#process:writer's block

[wrex-writes]

Hey Wrex, hope you‘re doing good! I have a writing problem. I’m not able to come up with any ideas UNLESS I’m in a bad place? A few months ago a family member died and suddenly I was able to write again- for the first time in months. I WANT to write but I don’t have any ideas, I don’t click with any prompts or starters and just don’t find something to write about.

I think strong emotions focus the mind somehow. It’s like they cut through the bullshit - suddenly you have greater access to the real stuff and you’re less distracted by unimportant stuff. A few years ago when I was in a really dark place, I suddenly started writing all this poetry, and it kinda dried up once I got better.

Here’s an idea - maybe you could tap into those memories and call up what it felt like during those intense periods. I mean, it doesn’t sound fun, but it might clear your sight a bit. Sometimes if I sit down and write about memories that are very close to the bone, it opens up my other writing as well. Just a thought!

[wrex-writes]

Hi Wrex. I hope you’re doing well. Here’s my writing roadblock: I’m a big proponent of creating art. I think it’s important and that if someone has something to share with the world they should do so because someone somewhere will connect with it. I don’t know how to apply this to myself. As soon as I start writing I question why I think I’m special, why I think my voice should be heard, why I think my stories should be told. Is my art worth sharing? How do I convince myself if it is?

Hello, and sorry for the delayed reply!

The problem might be thinking of your writing in terms of “value” and “worth” at all. Writing is not just about “having something to say”--that is, about having something to offer the world, as if their benefit is what matters. I mean, sure, we generally write so other people will read and get something out of it. But fundamentally, we write (or make any art, for that matter) to say “I am here.”

You do not need “permission” to write. You do not need to be “special.” You do not have to offer your writing as payment for the right to...I dunno, to matter. You can write just to say “I am a thinking creature and there are secret things inside me that will disappear as if they never existed unless I write them down.”

People write to communicate with someone, sure. But that “someone” does not have to be a reading public looking to satisfy their needs. Maybe you address your writing to yourself. To the universe at large. To absent people who will never read what you write. The “person” you communicate with can be abstract.

Later, you can share it with the world and they can take it or leave it. You don’t need to worry about that. Fuck it. You are here, and you can do anything you damn well please.

Lots of people go through life believing they have to apologize for their existence, or justify their presence, or “earn their keep.” They do not. You do not owe anyone anything. Writing is the ultimate expression of that fact. My advice is, forget about whether you “should” write or whether other people want or need your writing--that doesn’t matter. Think instead, “I exist, and if I don’t write these words down, nobody else will.”

[wrex-writes]

Hello, I’m in a situation. I want to write. I REALLY want to write bc it’s something I love. *But* I just can’t get passionate or excited about any ideas I come up with. I couldn’t even tell you what I enjoy writing (or reading!) about since it’s been so long. I’ve read your posts on the idea of mediocre ideas floating to the top, but whenever I try to write out those surface ideas I just get frustrated bc no matter how hard I dig, I can’t get excited about anything. (1/2)

(2/2) I want to fall back in love with writing but i don’t know how. How do I reconnect with the part of me that gets excited about writing and creating in general? I’m currently swimming in a big sea of “meh”. Forcing myself to write my “meh” ideas is just painful bc there’s no joy. Any thoughts are much appreciated!!! :)

First of all, my apologies for the delay! And I know what you mean, anon. It is the worst! Here are some steps that have helped me in the past:

Rather than looking for an idea to build a project on, try some writing that is merely playful. Nothing big, nothing long-term, nothing that requires a plan. Maybe a kind of writing you haven’t tried before - for instance, if you don’t usually write poetry, try that. Try writing little descriptions, or essays, or dramatic scenes. Something you don’t have to maintain interest in for longer than a day. Use language in ways you don’t often use it. Experiment.

Write about yourself. Again, not a long-term project. Take the approach I described above. Memories are a good place to start. Personally, when my interest in writing declines, it’s usually because I’ve lost touch with the thoughts, feelings and experiences that strike closest to the bone for me. It’s odd, but drilling down to that stuff often helps me write fiction and other things that aren’t about me.

Collect stories. Weird things in the news that interest you. Anecdotes you hear about other people’s lives. Anything that doesn’t come from the inside of your head but that you’re drawn to for some reason.

Find a writing partner. When I can’t get excited about what I’m writing, it helps to have a friend who can get excited for me, as it were.

Any of those sound helpful?

