A Personal Comeback-Potentially

gnd_fnd said:

I have had a major problem with writer's block pertaining to stories that started 14yrs ago. I have recently had multiple ideas that have been nagging me to write them (yay nougetty goodness). My current problem is that with the exception of staying in touch with friends I haven't written anything. I'm now qualifying as a newblet. I can't find my way around a writing utensil to get my ideas to story form. The idea of constructing dialogue makes me nausated. If you have any suggestions as to how to start up again I am very welcome. Thanks in advance

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Hypoxia said:

Only way to write, is to write. I can drive / walk / work with ideas and images oozing around in my head, but they don't mean much unless I record them. "If you don't write it down, it never happened."

I used to walk / bike / drive with a little reporter's cassette recorder, and dictate ideas / songs / rants, then transcribe them for digital immortality. I may do that again on our next long journey. (I invented a system for inventing religions while on a 5-day drive to and from Area 51 a few years ago. Got it all on tape, then on disc, edited and expanded.) Walking / biking are especially good for songs and stories -- my human motions set up a rhythm for the words.

When writing stories, I don't try to construct dialog. Instead, I envisage the characters, and put them in a scenario, then set them loose and see what happens. It plays out inside my head, like a movie. The characters write the script, speak their own dialog -- I just transcribe.

One character may be the 1st-person narrator, who isn't me, not really. The narrator may be a storyteller, or an honest reporter, or a bullshitter, or psycho. The story may be recorded as a set of blog entries: I went here, did that, felt like this, got fucked there, thought about them, loved / hated whatever, ate / drank / smoked those, etc in a linear temporal stream, with flashbacks and premonitions. Not trying to build a plot, just seeing what happens.

Only way to write, is to write. Get out there and WRITE. Have fun!

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gnd_fnd said:

Thanks for the advice. I'm just getting around to checking this out (gotta love when things end up in the spam). I'm going to try and put the characters in a scenario like you said. That seems to be the best way for a few of the ideas I have.

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_Lynn_ said:

First, I don't believe every idea is strong enough to become a story, regardless of how good it sounds. If it is, then it will flow and not fight the author.

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Second, I also don't believe someone has to write daily. If words aren't making interesting sentences/paragraphs, then take a break. Go for a walk, clean the house, cook dinner, or meet friends. Then start over.

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Third, tricks that work for one person may hinder another. Recording ideas would annoy me, for example, as would keeping a notepad next to the bed. Then again, I'm not the typical writer, either.

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If writing isn't fun, then it's a job. Relax and keep it enjoyable.

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Hypoxia said:

Oh, quite. Ideas are easy. We've writers' exercises for generating titles and first lines that sound great. The problem comes with devising an ending. And then, figuring out what comes in between. Sometimes it flows, and sometimes it churns and ferments for a few years.


Especially the walking part - words occur to me as I stroll, or cook, which is why I keep notepad and recorder handy. But writing daily becomes habit. If we stop writing daily, we break the habit, lose the compulsion - stop being writers.


I dunno what a typical writer is. To a non-writer, any writing seems almost like magic. (That's how I thought of software till I was trained to write it.) How that magic is achieved... varies. Some folks, at some times, compose quite fluidly on the keyboard. Other folks or other times, a pen or pencil on paper, or a voice recorder, are the most fluid compositional tools. My next-to-bed notepad does not get used every night, might go weeks unsullied. But it's there if I need it.


Sometimes the fun comes the masochistic pleasure of torturing oneself. Sometimes it's a compulsion; we write because we MUST. And sometimes, Freud's Pleasure Principal (pleasure is the absence of pain) applies. Yow.

Are many possible approaches to writing. But all entail actually generating and recording words. How we get those words out -- well, that's an entertaining process, yah?

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