Monday, April 1, 2013

Try a change of pace to unblock your writing

By Dennis Mellersh

If you’re having trouble trying to figure out the “right” words in your writing efforts, and your book seems a too-distant goal, try a change of pace. Write something just for practice to get the words rolling.

Following are a few suggestions:
  • If you’re writing on a computer or a tablet, trying writing with a pen or pencil on paper instead. Or if you already write in longhand on paper, try working on the computer.
  • Instead of working on the particular writing that’s causing you problems, write down a few sentences on what kind of a day you are having. You could even write about your writing block and why it bothers you.
  • Or instead of worrying about the book you’re trying to write, perhaps write down some of the reasons you want to write a book. If it’s going to be fiction, write about why you like fiction. If non-fiction, write on why you like that literary format.
  • Start a journal or a diary. The entries can be about why you enjoy writing, your plans for your book, or just the everyday events in your life. The novelist John Steinbeck often wrote in a journal each day before starting  the day’s novel-writing because he found that it warmed him up and helped him to write more freely.
  • Watch a news program for a few minutes and write down your reactions to any particular story. Or take a different approach in writing the lead-in to the news story you watched.
  • Grab one of your favourite books and copy a few sentences or paragraphs from a passage that you like. Write this in longhand, just to get moving with your writing.
  • Open your dictionary and write about the first word on the page, or the last word, or on any word in between. Write anything that comes into your head.
The point of the above suggestions is not to try to write something of importance, but just to write, period. Often by just “doodling” with some writing, you will get in the creative frame of mind where you can re-start the more serious type of writing that you want to do for your book.

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