Writer's Block: Prompts and Picking Your Battles

I want to keep this blog as concrete as possible, posting solutions to problems I have had in writing, rather than posting abstract advice that is little more than common sense.

Writer's block is an age-old copout. Sorry, but professional writers know there is no such thing. See how long you keep your magazine job if you tell your editor you won't be handing in your four-hundred words on fly fishing because you got writer's block. Somehow professional writers on deadlines meet deadlines. The obvious thing is to give yourself a deadline and stick to it -- but who is going to hold your feet to the fire when you miss it?

Give yourself prompts.

I couldn't give myself false incentives like that, so what I did to get over my writer's block was have a list of writing prompts -- remember high school? -- and whenever I couldn't write my own story, I would pick one of the prompts and make myself write a picture's worth of words (1,000). I was allowed to stop writing the prompt only if I went back to writing what I was supposed to be working on. If I didn't get re-inspired to keep working on my main project, I would end up with a neat little flash fiction story. Giving myself prompts, I realized I could write about anything, on the spot.

Example Prompts:

Write a story that has a dog, a train, and death.

Write a story about accidentally doing good while trying to do evil.

Write a story that takes place in a single moment without any passage of time.

Write a story about a misunderstanding leading to violence.

Pick your battles.

Sometimes it's just better for me to do homework, read a book, take out the trash, or go to the gym, than to try writing.

I just finished four pivotal chapters in my book, and reached a very conclusive point. The next chapter I have to write involves introducing a main character who has been off-stage for the entire novel in a chapter that unlike any that comes before or after. Rather than try to dive right in and frustrate myself, I took a day off. The next day I did nothing but re-immerse myself in the story by reading everything I had written thus far. Today, I have just been thinking about the important bits of the chapter in question. Tomorrow, I get back to writing.

I find that I can avoid a lot of frustration this way, and my process has been much less of a strain than my friend K Bookman who is also writing his first novel. He writes at a certain time every day, rain or shine, and tears his hair out when it isn't flowing for him.

Know yourself.

The most important thing is to know yourself, and what works for you. Sometimes I force myself to write and write garbage. Other times I force myself to write, and I surprise myself with the results. Writing, perhaps especially sustained writing of a long piece, is about recognizing and refining your process.

PS: Read.

K Bookman and I have opposite takes on this as well. But when I can't write, usually I haven't been reading enough and have to read a few chapters of my favorite novels. K Bookman disagrees, and he says he can't read anything before he writes or it interferes with his process.