Writer's Block
Writer’s Block. That’s what I had all day yesterday, and believe me, it was horrible! Every other week I have to turn in a 15-20 page fiction piece for my Evening and Weekend class called Writer’s Workshop. My last piece I wrote turned out to be pretty decent, a lot better than I was expecting. But yesterday I began work on my second piece, which is due this Wednesday.
We had all day Saturday class and I figured after a lecture or something maybe I would come out with some more ideas for the new piece I was about to embark on. Wrong. Since it was Washington State’s caucus my teacher let us all out early to either go to our caucus or go home and write some more, and come back 5 hours for a guest lecturer. I went home and stared at my computer screen. Then I checked my Facebook. Then Myspace. Then Netflix. And Facebook once again. An hour went by and I still had nothing on my word document. So I thought maybe pulling out a pen and paper would help inspire a story out of me. Nope. I wrote two pages of complete crap. I became even more frustrate with the fact that after two hours I had absolutely nothing to show for it. I had 30 minutes to go, when my dad called me. We talked about one of his brother’s who had the flu. My dad told me some stories about my uncle from his younger years, which I thought were quite amusing. I got off the phone with him, and sat back down at my computer and began to write. My uncle’s story inspired me, and I kept writing and writing. Then I looked at my clock and realized I had to be back at the school again.
The guest lecturer went on for a few hours and I didn’t catch a single word she said. I spent the whole time playing out the story in my mind, waiting anxiously to get back home and type it up. Finally, my writer’s block was cured!
The one thing I did catch from this guest lecturer was a good piece of advise about writing: When there is a break in your piece (i.e.- a chapter or scene ending) do not get up and walk away from your writing. Write a few intro scenes, because that will help you get back into your writing when you come to sit back down again. So many times I have felt stuck in my writing when I’m at a scene break, and I thought this was a very good point. I just wanted to share it with you all.