Dear O'Abby, Is Writer's Block Real?

Dear O'Abby,

I've been in such a writing funk for the last few months.  None of my projects really interests me, and I can't seem to figure out how to fix the plot and/or pacing problems in any of them.  I've never faced 'writer's block' before, never even believed it was a real thing, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm wrong.

Is 'writer's block' a real thing, or is it just an excuse writers use when they don't want to write?

Best wishes,

Blocked


Dear Blocked,

I don't really know if writer's block is a real thing or not.  I just know it feels real when you reach a point in your story where you realize you don't know what happens next and nothing you try seems to move the plot forward or toward the next piece of plot.

Generally speaking, when this happens to me, I leave the project alone for a few days.  I work on something else - a revision, a critique for another writer, a short story - and that usually unsticks me.

But it isn't always that simple.

Sometimes what we call 'writer's block' is your brain telling you there's something else wrong.  Maybe you've been working too hard and need a break.  Maybe your mental health is wavering a little.  Maybe you've just been writing too much and are burning out as a result.

It's important to listen to that voice, to pay attention to what your body might be trying to tell you.  Maybe it is just that you made a wrong turn somewhere around chapter 17 and if you go back and straighten that out, all your problems at the current point in the story will miraculously disappear, but maybe it's something more.

I know most of us write in our downtime.  We have day jobs and families and friends and responsibilities.  These things all take time and energy to maintain - and it's important to maintain them.  Sometimes writing and feeling the responsibility to write adds more pressure to an already pressured situation.

Maybe your hours have been cut at your day job and that means you're struggling to feed your family. Trying to write with that level of stress hanging over you might prove difficult.  Maybe you can't even do it, even though you now have all those extra hours to write available.

It's okay to take a break.  It's okay to stop writing, even if you're on a deadline (just make sure you get in touch with your agent and/or editor and explain the situation).  Sometimes we all need to take a break and do something different.  The writing will still be there and it will probably be better if you're not forcing it when you don't feel it.

It's okay to be kind to yourself.  A little time away from the page is sometimes exactly what you need to figure out what the problem was in the first place.

I still don't know if writer's block is real, I just know that if you are feeling it, it's something you should pay attention to.

X O'Abby

Dealing with Burnout

So you finished NaNoWriMo! Now it’s time for revisions, finding CPs and beta readers, more revisions, potentially working with a sensitivity reader, even more revisions, query writing, looking for agents, writing a synopsis…

Blergh.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I finished NaNoWriMo, I was tired. Bone-tired, exhausted, no-I-will-not-go-to-school-today dead on my feet. Or in my writing chair. Whatever. It didn’t help that I’d just moved 500 miles and had to get our apartment put together while also starting a new job, all during NaNoWriMo. With 50,000 words written at the end of the month, I thought I’d be pumped to set my NaNoWriMo manuscript aside and start revisions on my other manuscript in December. I’m on my last round of revisions, after all, and the sooner I get them done, the sooner my agent can start sending my work out!

Well, days went by, and I wasn’t getting anything done. I really wanted to, but the thought of scrutinizing every word, sentence, and page got me worn out just thinking about it. So I finally realized that there was no other way around it: I am burned. out.

Burnout is hard in any profession. Getting tired of doing your usual tasks is rough, and it makes getting anything at all done difficult. When I go to my 9-to-5, I can at least force myself to get job done because I know I have to (and, honestly, because I’m getting paid to do it). I can’t just sit around and do nothing when I don’t want to do my work. When it comes to writing, though, there’s no urgent deadline. Every deadline I have is set by myself, and when I come home from my job, it’s really hard to be motivated.

I thought about setting hard deadlines. I thought about staying up late to smash through the revisions. I even thought about taking a day off from work. Unfortunately, though, there's no cure-all for burnout. You can't just have a cup of tea and be back to full charge, or rest for a day and *poof* you're all better. It takes time to overcome, and as painful as that is, the longer I let myself rest, the more ready I feel to get back to writing.

So I’m trying to take a break. I’m laying off my manuscripts and going on hiatus from Twitter. I was spending way too much time on those daily hashtag games, anyway. If you keep finding yourself procrastinating instead of writing, stop and think for a moment. Sure, maybe you’re just procrastinating for the sake of procrastinating. But maybe, after a really intense month of hammering out a few thousand or a few hundred or even a few dozen words a day, you need a break, too. Make a new year’s resolution to write. Give yourself the rest of the year off. You’d be in good company.