Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with writersblock

I can't think of any famous hellholes.

Jason Land — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:58:13 -0800

A friend of mine is writing a memoir about traveling to every country in Europe at the age of 23. He wants to compare being stuck in a crappy part of Romania to a well known literary or film hellhole. We can't think of any. In the book he's talking about being stuck in a crappy part of Romania for 20 hours, instead of the short layover he expected. He used the placeholder of Amity Island (Jaws). This obviously doesn't fit as it's a pleasant place with the exception of the killer shark in the water.

We can't seem to think of anything that most everyone (of the US literary audience) would be able to recognize. We're thinking of things like Silent Hill, Sleepy Hollow (in the story, not the real life place). I feel like we're both missing something super obvious. It can be from any pop culture reference, as long as most people will get it.

Would a suitable solution be something like "East Germany, circa 1960"?

Can I blog about writer's block?

Wordwoman — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 09:57:01 -0800

Should I blog about writer's block? What will my clients think? I would like to share my perspective on writer's block in a blog, and perhaps later, a book. I have an approach that is successful for me, and I think it could be helpful for others. However, this approach is an ongoing process; that is, I am by no means cured (and willingness to be ok with that is part of the process I would like to share). Here's the rub: I am a freelancer, and I have regular clients that think I'm great. After all, they just see the end results, not my struggles. I don't want them thinking that maybe I won't be able to get it done by the deadline (this is a core fear that I have to overcome anew with every assignment, and one that the blog/book would discuss). Am I right in thinking that public disclosure is risky? Would it be better if I blogged about it pseudonymously, and is that considered ok in the blogging world?

Odd free writing behaviour

paradoxflow — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:38:40 -0800

Why does this happen when I free write? I've been trying to overcome a serious writer's block lately, so I've been free writing.

A strange thing always seems to happen when I do this though, I end up closing my eyes, and my head starts to shake, first slowly, and then more vigorously as I go on, hitting the keys. This is completely involuntary and I don't know why I do it, it isn't unpleasant, exactly, but I wonder if something is wrong with me. Sometimes it can continue for the entire session, sometimes it stops when I reach a certain mental state; my eyes are closed, and I can't feel anything besides my fingers on the keys, and my head feels it is floating far above the keyboard, not attached to my body. I've experienced something similar to this before, during deeper stages of Zen meditation that I reached a few times when I was younger, but haven't been able to since (through meditation anyways).

I guess I have a few questions: To the writers among you, do you ever experience something similar this? Is there some kind of psychological basis for the head shaking behaviour? And sort of tied to that, is there something wrong with me, and if not, some way I can use this?

Improving writing style

Ziggy500 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:06:47 -0800

How do I improve my writing style? I write. I've been working - like Brian from Family Guy - on the same novel for years. But I'm not bored of the story... I am bored, however, of the writing. I used to love crafting sentences, and it all used to flow quite well. I thought I had humour, rhythm and spark. Now I find myself growing bored with my style, which has become increasingly utilitarian and formal. It gets the information across, but is basically blah. This could be because my job requires me to do a lot of writing, which needs to be clear, informative, and fairly dull. I think my emails and other personal writing still have some degree of spark to them, but for some reason I can't seem to transfer that into my fiction-writing.

I already read a lot which is, I know, meant to be a good way of improving your own writing. I've read the other writer's block related questions on Ask Mefi and there are some good tips there that I intend to follow. But I've found nothing which focuses, specifically, on style and how you improve yours.

Thanks for your help Mefites

How can I force myself to write?

blocked — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:48:24 -0800

How can I force myself to write? I am an academic for whom writing books and articles is very important. I have a good amount of time for writing, plenty of ideas, and a good sense of what I want to write. But most of the time, I get very little writing done. I can easily go a year or more without writing anything of substance. Instead, I spend most of my time doing email, doing administrative tasks, browsing the web, and so on.

This has been a persistent pattern throughout my career. Every now and then the floodgates have come down (a big period every six or seven years, a smaller period every year or two) and I've had a relatively brief and intense writing period during which I've managed to get a lot done. As a result I've been reasonably successful. However, I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I'd like. And recently, the problem seems to be getting worse, and I'm falling behind drastically. The problem also has all sorts of negative effects on the rest of my life, as I set aside a lot of time for writing and then squander it.

I've read many books on writing and writers block (including Professors as Writers and the like), but these haven't really made a difference. I know the standard advice: find a place that's a writing place and only a writing place, set aside a time, make yourself write so many words a day regardless of quality, and so on. But knowing this hasn't helped. I find myself spending very little time in my writing room, and when I do spend time there, typically nothing happens.

I think of this as some sort of fairly serious disease of the will. I know just what I want to do, have no obvious obstacles to doing it, but it just doesn't get done. There is some sort of enormous resistance to getting started on the writing process, and a sense of aversion and unpleasantness in the initial stages when I do start, both of which prevent me from doing it. Every now and then I get past this resistance and aversion and get into a state of flow (which is then one of the best feelings one can have), but it's proven very difficult to force myself to do this.

I've been to a hypnotherapist and a regular therapist about this, but they haven't made much difference. I probably could and should have done more of this, as I think that the right therapist, with a real understanding of this issue, could probably help a lot. But it's hard to know just who the right therapist might be, and it's difficult to ask local friends and colleagues for recommendations, as I'm reluctant to tell them about this.