[wrex-writes]

how do i finish something? about 90% of the time when i write, i write maybe 10-60% of the story before i get distracted by a new, equally delightful idea, until i end up with 6 WIP stories each with multiple chapters, all overwhelming in obligation to finish them. the longer i go without finishing, the worse i feel. i try to distract myself with a new one until i run out of steam on that one too. im disabled and dont have much energy to spare, either.

You and me both, friend.

I’ve found it helps to go back to one of the stories I’ve abandoned for a newer, shinier one and really think about why I abandoned it. Chances are good the new idea distracted me because I was looking for a way to avoid the old one, and if I can understand why that happened, I can address it.

Usually the answer is: the pressure to finish the story killed any excitement I felt about writing it. I’d look toward the finish line and think “oh god that looks so hard,” and then I’d glumly start in on the story as if I had to bail all the water out of the ocean. And because I wrote with this sense of obligation dragging me down, the story itself got boring - like, for me and everyone else. I got less creative, less playful. You know how some scenes feel like scenes you just gotta get through? All scenes became that. And so of course I wanted to write the story even less.

When this happens, you gotta step back and reassess. Personally, I have to make myself stop avoiding and face the story head-on. Why was I excited to write it originally? If I can figure that out, I can focus all my attention on the exciting stuff and ignore the details until I’ve built my momentum back up. If I genuinely can’t remember why the story seemed worth writing, well, I should probably set it aside.

I’ve also gotta coax myself back into that headspace of exploratory creativity. Writing the draft is never quite as free and fun as coming up with new ideas, but you can do things to get some of that freedom back. For one thing, remember: no scenes have to be boring. As I said above, there’s this idea that some scenes are necessary but not much fun. This is untrue. If parts of the story are dull to you - not because you’re tired and you’ve thought about them too much but because they’re fundamentally inert - take those parts out. If you need to get from one place to another and the way you’d planned on getting there bores you, make a different plan. Throw out the boring idea and experiment with new ones. Take that old story that seems so fixed and predictable and play with it again. Surprise yourself.

I could only do this, though, once I recognized that my excitement over new stories was masking my fear of the old ones. So yeah, first step: take out one of those old stories and just…sit with it. Say “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you yet, but I’m not going to avoid you anymore.”

I’m glad you sent me this ask, because I literally have a work in progress right now that I left in the dust for a shiny new idea, and I need to practice what I preach and get back to it.

[wrex-writes]

Can’t write it cuz I haven’t written it yet, rinse repeat

@aurora-nerin wrote:

All of this is legit as fuck, but what’s weird, when i did ask myself: ‘’why are u terrified to write that next chapter that you been putting off for 3 months?’’ the answer is: I dont know! i dont have a fuckin clue. In my mind, it’s like, the chapter should already be mapped out when i sit to write, or i should have some idea of it and i dont. why not? Not having is ideas is probably what’s scaring me the most. The thought that ‘’see? you started something and run out of ideas, cause you cant write  a worthwhile story till the end!’’ that’s what’s my fear and, it’s like, a circle of misery: cant write cause dont know how to write. dont know how to write cause i too scared of not finishing the thing. cant finish the thing cause i cant write.

send help im gettin teary eyed around here, for real

Hello friend, I thought I’d give my reply to your note its own post.

Yeah, it’s a horrible Catch-22. (Is it? I’m never sure if I’m using that expression right. But you get the idea.) You don’t want to start until you know exactly what you’re going to write, but you can’t know exactly what you’re going to write until you’ve written it.

So first of all, this problem is very common and totally understandable, because from where you’re standing, if you don’t have ideas yet, it feels like you’ll never have them again. Some magical people can live in that space of uncertainty and think “it’s okay, ideas will come to me as they always do sooner or later.” But many of us don’t have enough faith in our abilities to tolerate that feeling.

A few things to keep in mind:

First ideas often aren’t great. You have to keep reminding yourself that they aren’t the only ideas you’ll ever have, and that sometimes you must drill down past the initial round of uninteresting ideas to get to better ones.

No ideas are written in stone. Just because you have an idea doesn’t mean you have to use it, and any idea you have doesn’t represent your abilities or potential. Words and ideas are sand paintings - you can wipe them away whenever you want.

Sometimes you will not know what the story is about until you finish a draft. This is a pain in the ass because then you have to rewrite it, but it gets easier if you remind yourself that the first draft was necessary to get to the ideas that will stick.

