Shelves

How do you know when to shelve a story?

I've been thinking about this for a few days, now. The story I'm currently working on, the one I've been working on for a solid year and a half, is dragging me down. I've started and re-started the second draft numerous times, written a couple different plot outlines, changed the story entirely from what it was and changed it back again. And still, I feel like my characters are flat, the plot is boring and uninteresting, the world unrealistic and just....meh.

Meh. That's a good word. The story, right now, is just one blob of meh.

It seems like every time I work on it, I get frustrated. I get frustrated with the overwhelming amount of possibilities one second, and the lack thereof the next. I get frustrated because, in theory, it's a good story. In my mind, it's a great story. That story just won't form itself on the screen in front of me.

I know writing isn't always easy--trust me, I know--but is it supposed to feel so...forced, every time I sit down with it? Is it supposed to make me want to tear out my hair and toss my computer out the window?

I feel like I should take a break from it, but I have taken a break from it. I took several months away from it, and before that I took just about a full year away from it. How long am I supposed to wait?


Maybe I'll take a few days away from it, and work on one of my other many projects for the time being. I've been muddling around with this for the past couple of weeks--I need some time to clear my head.

Until later,

- Justyne

Oops.

So. Funny story: I forgot to write a blog post on Friday. HAHA!

Okay, so maybe that's only funny to me. But hey, this is the first time I legitimately forgot to update this blog (last week's post was delayed on account of Writer's Block, and therefore doesn't count), so I think I'm doing pretty good.

You know what else I'm doing pretty good with? Writing. Well, in a sense. anyway.

I am still struggling with Writer's Block, that much hasn't changed. But now, I actually have time to work on it.

Remember those motivational troubles I was having? Gone. Kind of. (My bedroom is still a mess, but I consider that to be irrelevant.) I haven't had any trouble making the time to write. It's only been a few days, but I've been able to make time to write for at least a little while every day. It hasn't been smooth sailing, but at least I'm trying.

And that's all I can really do, right?

Until later,

- Justyne

Writer's Block

Writer's Block: An illness which plagues writers across the globe, and has no definite cure. Symptoms include procrastination, staring at a blank Word document for twelve hours, and concussions induced by throwing one's head against a brick wall in frustration. 9/10 writers today suffer or have suffered from Writer's Block. (The other one is lying.)

(Come on, you guys totally saw this blog post coming. I figured I'd get it out of the way early. Although I may or may not end up writing about this again. If and when that time comes, you can blame the Writer's Block.)

I've been suffering from a particularly bad case of Writer's Block for about....well, since last semester ended, basically. I don't know whether it's the lack of motivation, lack of ideas, or just the piece I'm trying to write, but every time I sit down to work on it I'm only just barely able to crank out a few words. If I'm lucky.

So what do I do instead of writing? I play Sims for six hours. I scroll endlessly through my Tumblr dash. I do homework, for crying out loud. (Homework! Oh, how I miss the days when I chose writing over homework.)

Put simply: Writer's Block is a pain in the butt.

You'd think that after nine years of writing, I'd know how to chase it away, or at least push it back far enough that I can crank out more than a sentence a day. And yet, here I am. Staring at a blank Word document. Doing homework (homework!!). Inducing concussions by throwing my head against the brick walls of my dorm room.

Writer's Block is not fun.

I could give you the obvious pointers for Writer's Block--take a break, work on something else, go for a nice, long walk to clear your mind--but to be completely honest, I think all of those "pointers" are complete bull. They don't work for me. Heck, my "break" is turning into a semester-long hiatus from writing. These pointers are too....nice.

It's time to declare full-out war on Writer's Block.

1. Kill somebody.

Not literally. Please, for the love of God, do not go terrorizing teenagers at summer camp. Take someone in your story--or poem or whatever it is you happen to be writing--and kill them. This doesn't have to be a permanent thing--feel free to start writing this scene in a fresh document, if you like. Just kill them. Stick an ax in their head, throw them off a balcony, hire a werewolf to jump out of the bushes and mangle them to death. Anything goes. The aftermath is something that'll take chapters to cover. And who knows--it might be just what your story needs.

2. Personify Writer's Block.

Don't have a character to kill? Kill Writer's Block. Make it a character. Let's call him Wallace Blomm. (My apologies to any Wallace's or Blomm's or Wallace Blomm's out there. This is strictly business, nothing personal.)

Now kill him. Most gruesome thing you can imagine. Go watch any of the nine hundred Saw movies, those have plenty of material. (I would assume, anyway, judging from the first five minutes I saw of Saw IV.)

3. Do something completely drastic.

(Could I be more vague?) Think of the one thing you would never ever ever ever, in a million years do to your characters, or to your plot, or to the entire story as a whole. Got it? Now do it. Again, you can use a fresh document if you like. All of this stuff can be rewritten. Don't be afraid to totally change absolutely everything about your story thus far and do a complete 180 turn in a different direction.

4. Write the ending first.

I don't mean "write the ending now to stick at the end later." Start re-writing your story, starting with the ending and working your way backwards. Tell the story exclusively through flashbacks. (I've never tried this, but hey, it's something new. Maybe it'll work. Be sure to let me know if it does.)

5. Just freaking write.

I know I probably sound like a complete hypocrite saying this. (I mean, I'm doing homework instead of writing! What could I possibly know?) And this is definitely one that doesn't always work quite as well as you hope, nor is it ridiculously easy. But that's the point. It's not easy. Nothing about writing, or Writer's Block, is ever easy. If it was, we'd all be published millionaires by now. Sometimes the best, and only thing you can really do, is write. Screw Writer's Block. Power through it. Show it who's boss.

Now, if you excuse me, I have some writing to do. A certain Mr. Blomm needs an ax thrown into his skull.


Until later,

- Justyne