last month, you have written 500 words a day consistently, every day. Sometimes you wrote during the day, and sometimes beginning at midnight when you want to be sleeping, but you wrote on. You have been told, and you fervently believe that you must write every day, No matter the conditions, no matter what you write, just write. And by god you’ve done it, written every day. You have resisted the urge to have “WRITER” tattooed across your forehead, even though you know it is well deserved.
    You sit in front of the keyboard, fingers at the ready. You are preparing to share your universe with the world. Twenty minutes later your fingers still haven’t moved.
Writer's block is squeezing your intestines. Your fingers want to spasm. You are standing in front of the dreaded writers' wall, and nothing you can do will get you over the top. You are so frustrated you are ready to cry, or worse give up writing altogether.
    There are many steps we can take to push past such stumbling blocks. The first and easiest cure for writer's block is to take a walk. If you have a dog, walk with her for about a half hour or so before sitting down to write again.
    If you are blocked when you have already started writing something such as a story, a novel, or a blog post, stop working on it. Start something else. Begin writing another blog post or a new short story or start writing the idea for what you thought of as your second novel. An alternative to this is to begin a journal. Write out your frustrations or write about your friends or anything you might want to write in a journal. This takes you away from the block into a whole new sphere of writing. You probably should not spend more than an hour of your time doing this because you really do want to finish your first endeavor.
Often writers' block strikes when you are deciding what you are going to write. There is nothing worth writing that has not already been written. The approach might be unique, but the idea has already been used. If what you want to write is fiction your best way to find ideas is to look at ideas that have been around far longer than you. Look at The Brothers Grimm, or Hans Christian Anderson, or even Aesop. There is also the realm of mythology as well as the early histories of other cultures. Ideas abound, and they are ready for your own unique interpretation.
    While writers' block can be a fearful obstacle, it can be overcome with your own diligence and desire to get your ideas into the public domain.

Your comments are most welcome.

Neither a Pantser nor a Plotter Be

        Most writers do not enjoy complying with rules. We are artists and regulations constrain us. We are free souls who want nothing but to create. When stifled we rebel. Most of us comply with minimum rules of grammar and structure, not out of choice but out of necessity. Not too many readers enjoy facing persistent spelling errors or blatant errors of style.

As writers, how do we build our tales and spin our yarns?  The most creative writers, as they will tell you, are the Pantsers. The Pantser writes with magic. He looks through the wall of Writers Block, and with magic driving him, pure blinding creativity flows into his hands, and beautiful words flow like spray from a waterfall. Most of them are happiest with pen and paper, or typewriter, and will not approach a computer until composing the final draft.

    At the other extreme are the plotters. They have produced copious notes, using Evernote and pencil and scratchpad. Scenes are built from notes into almost perfect paragraphs. Characters, certainly the major ones, are spelled out in meticulous detail. By the time the plotter sits to begin the actual writing, most of the book is written and never, ever is there a flaw in the plot. The detail of the text is beautiful in its simplicity but is built from the meticulous notes that are the skeleton of the story.    

Good writers are neither plotters nor pantsers but are hybrids depending on what they are writing. I have heard some novelists say they are pantsers, but I don’t believe it. You cannot write a really cohesive novel without some kind of outline. It will fall apart or be devoured by its own complexity.    

If you are writing a piece of flash fiction why would you bother with an in-depth development cycle? If you are writing a novel, novella, or a long short story, you will merge both tools and develop a well-constructed work devoid of plot holes. Your hero will have the same hair color from start to end. More importantly, the knife scar that began on his left cheek will not have migrated to the opposite side at the conclusion of chapter seven. 

    For an example of flash fiction using the pantser method, see “The Tell-Tale Canary” in the pages section of this blog. 

An example using both methods is“Sirens Song” also in the pages section. The two primary characters Martin and his Muse were crafted using an outline. The story grew by writing around the character descriptions.
All stories in the pages section are written by me.
Your comments are most welcome.