Yes, as you’ve seen, your mind will occasionally go blank. This does not mean you will never have another idea again. If you bluescreen, start doodling. Pursue a few ideas that don’t seem all that promising initially but that might lead you to ideas you actually like. Whatever you do, do something to lubricate the gears. It doesn’t matter if that writing isn’t dynamite, it’s just to get you moving again.

Have a little faith in yourself. Humans are terrible at predicting the future because we assume a current state of affairs will last forever. This is a known cognitive bias. Try to notice when it’s pouring lies into your ear.

(By the way: if part of what’s stressing you out is that you feel like your readers are getting impatient, you can always drop some kind of update: “look, I’m going through some shit so you’re gonna have to wait a little longer, hope you understand,” that sort of thing. And resist the temptation to be apologetic about it. Anyway, I dunno - that would make me feel better, I’m not sure about you. Just an idea.)

To conclude: man, I know the feeling. But writing will happen again, I promise.

[wrex-writes]

do you have advice for managing anxiety while writing? lately i've been running the same pattern a lot. i'll write a paragraph or two (or the equivalent idea dump) and then my brain just stops working. i'll just sit there in a loop of "have to keep writing, important things to say" but i'm just frozen and can't spit ANYTHING out on the page. i've gotten good at noticing it when it happens and trying to be nice to myself, but i have no idea what to do from there and i want to keep writing

My first impulse is to say: it would help to get a little more insight into where that anxiety is coming from - or rather, why that anxiety makes you freeze. (A little anxiety when writing is normal, but once it crosses a certain threshold, it’s bad, as you know!)

The way to gain insight is to slow the process down and switch from “I gotta” mode into data-gathering mode. Do an experiment: sit down to write knowing that moment of freezing will come, and when it does, sit with it an observe it as closely as you can. Do you feel it anywhere in your body? Can you detect any specific fears underneath the noise of “I gotta but I can’t”? You mentioned thinking “I have to keep writing,” so ask yourself why it’s so urgent. What bad things will happen if you don’t? Also, does this feeling resemble feelings you have in other parts of your life? Take note of circumstances too: is it merely the quantity of paragraphs you write that determines when the anxiety kicks in, or does it begin when you shift modes - like from, say, describing to action, or making some kind of plot decision? (Those are just a random examples, could be anything.) 

For a little while, don’t treat this as a problem you need to solve but a phenomenon you’re studying.

This alone might have the side-effect of decreasing the anxiety a bit. If you can tolerate it for a short time without the goal of making it stop, that might alter the pattern. But keep detached observation your primary goal for now.

Ultimately, one usually gets past these kinds of problems by altering one’s habits. You have a habitual way of writing: sitting down and writing a few paragraphs or idea-dumps, then hitting a wall. Those habitual actions trigger a habitual series of thoughts and feelings. The best way to change the thoughts and feelings is to change the habitual actions. So once you understand the source of the anxiety better, we might think about how you could begin your writing sessions differently to interrupt that pattern that always ends in debilitating anxiety.

[wrex-writes]

probably a question that doesn't have an answer, but I thought I'd give it a go?? When I'm happy, writing feels like utter bliss, like falling in love for the first time --but when I'm Really Sad™, writing feels horrible. This is funny because lots of people say 'when you're sad/angry, and you write, the best poems/songs/stories/art are created'. Well. When I'm sad, I can't write. Tbh I can't do anything. Any tips, advice or thoughts? Any part of the process or similar that helps lift your mood?

First of all, “when you’re sad you write better” is not even slightly universal! Depression sadness makes it hard to do simple stuff like brushing your teeth, so why would it improve your writing? Some people are motivated by pain, but certainly not everyone.

(It’s funny - I find I can’t write fiction at all when I’m depressed, but I can write poetry. In fact that’s the only time I can. Who knows why!)

Personally, when I’m too depressed to write but feel the urge, I either 1) don’t, and remind myself the mood won’t last forever, or 2) do the least energy-demanding writing possible. I’m talking lists of words I like, little descriptions of inanimate objects, whatever. Maybe I sketch out characters based on people I know. (I just found a Sims random character trait generator - you could generate some traits and think about a character you could build around those traits.) Or maybe I do something non-writing-related that’s creative but similarly low-effort.

You probably won’t will yourself from Really Sad into that falling-in-love feeling - for that, you may have to wait it out. But during the wait, you can do super easy writing activities to keep yourself in the game and distract yourself - or simply give yourself permission not to write.

