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Writer’s Block – Write a Little to Write a Lot
By Deb Gallardo
I read some great advice today on what to do when you aren’t sure how to use what you’ve got in the way of random notes, data, and ideas for your writing, whether fiction or non-fiction.
In a way it’s related to “free writing,” an exercise I’m not fond of where you just start writing anything that comes to mind, including gibberish, to “prime the pump,” so to speak. (If you’ve never used a manual pump, the process of extracting water from a well requires adding a little water into the pipe, which speeds up the process of getting water to rise and pour forth — a good analogy for the writing process.)
In this instance, this isn’t an intentional exercise. When it happens, it does so spontaneously.
Let’s say you have only a few ideas about a story, a character, a scenario, etc. that you want to record so you don’t forget them. Perhaps it’s a paragraph that came to you while doing the dishes, a title that stirs your imagination, an idea for a protagonist that keeps haunting you — in other words, just a snippet of writing you want to archive so it’s not lost in the corners of your mind.
Why is this akin to priming the pump? When we start writing down (or typing) these fragments, we often end up inspired to write pages and pages of notes, whole sections of dialogue, a major chunk of story outline (or a complete outline!), or a full-blown character sketch.
Author Gene Wolfe sat down to write a novella. His Book of the New Sun ended up being more than 800 pages.
My point? It’s actually from a writing site I had never visited until today. Their advice is to write even a little bit. Just put it down in tangible form. It doesn’t have to be long enough to meet anyone’s requirements. It doesn’t have to be good enough to be published.
That’s the big lie that our inner critic whispers constantly in our ears. Getting something — anything — on paper or on your computer is crucial. It’s very much like an artist makes a rough black and white sketch. This is always where they start. Seldom will a classical artist pick up a brush and just begin painting without having done at least one sketch, and often several.
From those rough drawings, the artist begins adding and drawing over the underlying shape. Then comes some quick shading.
They draw a “line of action,” which shows the whole energy of the piece. It directs the movement and will direct the eye of the beholder. For a living being, this line of action is the spine. which represents the under structure.
And this is how a rough set of notes, that aren’t long enough to qualify as anything publishable, serves to provide a brief sketch. It’s not the whole drawing (story). It’s a piece of the whole. Where it fits in, how much importance it will bear — these are things that will evolve much later.
The important thing to remember is that you can write something, even just a little, every day. Then you can say to yourself, At least I did a little something today.” That way you can quit worrying about writer’s block.
I said near the beginning that this method isn’t an intentional exercise, but it easily could be. Run, don’t walk, with any story scraps and mental musings to your favorite notepad or word processor and EXPRESS them. You may find this is just the priming your writer’s pump needs.
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2 Comments »
May 23rd, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I only just now noticed you quoted my site. I’ve rearranged the site and it looks like the original article is no longer up, I’m afraid.
I don’t remember if the original article was about fiction or non-fiction, but I’ve found the concept works for both. The discipline angle of art is one that people don’t talk about much, but it’s the most important!
BTW you have excellent taste if I do say so myself; Gene Wolfe is probably my favorite living author. _New Sun_ really bit me hard but _The Devil in a Forest_ and even _Operation Ares_ were great, and some of his short stories are pretty amazing. There was even an issue of Weird Tales dedicated to him back in the 80s or 90s.
Brad Carroll´s last blog ..Why is Article Marketing Such a Good Linking Strategy?
June 1st, 2010 at 8:25 am
Thanks for commenting, Brad. I’ve been out of town and away from my computer (gasp) and just caught up with your comment. Thanks for the heads up about the link. I’ll deactivate it. Thank you for the complement about my taste, too. LOL Funny how these things dovetail. Drop by again in the future and feel free to pass around this blog URL. Thanks again.