While I’m at work, my mind travels elsewhere and independently works on my writing while my body is stacking shelves. I become so excited about the scenes, characters, and blog posts I plan on writing. I get so lost in the ideas and they keep me going, only when I get home I’m too tired, and all I can manage is a quick email to myself about what it is I’ve been thinking about.
My days off are my writing days, I use one to write a blog post and the rest will be story writing; I always like to be doing something, I can’t possibly just have a full day off!
On Sunday I had set my heart on writing the things I’d been thinking about all week. I rushed through all the boring things like cleaning and tidying, so I could have as much time as possible to write. I finally got comfortable on my sofa, put some music on, opened my laptop, opened the word document and… nothing. The scenes still playing in my head, but no words coming out on the screen; I had no idea where to begin and a giant case of writer’s block.
That blinking line of the page feeling as it if was mocking me, taunting me, telling me ‘well write something then…’ and so I tried. In the past I’ve often taken a deep breath, and just began typing without thought, but for some reason I couldn’t do it, and when I did write, it felt clunky; like I didn’t know my story or my characters. It didn’t feel nice.
I continued to force myself to write, but it was taking so much energy. Like a car that doesn’t have petrol, so you’re pushing it about instead – you’re going to get to your destination, but the journey isn’t going to be very fun, and writing really didn’t feel fun at all.
I wrote a few hundred words and decided enough was enough, I’d come back when I had fuelled up. But just as I was about to save and close the document, inspiration hit me and before I knew it, I had three thousand words on the page.
For the last six months (or there abouts) I’ve been editing my novel; rejigging sentences, adding different words, adding in missed punctuation. But now I’ve finished all of that, I’ve opened up my ideas document with paragraphs and ideas for the sequel, and that’s what I was struggling with.
I’ve become so used to reading and editing, that I think I forgot how to write!
When editing I’m conscious of getting everything perfect, make sure it makes sense and that I like it, but writing doesn’t need to be that way. Writing can just be a jumble of ideas, a mess of a sentence that turns into a mess of a paragraph, that is in the totally wrong place in the document, and it’s all okay.
When I write, it really is a mess. I write parts as they come to me, not necessarily in order. The clunky part I wrote the other night is a part of the beginning, and the part that flowed as I nearly gave up is a part of the middle. I’ve also already written a big part of the end, and none of this is in order. I’m not used to writing in this chaos!
So, I think this is why writers block hit me: I’m writing in a way I’m not used to anymore. I need to learn to take that deep breath and trust what comes out of my mind and on to the page and realise it doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else but myself.
It’s alright if it’s a mess, it’s supposed to be in the beginning! All that matters is that I continue to make a mess, until I eventually have something to tidy up.
Gwen Richards 