What's that word....? It's like how you say....really good or like imaginative.....damnit... *Something* Writing!

Once again I disappeared off the Blogosphere radar for a proportionate amount of time. This time , however, it was due to being side tracked by other writing projects! I swear. You will be happy to know that one of my SINCERE New Year’s Resolutions is to write at least one to two posts every month so everyone can breathe easy. I have no doubt that most of you were at least checking for updates weekly or hitting the refresh button continuously thinking something terrible had happened to me.

I'm back!

I have decided to dedicate the next couple of posts to creative writing, what I have learnt from my class and also my experience so far on the process of writing a piece. I am going to focus this piece on creative blocks.

For those that have read my post on procrastination, I was almost a professional at it by my final year in University. It turns out this dormant skill has not weakened since then, and almost every time I sat down to write my attention span reverted to that of Dory from Finding Nemo. In my defense, regular breaks are recommended when writing to keep the mind fresh and sharp. Although, I doubt I was supposed to take a break from my breaks. On the upside, my doodling skills have vastly improved. I have become the master of 3D boxes and triangles, and of course my favourite cheeky cartoon Koala bears.

One of my Koala Doodles

Many writers suffer creative blocks from time to time. These blocks can be short little annoyances or one big excruciatingly long frustration. There are many tricks and tips that can help with this:

Best solution yet!

The More the Merrier:

My absolute favourite piece of advice, of the many pieces imparted, that my creative writing teacher shared with me is to pour myself a large glass of wine. It’s amazing what taking the edge off can do. I am not by any means implying that to write well someone has to become a regular or heavy drinker. I just found that personally when suffering from an enraging block, being ever so slightly buzzed helped sentences flow easier and made me less critical of what I was trying to say and how I was saying it. A little bit less afraid of sounding stupid, even to myself. To paraphrase a dear family member, after my vat of wine I was most certainly the funniest person at the table. It’s definitely not hard when I’m the only person at said table!

Cheers!

Find a Happy Place:

Your favourite cup of tea or juice drink will also work just as well. I am partial to drinking tea for early morning writing sessions as I just don’t think I’m that “absolutely fabulous” to have wine at this hour. I also don’t think I could ever be that hard-core or more my liver could be. Only time will tell. The essence of this piece of advice is to indulge yourself by drinking or eating things that you enjoy. Get comfortable, put on some of your favourite music, sit back and relax. A positive mind set along with a positive setting is key.

Good Idea?

Practice, Practice, Practice:

It’s important to keep working on your craft even when you find yourself in a block. Write for 15 minutes at the same time of day every day regardless of what it is, if it is grammatically correct or not is irrelevant, can really do wonders. It is amazing what you can come up with when just messing around and writing what you might think of as gibberish. An idea can spark from a simple sentence. Do not put yourself under unnecessary pressure to write your piece perfectly at first attempt. It is highly unlikely that it will happen. Even the pieces that you think are perfect, come the morning light, on second reading sentence structures can be clumsy and grammar can be shady. This is absolutely fine because that is what having drafts and editing is for. It is important to silence the inner critic at least for your first draft. Give yourself a chance! You are not an English teacher or sitting the leaving cert for crying out loud! Unless you are in fact either of those, in which you must be far better than the rest of us and your work will never be good enough.

Don't mind if I do!

Imagination Super Highway:

My lecturer advised for those with particularly bad cases of block to play a game of “Let’s pretend”. If your desk is facing a window look outside at the buildings across from it. Allow yourself to imagine what is going on behind those doors. (It helps if you don’t know the people very well!) Imagine the door opens up and a person comes out- who are they, why are they there? It’s amazing what your mind can build. Don’t be afraid, just run with it. So far I have found myself living across from a serial murderer, a family of ghosts, a squirrel couple who are breaking up because of a nut addiction (his not hers surprisingly!) and a mastermind villainous cat (he's actually real).

Said Villainous cat.

Change of Scene:

Going for a long walk or taking a bath can also be really helpful for pondering stories. Let the mind wander and use your senses. Also, I found my beloved doodling is mighty helpful. Sketching out potential characters or settings then looking at them while trying to describe them. Figure out the when, the where, the who and the why. I even ended up drawing a dreaded spider diagram which I had hoped I left long behind me with my college days. I weaved intricate webs of places and characters, associating words with them and what they are to each other. I made them multi-coloured for fun(!) 

The heart wants, what the heart wants!

Hopefully this little outburst was in somewhat helpful or at least semi amusing to someone. While I focused predominantly on writing in this piece I find that these little tips also work really well when it comes to art and music.  At the very least I will fast become a professional doodler.

There's always room for a pun!