The No-Writing Funk

Lately I have had no motivation for writing. There. I admitted it. For the first time since I started writing, I feel like I have nothing to say. Nothing to create. Just...nothing.

This is a very bad feeling.

So today I ask you, how do you get yourself out of the no-writing funk? Does reading help? Do you force the words out of you? I've tried that and it just ends up with more cutting. I have a lot of things I'd like to blame for this lack of motivation/creative energy, but blaming things doesn't fix it! So what does?

Please have a magical answer for me.

Writer's Block

Tomorrow we have special guest author/editor/mentor K.M. Weiland stopping by the blog. She has a new CD out titled Conquering Writer's Block and Summoning Inspiration, so I kind of wanted to get everyone thinking about writer's block today. What is it? Does it exist at all? How do you get past it?

I've read, and I agree, that writer's block usually means you've taken a wrong turn somewhere. For me, getting myself past the block means setting the manuscript aside until I figure out what isn't working. And that's a lot harder than it sounds. Just putting it aside is difficult. It nags at me telling me I have to finish it immediately. But eventually, I peel my eyes away from it and take a step back to look at what I have objectively. This goes back to Valerie's post on killing your darling. Usually, the place where I went wrong was a scene I thought was epic, but it didn't fit with my plot and it ended up throwing everything else out of whack.

My wonderful cp's are great at spotting those out of place scenes, but I can't have them watching over my shoulder and checking every sentence, so Valerie suggested I try note cards. I bought colored cards and I wrote out every scene I had on those cards. Red for romantic scenes, puke-green for gore and supernatural stuff, yellow for action and the main plot thread, and a sea-blue for scenes with the secondary characters that fed the smaller plot threads.

Laying these out helped me see where I had to many slow scenes or too many fast paced action scenes too close together. Looking at that didn't solve all my problems, but it helped point me in the right direction. It made me realize where the problems originated. Now I have to go back to the beginning and rewrite a lot of the book, but at least now I'm past that block and I have some direction.

What does writer's block mean to you? What are some productive ways you've found to help you get past the block?