[wrex-writes]

So I’m exactly the opposite of that last ask (I think?). I can’t sit down and free-write. I can’t write short stories for my enjoyment. I can’t write ~for me~. I love writing, have always loved it. But as of two years, when it comes to writing, unless it’s a story exchange or I’m roleplaying with someone else, I can’t write. Somewhere a part of my mind is saying ‘do iiitt do iiit’ but I just... can’t?? Any sort of help would be immensely appreciated, thank you just for giving this ask a chance.

Hm, so roleplaying works for you, yes? It sounds like you need writing buddies. I don’t roleplay, but I show drafts to my friends and spitball ideas with them a lot. At this point I don’t think I could keep writing if I didn’t do that.

Writing is relational. You are always writing for someone, even if that person is you, or someone who will never read your work because they’re far away or estranged or dead. The trick is keep that listener present to you even when you’re alone with your draft.

I know I keep saying this, too, but even if you’re writing sci-fi adventure stories, you’re not going to connect with them long enough to see them through if they don’t have a big streak of you in them. Stories have to touch something in you that’s real and probably painful. This is why I like my friends to read my work. If they engage with it, I feel seen and understood, and when they reflect what they see back at me, it helps me stay connected to the writing.

[wrex-writes]

hi i really like your blog :) i believe that you should write stories that you're passionate about and make you excited. the problem is all my ideas are so BORING. i can't think of anything exciting and nothing i can come up with is interesting enough for me to stick with it until its completion. any advice? thank you!

It’s hard for me to give specific advice without knowing more about the circumstances (at what point do you tend to get bored? do you know what exactly turns you off at that point? etc.) but here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately:

There’s this idea that story ideas must come “from within.” As a kid, I tended to isolate myself from other people and I wanted stories to keep me company, in a way, but that’s not how stories happen. Your mind must be invaded by experiences you never could have imagined on your own.

The world is friggin’ weird.  I heard a This American Life episode the other day, for instance, about a guy who set up a hotline for people to submit prayers to Satan. He didn’t believe in Satan, particularly, he just thought it would be interesting. Now, I could not have imagined this guy in a thousand years. But now I know he’s out there, he can go in the big compost pile of my brain and maybe he’ll turn up in a story some day.

I swear, all you gotta do is google “weird news.” Or even just “news.” Or ask your mom about a time she got in trouble as a kid. I bet there are Reddit threads out there that have, like, twenty novels in them. (Just, you know, be careful which one you pick.)

If you can tell me more about how you experience this boredom, let me know. But those are a few thoughts in the meantime.

[wrex-writes]

Hi your answer about making brainstorming more exciting actually really helped. Maybe it sounds odd but I never considered just mashing together different story concepts/tropes/etc that I like. I’ve been brainstorming and fleshing out ideas based on what makes the most sense to the original idea. And that’s where I got bored bc what makes “sense” is not necessarily what’s fun to write. Mashing together random concepts sounds much more fun :D Thanks!

Hey no problem, glad it helped!

Have you watched the X-Files? I used to listen religiously to a podcast about it, and they’d discuss how the stories got written. Like, one guy in the writers’ room would apparently be all “we should do an episode about the Satanic ritual abuse scare” and another guy would say “I saw a video of a boa constrictor eating a goat!” and they’d end up with a story about a Satanic school board that culminates in a guy getting eaten by a snake. It sounds like a lot of episodes were written this way. The writers would just…throw a bunch of unrelated ideas into the pot and they’d make a weird stew out of it. I think about that a lot.

[wrex-writes]

anon from post 178388059366 // by potential i mean that i have a rough idea of the direction i want the story to go, any overarching themes that may appear, and what i want to accomplish with it. i have it all mapped out in my head, but i always seem to lose interest in it before i can actually write it. any sort of enthusiasm i had when i first got the idea just vanishes.

Okay, some thoughts on what might be going on for you:

It sounds like these ideas might be too intimidating. It often happens to me where I’ll get an idea for an ambitious story, I’ll plan out complicated themes and character arcs and intersecting subplots…but once I’ve done that, the task of writing the story itself looks so big that my desire to write it evaporates. The more architecture your initial idea has, the harder it will feel to execute, cuz with each word you write, you’ll see all the plates you’ve got to keep spinning - “I’ve gotta establish this character motivation, lay the groundwork for that theme, set up this subplot” etc. Your brain can’t handle all that stuff at once, so it shuts down.

