Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Writer's Block? Write Multiple Books Instead

Having trouble writing your book? Here’s a suggestion: Write three of them. I know everyone out there is saying “What?” But this is a sure fire method for a few writers to avoid the block.

The human brain is an interesting thing. It doesn’t like to think about one thing for long periods of time. Don’t believe me? Try to think about your nose for thirty-seconds. You’ll find that you’ll quickly think about your eyes, which will lead you to something you see, which will remind you of something on TV. LOL

So, if you find this happening to you – why not just go with it. It’s natural after all. Start working on the book you “want to write” but plan another project in the same universe; maybe a side book, or side short story. When you burn out on the main book or your characters stop talking, you may find that your mind is fresh for the other idea, same universe, different situation.  When ideas start appearing for the “main book” you simply go back to it, giving your mind time to refresh ideas for the second or third book. But remember to go back. Give yourself a time limit to work on the other project so you can get back to work. :-) 

See if this works for you, maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But no matter what, it’s so important to keep writing. Remember the more you write the better. You can also do this for totally different universes if that works better.


Here’s another poster for the upcoming Messengers short film. Hope you like it.

2 comments:

  1. I used to work weekly revisions in between my two MG wips until I kept interchanging the names of the two main protags. I agree it's good to keep the brain fresh, but I caved in and went back to working on one project at a time. Besides, I find that I'm only fresh and original in the first draft, after that, it all becomes revise, rinse, repeat. I've even accidentally deleted an entire chapter, or forgot to save, and after having to re-write it from scratch, I found it scary how I was able to re-write the chapter almost precisely to the original, down to key words and slick phrases. Weird, but true. It's like in our subconscious brain, every scene has a built-in default path and no matter how many times you revise, in tends to migrate back to 'that' one natural path of story. telling.

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    1. LOL, I've actually done that too. Delete whole chapters and then almost rewrite them word for word. It's good that you have a voice - a strong one at that. I'm now in the middle of 4 books now. I'm thinking it's time to concentrate back on the main ones. :-) Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

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