I have a very strange process when it comes to my writing. I have to get it right in my head before I actually get it down on a piece of paper. In fact, as I spent most of January outlining for the sequel to The Prisoner and The Assassin, I can attest to the fact that even creating an outline takes time, especially when you run into a case of that most dreaded of phenomena: Writer's Block.
Not sure how other writer's deal with a good old case of writer's block, but I tend to have a couple of methods of tackling the problem when I run into it. First, I do my best to ignore it. I step away for awhile- lose myself in a television show or a book and let things percolate a bit. I tend to randomly stare off into the distance at things during this phase of the process. I might mumble to myself a little bit as well- or at least do more than normally. It's really hard to describe how your brain works on paper- but this is where I do a lot of writing in my head. I set things up, I straighten them out, I iron out any wrinkles and then, then I start putting them down on paper.
If that works, then everything is golden and the writing flows like warm bat guano after taco night down in the local cavern. If it doesn't work, however, that's when I have to take things up a notch.
Stage 2 for resolving writer's block is usually when I get irritated about it. I can't seem to make it work in my head and stepping back and letting things brew for a week or so hasn't done the trick, so then I roll up my sleeves and get down into the trenches with the problem. Pretty much, I make myself write. What results usually sucks out loud in the worst possible way, but the fact is once I have something on paper, I can then get my claws into it more effectively, especially if doing it in my head just isn't doing the trick.
Basically, this is where I put my head down and just brute force my way through a problem. It's not pretty and I hate to do it and there's usually a good couple of days where I write a sentence of two and then promptly delete them in mini-fits of rage. It's a rough road to travel but I usually make my way through to something that I can be satisfied with and then polish up to a point where I can keep moving on with whatever I'm doing.
So that's my process in a nutshell- or at least as much of my process as I can put to paper. The brain is a funny thing sometimes- music can kick start my writing. An especially dramatic scene in a movie... reading something random on the internet. It's amazing how random it can be sometimes, but so far, it's never let me down.
Fellow writers and readers and dreamers of dreams and stories, how do you get through writer's block?
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