Dovetailing with that: it also sounds like your ideas are too abstract to hook you in emotionally. In my experience, the desire to write a story has to come from a very specific source: you’ve got an image in your mind, or a conversation you want two characters to have, or you want to see how a character reacts to a specific event. Something very concrete and kind of…simple. As I said above, the sooner you jump ahead to larger structures, the more likely you are to get overwhelmed, and many of us react to that by losing interest.

So what I’m saying is: try starting smaller. Pick one postage-stamp-sized piece of an idea, one that only implicates a single story element - I find a relationship works best, because they’re my emotional way into a story - and just write one little scene focusing on that. Allow yourself to write a scene without the noise from all the story’s other moving parts. Once you’ve done that, try another scene that way.

Oh, and go straight to the scenes that interest you the most. I find that when I start a long story, I’m tempted to write boring set-up first, as if I have to earn my chance to write the fun scenes, and it totally kills my excitement. Don’t do that. Write the fun scenes immediately. Don’t worry that you haven’t set them up sufficiently; you can rewrite. (Also, guess what? You can skip the boring scenes. That’s right - just skip them. If they’re boring to you, they’ll be boring to us.)

Does any of that strike a chord?

[wrex-writes]

Same anon from before: thanks for the reply :) I think I tend to get bored when fleshing out my story. When I get inspired, I have a really vague idea of something eg. Victorian England except with dinosaurs. But then to write a story about that you need a plot and worldbuilding and characters. And then when I try to brainstorm I quickly lose inspiration and become bored. Do you have any advice on how to not lose your initial creative spark in all the details?

Ahhhhh I understand, yeah. If you’re like me, you like big concepts but characters are your emotional hook into the story, so if you create the characters as ancillary to the concept, it can feel kind of…mechanical.

What you need are some specifics that grab you emotionally and that maybe don’t even relate to the concept at first. Think about characters - not necessarily ones specific to Victorian England or dinosaurs, but just interesting people - or about character dynamics that interest you. Let’s say…a bored wife. A wife who’s bored by family life but has an intense secret hobby and a pen pal/lover with whom she corresponds about that interest. I…kind of had Victorian England and dinosaurs in the back of my mind there, but only vaguely. I could now think of several ways my (now Victorian) housewife and her friend could get involved with dinosaurs. I learned recently that people were getting more interested in dinosaur bones around the turn of the 19th century, and that by the late 19th century people were just starting to study them in light of the theory of evolution. I dunno what this would have to do with my plot yet, but it’s an interesting data point.

I heard a podcast recently called Out on the Wire by the comic artist Jessica Abel, and there’s a bit in the first episode (specifically 8:15-13:30) where she describes how the premise and plot a particular book of hers developed. (She started with a kind of random character generator, actually, which is a cool idea.)

I dunno, does any of that help?

[wrex-writes]

Do it! Write something RIGHT NOW! Grab a piece of junk mail or a paper towel and write LITERALLY ANYTHING on it. A SINGLE WORD.

Okay now you’ve written something. No obligation to do it again. But every time you think “ugh I want to write but I can’t write,” do that. You’ve started. You’re writing again.

[wrex-writes]

Previously I would get ideas just by looking at pictures, stickers, or stuffed animals, and thinking up characters based on them. Or I would watch a movie and think how I could write it better or what would happen if a character made a different choice. Or sometimes I would insert myself into an existing story, but change some details, names, and characters. All these methods are good, but aren't working anymore.

I don’t know how this idea will go over with you, but would you consider writing about your own life for a little while? I’m not saying make all your stories autobiographical from now on, I’m saying spend some time writing out a few of your own experiences. Ultimately, that’s where all stories come from, whether we realize it or not, so facing that stuff directly often gets things moving again.

[wrex-writes]

I am out of story ideas and forgotten my old ones. What should I do?

Well, let me start by asking: where did your old ideas come from?

[wrex-writes]

Writing and movement

You know what can really help when you’re stuck on writing? Walking. I suspect it’s because it’s a repetitive motion that doesn’t require much conscious thought. Which means any such motion would probably produce a similar effect—knitting, for instance. I’ve gotten good results by washing dishes. But I suggest walking and knitting because they’re rhythmic, and something about the regular intervals, the breaking up of time and movement into equal segments, loosens up my thoughts and gives them a mould to pour into. I dunno—all I know is that something happens, and the words often get moving again.