Lately i have been in a HUGE writing slump. I'm not talking about a tiny case of writer's block or a lack of subtle inspiration. I'm talking about a massive case of " I CAN NOT WRITE A DAMN THING NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY!"
This is like a person that talks for a living being suddenly unable to speak. It impacted every aspect of my daily life. No matter how much I wanted to write though I just couldn't and none of the tricks I normally used to get me through a case of block could do anything for what i was going through. It scared the hell out of me and made me a raging bitch to be around. My friends and family thought I'd lost my mind. My kids shied away from me. It was like the worst case of PMS ever times a thousand.
So how did i finally get over it? I forced it. I sat down and made myself write, even if it was just typing a bunch of words over an over again. Some of what I wrote actually made me ill to read it back but it was writing, it was getting some type of word count down on the page. I wrote every spare second I could find, either on the computer or longhand in a notebook, I even carried a handheld recorder around with me and recorded any ideas I got in case inspiration hit at a time when typing of writing wasn't possible. After almost 4 months of frustration the dam finally broke the other day. I was doing my usual online writing exercise and a sudden idea for a short story just popped into my head. I open a new word document and went with it. Two hours later I had almost 2k and a pretty good idea of what direction the story was headed in. The next morning, as soon as i shipped the kids off to school I sat down and a few hours later I had about 4k worth of yummy gay erotica. I sent it off to my proofreader, took care of the edits later that night and submitted it to a call for subs I'd had my eye on that ended at midnight that night. Now I wait and see if the editor thought it was good.
Anyway i thought I'd share the experience and see if anyone else has ever had a major inspiration meltdown like this? If so what did you do to get past it?
Beth
www.bethwylde.com
No comments:
Post a Comment