Writers Block Already?!

Okay, so I've been on a roll lately. Its been great! I've been writing at least ten pages a day and it's been great. Early Thursday night (and by early I mean 10:00 pm, I'm a late night thinker) I was super excited because I thought to myself, "Whoo hoo! Three chapters a week? This is easy!"... By 11:00 pm I could barely remember my own name let alone come up with any dialog or plot progression. Is writer's block supposed to come on so suddenly? How are you supposed to shake yourself out of it?

I struggled for another hour or two trying to pry anything that might vaguely resemble English and a coherent thought out of my brain onto paper but it was to no avail. At one point I just stopped trying to write actual paragraphs and just started jotting down random thoughts about the characters I've created so far in my book in the hopes that it would inspire me in some way but that didn't work either. Eventually I just stopped writing all together and tried to look up some inspiration on the internet. 

            If I haven't mentioned it before, I love the internet! I know it's been said before, but what the hell did we do before the internet? But I digress. Earlier this week I joined the AbsoluteWrite writers’ forum. I've perused this forum board in the past but never registered until recently. There are several threads dedicated to writer's block there, and reading through them was a huge help. The forum members are all writers from all genres and the advice they give is varying, but there is always at least one response or post that applies to you so it's a great place to go for all sorts of writing issues.

     

            I also visited several other sites that offered sound advice, but good advice doesn't cure writer's block. It's like weight loss, what works for some, may not work for others. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that the advice I read would work, but I was comforted learning that, yes, it can happen at any stage of writing, that it happens to everyone at one point or another and that no, it doesn't last forever. Somewhere around three a.m. I finally drifted off to sleep, moderately convinced that my world wasn't ending.

I woke up yesterday morning actually feeling refreshed and somewhere between brushing my teeth and making my morning tea it came to me—a small spark of inspiration, and a glimmer of dialogue. I whipped out my trusty journal and jotted as much down as I could before having to run out of the house. The rest I recorded using my voice recorder in the car. I was not going to let my train of thought go. The possibility of it not being there later was too terrifying a thought. 

            I got lucky this time around. I'm back to writing about ten pages a day. It looks like all I needed was a good rest to get past this "mini-block", but I wonder how bad it can get and most likely will get in the future. Although I've always held a healthy amount of respect for writers in general and their ability to stay focused long enough to produce complete works, I'm now doubly impressed by their ability to fight to get their words out and finish the stories they’ve imagined up.

Write to you soon,

Laurel Cremant