Thread: Writing is a chore, not fun.

Okay, for a while now I've noticed my creative spark has turned into an ember. I have snippets of ideas, but nothing I can actually use to write with; a character bit here, a place there, etc. When I look at the computer screen or at a blank sheet of paper my mind seizes up, my attention is drawn someplace else.

What can I do to change this? Watch a lot of movies, read a lot of books, listen to a lot of music, change up my times? I've done a few of these, but nothing seems to be helping. Should I step back from writing for a while, cut myself off, and then try later on in the year?

For a long time I helped run a very successful game, I wrote every piece of the history and plot, then I quit. Now I still role play on and off, is this just soaking up all my creative juices? Should I quit it altogether, be a shut in, and hope that I regain some of my abilities at a later date? Or, am I just not cut out or writing anymore?

Someone help!

I almost cried when I read this post. I have been going through the same exact dilemma. I feel like my creativity comes around to visit & tease me once in awhile. I blame myself for not reaching my full potential as a writer after a week goes by without picking up a pen.
I have yet to learn to conquer this reoccuring problem but I can offer some advice that I ponder on to get my butt in gear.
1. When you change the way you look @ things, the things you look @ change.
2. The only difference between a rich man & a poor man is ambition.

I hope this helps. Be blessed!

Try something new:

A diary

Take a movie scene you know really well and try to write it out.

Scrap the computer. Grab a pen and a notebook and go down to the park. Make up little stories about some of the people you see.

Just do an outline for a story. It can be anything with beginning, middle, and end. Keep expanding it until you get all excited then try to write.

I second Riverdog's advice.

After you've made certain you're just not proctrastinating a boring part of the writing process, try something nonsensical. When I'm feeling creatively drained I'll leave my writing area with a pen and paper. I'll go and sit somewhere else (even if it's just in my backyard) and pick an object, person(s), or a memory and then brainstorm it. I'll list all the 5 senses attributed to it, what it could be a simile for, what it could be the opposite of, what I like most and least, something unique about it, and how I feel about it.

Usually after several of these I'll do something complete non writing related and my energy will boost on its own. The important part is to get back to writing after a while, even if the first several pages are crapola. Your creativity is like a muscle, you have to work it to keep it in shape.

Try just free-writing, don't put any pressure on yourself to write anything useful. Just write words, hell they don't even have to make sense.

Alternatively get really drunk on whisky, put on some music that works for you while you're in that headspace (Neil Young works for me) and then just write all the babble that you can manage.

Remove the performance anxiety and you'll be fine.

Alternatively get really drunk on whisky, put on some music that works for you while you're in that headspace (Neil Young works for me) and then just write all the babble that you can manage.

Amen!! Nothing gets the creative juices flowing like Whiskey and classic Rock and Roll!!!

Sounds like you need to put the wonder of discovery back into your writing. Take an ordinary object and make it the title for your next short story. For instance, if you grabbed your pad and pen and went down to the park like riverdog suggested, you might see an old faded park bench. So write the title:

The Old Faded Park Bench

Not very inspired maybe (we can fidget with it later), but you just did something every successful writer does. You wrote something! Now, make up the beginning of a story about that title. No, don't stew over whether it has all the good story elements, just give it a beginning. Anything fantastical, nonsensical, or even downright ordinary. Look at the thing through the eyes of a toddler or plop a little park gremlin on it. Try on a new narrative voice, be it gruff, dainty, or whatever. Whatever you do, write down the beginnings of that story.

No, no, no... quit pondering it logically and just write whatever fancies itself into your story. Ok, got it? Write it down.

See? Still writing! Now write another paragraph to give the story a middle. What can you describe about the bench that we hadn't noticed before? Why is it important to your narrator or the gremlin or whoever got into your story? Maybe it's an obstacle or a house, or a religious artifact. Is there a big secret? Bonus points if you jot down another middle paragraph that turns the story in an unexpected direction or introduces a problem we didn't see coming.

Still writing? Good. No, don't stop to think about it too much. Just add another paragraph to wrap up the story. Give us a surprise ending that tells us what the Big Secret was all about or delivers the moral of the story or maybe just resolves our gruff narrator's irritating little gremlin troubles. Wrap it up with a nice little narrative bow, or leave a stray loose end for the reader to pick at. Whatever you want, it's your story. You wrote it.

Now write it.

Set aside time to write every day and put something on the page. Creativity isn't something that 'comes to you' in flashes and spurts (that's the flu). Creativity is something you dig for like a miner searching for gold. Somedays we hit a nice thick vein, and others we just end up with a deeper hole, but if we wait for the gold to jump up out of the ground . . .

The more routine you make the act of writing, the easier it will be for your subconscious to open its doors. Creativity excercises can be great things to help you flex the imagination, but don't confuse them with the work of actually writing. Just write baby!

Faithful, I’m glad that someone is feeling the same way I am. Thank you for the advice, I hope you find some help in this thread!