I think that what I need is some sort of mechanism that in effect forces me to write. I used to have no problem writing reams in an exam context, for example, and every now and then when a similar sort of immediate context arises, there is no blockage. (I also don't have much blockage in writing long emails on academic topics.) Deadlines help to some extent, but they've become less effective then they used to be as one comes to realize that deadlines are typically very plastic. I can imagine various artificial mechanisms (set up an automatic donation to an awful cause unless one reaches a certain goal, block the Internet for a certain period each day, and so on), but it's hard to make myself implement these and easy to circumvent them.

It seems to me that what might have the potential to work is something involving another person somehow forcing me into a writing schedule: be in the writing place for a certain period each day, write so many words and show them to me at the end, and so on. It wouldn't be easy to get a friend, relative, or colleague to play this role. But perhaps some sort of active therapist or writing coach might be able to do it.

So my first question is: any recommendations for some sort of active therapist or writing coach who could play this role? Assuming that things could be done over phone and email, they could be located almost anywhere (a good thing, since I don't want to disclose my location here, and local resources are limited). It might well take some sort of daily contact, so phone and email would likely be the main locus wherever the person is. I'm interested in recommendations both of specific individuals, and of kinds of individuals who I might seek out, as I'm genuinely unsure of what sort of person to approach.

Any other ideas as to approaches and strategies that might help are welcome, too. Others may have been in a situation like this before and have had experience of what helps. My own insight into the situation is limited. The whole thing is a bit pathetic, and it's taken me a long time to even get to the stage of sending out a cry for help like this. But now that I've done it, any ideas will be welcome.

How do I make songs?

squidlarkin — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 21:03:59 -0800

I can make music. How do I make songs? I have no problem coming up with neat chord progressions, melodies, beats and all of that, but when it comes to fleshing things out into full-fledged compositions I start drawing blanks. I tend to come up with something that sounds good when looped, but any elaboration or development on that basis usually seems to fall flat. Have any of you songwriters out there grappled with this problem and conquered it? Give me tips. Ableton-specific advice is welcome but not required.

Breathe! Damn you, breathe!

Bookhouse — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:16:40 -0800

How can I revive a dead novel? I started work on a novel (my second) last year. I got down about 25,000 words, or about one third of the way through, before I decided to go back and do one more pass at my first novel. While it really helped number one, now I come back to number two and find myself cold. I still love the idea and the characters, so just running away is not an option. But I am at a loss as exactly how to restart my writing process. I could dive back in right where i started, but I feel like I have a better idea of the voice now and the first third is very different from how I think the rest of it will play out. On the other hand, just starting over and throwing those words away makes me sad.

Any hints or tricks for reviving a dead project would be welcome -- or is this just writer's block? I've been dilly-dallying for two weeks now.

Academic writer's block.

RogerB — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:45:03 -0800

Academic writer's block: tips, strategies, experiences, psychology for dealing with it? I am working on writing a Ph.D. dissertation, and my writing is going haltingly at best; there seems to be a constant threat of becoming stuck, blocked. So, I'd love to hear any tips or strategies for dealing with academic writer's block. (I'm in a humanities field in which the dissertation will be more about having interesting and original ideas, and writing a compelling argument about well-known texts, than about reporting new findings based on research. So this dissertation is, primarily, a large writing project, unlike in many other fields where the research being reported is at least as important as the writing.)

My writing style up to this point doesn't seem to be a good model going forward. I've usually written to deadline, in spurts of intense activity, after incubating an idea for a while beforehand. And I am not afflicted with logorrhea, like some academics I envy; I tend to write too little and too densely, not to overwrite and have to edit down to a page count. Still, I've produced short papers that I'm happy with, and published; and I am excited about my dissertation idea, so self-confidence would not seem to be the problem so much as procrastination and blocking.

More generally, I'd like to hear suggestions about becoming a productive scholarly writer. It seems like there's a big transition at the ABD stage, where a student who's used to writing smaller papers to given assignments and deadlines is faced with the requirement to produce longer works, write relatively constantly, and work with much less supervision for the rest of his or her career. Suddenly, becoming a productive academic seems a lot like becoming a productive writer of any other kind. How do people make this transition without getting stuck?

Let's assume that the rest of my specifics (topic, advisors, teaching and other responsibilities, institutional arrangements) are outside the discussion; I'm more interested in tips on becoming a productive scholarly writer than in getting therapy for my specific case. I've read a lot of books on this topic, and found most of them not very helpful (beyond delivering the welcome reminder that you need to sit down and try to write every day), but recommendations are still welcome.

Writers block: web burnout?

trbrts — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 13:25:19 -0800

I used to consider myself a decent writer. It was one of those things that I did well. Over the last few years though I can hardly seem to link two cohesive sentences together. Those last few years also seem to coincide with my entrance into working on the web. Does anyone have any tips for learning how to write again? I think that I just got burned out on writing. I was an English major in college. When I first started working on the web, I worked for a washed out online auction company, writing product descriptions. In my current position, I have to write a fair amount - new content, board member newsletters, emails to our members, etc... And I just can't seem to make it interesting. There is no reason that it can't be. I work in an industry I enjoy and I'm preforming well. But, when I go to write, I kind of just lock up until I finally spit out some boring crap.
Any ideas to help me overcome this and enjoy writing again?

Jump-start my writing process!

klaatu — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 04:58:05 -0800

OK, I'm trying to write my latest masterpiece, and I'm doing everything but... Any tips on writing routines? Not blocked, as such. Plain lazy is a definite possibility. But seriously, anybody have a fail-safe way to get up in the morning and get going?

How do you keep from getting distracted while writing?

wanderingmind — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:24:55 -0800

Question for all you writers out there: how do you keep from getting distracted? What's your technique to get into the zone, focus, and let the verbiage just flow? Any and all help would be appreciated.