Writer’s Block And Procrastination

“If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.” Hilary Mantel

Most writers have struggled with getting the words on the page at some point. But writer’s block is not a monolithic disease with one cause and one cure.

The term is often used as a catch-all for a number of issues which have different causes and solutions. Some of the blocks are caused by fears, anxieties and your inner critic, as covered earlier, but here are some more examples of when you might find writing grinding to a halt.

This is an excerpt from The Successful Author Mindset. Available now in ebook, print and audiobook formats.

If you’re blocked as a new writer writing a first book

The ‘block’ at this point is generally not knowing how to write a book, so you end up flailing around and wasting time, feeling frustrated because you’re not getting anywhere. It’s sometimes due to lack of ideas or how to string them together, but more often it’s just a lack of knowledge.

It could be the desire to write a certain type of book, e.g. literary prize-winner, and just not being able to write anything like it. That was my fiction block for years.

My Mum was an English teacher and I went to Oxford University, so I was raised within the literary establishment. I thought the only book I should try to write would be something that could enter the Man Booker Prize, or something like Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

But actually, I love reading fast-paced thrillers and my guilty reading pleasure while doing English Literature at school was Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt. I love watching Bond films and my favorite movie is Con Air.

Once I realized that I was ‘allowed’ to write fun books that people would enjoy rather than take seriously, you couldn’t stop me writing! My block was gone and I focused on learning how to write those types of books.

Antidote

Ignore what you (or other people) think you should write, and look at your bookshelf.

• What do you love to read?
• What do you choose as a guilty pleasure?
• Be honest with yourself, even if you come from a literary background.
• What’s fun for you?

Then go write that.

Join a local class with other people writing their first books. Do some timed writing sessions based on creative writing prompts. Make sure you are in comfort with your writing tools, try out these domtar cougar deals.

If you’re blocked during a book in the ‘saggy middle’

The block here could be lack of ideas. Maybe you had a fantastic start to the book and you know the ending, but you don’t know how to knit them together.

It could also be boredom with the story and a general feeling that it’s not worth writing. It’s likely that you’re procrastinating at this point, filling your time with things that don’t lead to getting words on the page.

You might also find that you’re trying to make the book too long, when the idea is suitable for something shorter.

Antidote

Do some more research around your theme, setting or characters for fiction, or topic if it’s non-fiction.

Fill that creative well. Think of your mind as a pipe. You have to put things in the top for the ideas to come out the bottom, transformed.

Take a break. If I’m stuck in the middle of a chapter, or just feeling ‘over it’ with a book, I’ll go for a walk. Fresh air cures many ills! But sometimes, if I’ve been working on something for an extended period of weeks or months, I’ll need a bigger break. A few days away from the manuscript, or a few weeks’ holiday, and you’ll come back to the page renewed.

But if you’re really just procrastinating, stop what you’re doing, get your butt into the chair and get writing. It’s about doing the work!

The night that Trump was elected in 2016, an African-American friend of mine, a fellow author, was assaulted in downtown Denver by two men wearing Trump masks and MAGA hats. That was the beginning, an omen of what was to come. The list of high crimes and petty cruelties is staggering, and it’s not something anyone is going to forget, likely ever, especially those who have been further marginalized or victimized by this administration or his cultists.

Another thing came home to a lot of people I know last week. My home town, a village of less than a hundred people now, suffered its first fatality to COVID-19. Tom was a guy I’ve known all my life. His wife was one of my Sunday school teachers. When I was still living there in my twenties, we played softball together. He was a Vietnam veteran, a farmer, a truck driver, a B&B operator, and he was at the VFW every Saturday night cooking hamburgers and french fries. I always liked him. I hadn’t seen him in probably twenty years, but I am saddened by his passing.

And just like almost a quarter million other casualties to ineptitude, negligence, and narcissistic hubris, it didn’t have to happen.

I’ve known for a long time how badly the state of the country was weighing upon me, stifling me, but I never realized the extent of it until this week. The daily deluge of WTFery ate up huge chunks of brain space as I tried to process what’s been happening in the world and in my country.

I believe in this country. I cherish its ideals. And we have gone so far astray. Writing SF and historical fiction requires a person to be really good at extrapolation and making historical connections, and because of that I’ve been terrified since 2016 of what America could become–a fascist, dystopian nightmare.

Sometimes it sucks to be right.

And living history is way more difficult, more grueling, more punishing, more crushing than studying it. Nobody wants to live through hard times. The keyword here, however, is through. When you’re going through hell, keep going.

This week I’m reminded of how much writing requires the freedom to focus. Doomscrolling (a recent neologism), checking the news every five minutes for some sign of hope (hopequesting, another neologism), and the chains of despair and anxiety draped in between don’t leave much space for a clear mind. Every writer I’ve talked to at all the virtual cons I’ve attended in the Time of COVID has lamented the same thing. We’ve all been suffering not just one crisis, but four or five of them stacked on top of us.

We’ve been living with an abusive spouse, a narcissistic cult leader. We’re battered, beaten down, gaslit, and diminished. But we’re still here. We’re not safe yet, but the end is near.

For the first time in four years, I have enough hope to go on. Hope that the white supremacists will be stuffed back into their hateful little warrens and starved of attention until they devour themselves. Hope that maybe the country can stand for something beside greed, kleptocracy, and ego, that maybe there will be some justice done, that we can start tapping the brakes on climate change at the eleventh hour, that we can rebuild bridges to democratic allies after setting fire to them in favor of dictators and tyrants, that we might prevent another quarter million deaths, that American may no longer be a global laughingstock or an object of pity.

This week, the civilized, democratic world breathes a sigh of relief.

For those of you from overseas who’ve sent good thoughts, thank you. On Saturday, I received a pile of messages from friends in Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and the U.K. “Hooray! America returns to sanity.”

For every American who voted, thank you.