Riverdog, I like that idea. I live near the mountains, so I’m going to go exploring, find myself a nice rock and just sit around to examine nature.

ARNorris, much obliged for the advice.

Bad Craziness, thanks for the advice. I believe anxiety is what keeps me from writing sometimes, the expectation that I SHOULD be writing, that something SHOULD come out when I touch pen to pad. I think I just need to learn how to relax when I write and not be so high-strung.

Lone_Wolfe, love the idea! I’m going to do it, maybe tomorrow if I get the chance. I’m going to wander through my neighborhood with a pen and pad and see what happens, everyone will probably say I’ve gone totally insane. Haha.

Terry D, I have to agree that working my brain and creativity is something I should do everyday. I should at least write something, even if it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I have an extremely difficult time with being a perfectionist, raking over every word and sentence in such detail that I get nowhere fast. I think that is a large part of why I have such a hard time, I can’t just write, I have to trace myself to make sure there are no mistakes. Everything has to be in order or I shut down.

Originally Posted by Akito

I have an extremely difficult time with being a perfectionist, raking over every word and sentence in such detail that I get nowhere fast. I think that is a large part of why I have such a hard time, I can’t just write, I have to trace myself to make sure there are no mistakes. Everything has to be in order or I shut down.

You didn't mention this to start with but this is a significant problem that most writers face, it's called the inner editor. You need to be able to simply write without being hindered by the impulse to correct everything as you go. Set aside your more critical editing eyes and allow the mistakes to happen where they will, you can fix them later.

Timed writing is a really effective way to practice focusing on just getting the writing onto the page rather than fixing it. When you're completely focused on writing as much as you can before the timer goes off you can't distract yourself by looking over what you're writing for mistakes. It takes some practice to disengage the inner editor but it's worth it.

Then go back and fix things once your rough draft is done.

I use Write or Die when I want to push myself and focus. Check out the right sidebar for the free online version, it works well.

Additional thought: When I did NaNoWriMo this year there were several friends who also participated. Most of us managed to get writing done every day except for one. I kept waiting to see his word count jump and just tear past ours but it never did. When I finally asked him about it later he said that he kept editing the first paragraph over and over and over and couldn't move beyond that. He was so worried that the beginning of it be absolutely perfect, believing that it would set up the rest of the book to be perfect, that he never moved on at all. I didn't have the heart to tell him that when I edit my short stories and flash fiction the first paragraph of my rough draft is normally the first thing to go. Sometimes the first few paragraphs simply get cut completely.

Originally Posted by Foxee

I use Write or Die when I want to push myself and focus. Check out the right sidebar for the free online version, it works well.

I love Write or Die.

When I'm having trouble writing, I focus on smaller aspects of the story that require less thought and are more enjoyable to write about (a character's back story, the economy of my fictional world, etc, etc) until the juices flow. If that doesn't work I just write. Crap, but it's still writing.

Originally Posted by Akito

I have an extremely difficult time with being a perfectionist, raking over every word and sentence in such detail that I get nowhere fast. I think that is a large part of why I have such a hard time, I can’t just write, I have to trace myself to make sure there are no mistakes. Everything has to be in order or I shut down.

I suggest you abandon this notion of "perfection." For the simple fact that as you mature so will your tastes, and you'll look back on what you thought was perfect and see that it has problems, or lacks subtlety, or has a weak story, or any number of other criticisms.

I think the biggest problem a writer faces is the tendency to quit before he starts. I started out this way. I remember sitting at the table with my sleeves rolled up and a stack of CDs nearby for "inspiration" and feeling ready to go, only to create a paragraph of the most overworked, and purplest of purple prose. Not surprisingly, I quit out of frustration after achieving little more than 100 words.

The culprit is, of course, that inner editor.

At some point you just have to let go and be the kid playing in his sandbox. There are no rules or mistakes. The only thing you must do is put the stuff in your head onto paper, or your preferred recording device.

My way of dealing with Inner Editor Syndrome is to write my stories by hand. There is no delete key.

I've done a lot of stuff, but one thing that helps me to beat writer's block is fanfiction. Yep- even if it sucks, it still counts as writing and getting some random playtime in a world you don't have to create can really help you get back into the flow of things.

If even that fails me, then I take a day or two off and come back to my writing with a clear head. Obsessing never did anyone any good.

Most of us managed to get writing done every day except for one.

Which day was that?

I can totally relate to this as I'm one of those undisciplined writers who tend to work in short manic bursts of inspiration (followed by depression!)

When I'm stuck, I find it helps to write something that's deliberately 'just for fun', something completely non-useful that you might not show to anyone else, but is purely for your own amusement.

Think about what you love, what you're passionate about - for example, with me, it's music. Following a recent fit of ennui, I wrote a short fictional account of how the musicians from my favourite band met, which has absolutely no literary value, but which I enjoyed so much it's inspired me to start writing 'seriously' again.