Writer's low...

[Zeb_Carter]

Dr. Mab's "Writer's high" thread pushed me to start this one.

I have been unemployed for two months now...

I have plenty of time on my hands...

I have opened each of the four stories I have in progress...

You think I would have finished at least one of them...

Instead I've been watching Stargate Atlantis, Doctor Who and Torchwood on the internet...I really want to finish each of them but just can't get motivated.

I spend about two hours of my day on the job search...then try to write, no deal. The words are in my head but won't come out my fingers. I fall asleep thinking of where the plot in each should go, I have even put down on paper these thoughts the next morning. No deal.

Help!!!???

Anyone in a similar situation?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Dude, I am so there.

 

[Guest]

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Add me to the que. I thought that I'd start out May 1st and rip right through my idea for a convoluted, cross-species sci-fi novel and couldn't get past the prologue. I think I must be feeling too good or something. At least that's the excuse I'm trying out, now.

 

[starrkers]

And me. I dream about the characters and their doings. But I still can't get it on paper.

 

[S-Des]

Anyone in a similar situation?

Similar, but opposite. I have just enough free time to indulge in a few posts and to waste some time at my favorite sites. I haven't had enough to write in as long as I can remember. I really miss it, but I'm just not the kind of person who can sit down for 20 minutes and accomplish something. I need to immerse myself for hours, and that's not in the foreseeable future.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Oh! Me! Its not a problem I have.

My trouble is closing down my imagination so I can get something on paper thats permanent. I wrote 600 words today and tossed out 300, so the manuscript progressed. I'll do the same tomorrow plus write 2 essays and some blogs. I also assemble story ideas for other writers.

 

[MagicaPractica]

I have been having that trouble with the novel I started. I have the time but my mind is resisting. I'm afraid of f-ing it up, I think.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

You cant fuck it up unless youre chiseling it in granite.

I draw. Most of the drawing I do is erasing.

 

[MagicaPractica]

You cant fuck it up unless youre chiseling it in granite.

I draw. Most of the drawing I do is erasing.

Rationally, I know that. It's the other part of my brain causing me trouble, but it's getting better. I found something today to help inspire the plot.

That's a fair analogy.

 

[hmmnmm]

it goes a lot like thus:
go into an idea, take it to some length, but all of a sudden comes a new idea, a new direction, which means it is necessary to go back and redo, so it flows and fits. That idea is taken to an extent, everything's looking good, but then! No! No! No! Wrong! This! This way, take it this way, make this person more that than this. That goes for a few thou. Same thing. What's worse, is if I happen to look back at the original one I thought sucked, I notice it wasn't so bad in the first place, quite workable the way it was. Before long there's four, five, six versions that could almost be four, five, and six different stories, none finished. wife says I don't have enough discipline. Guess that's one thing you can't order from Amazon.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Thanks everyone...it's nice to know you're not alone.

I have three novel length pieces, I have invested around 50,000 - 60,000 words in each and can't bring myself to end them or continue as the case maybe. Two are Sci-fi (well one is a Sci-fi Romance) the third is a Romance piece.

And lately I have found myself struggling with the erotic parts of the story. I can get the action and plot put together without trouble but when it comes time for intimacy to occur I struggle to put the words together.

Oh well maybe this to shall pass.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Thanks everyone...it's nice to know you're not alone.

I have three novel length pieces, I have invested around 50,000 - 60,000 words in each and can't bring myself to end them or continue as the case maybe. Two are Sci-fi (well one is a Sci-fi Romance) the third is a Romance piece.

And lately I have found myself struggling with the erotic parts of the story. I can get the action and plot put together without trouble but when it comes time for intimacy to occur I struggle to put the words together.

Oh well maybe this to shall pass.

Courage, Zeb, Molly struggled for over six months before it began to flow again. It'll go, it'll go.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Dr. Mab's "Writer's high" thread pushed me to start this one.

I have been unemployed for two months now...

I have plenty of time on my hands...

I have opened each of the four stories I have in progress...

You think I would have finished at least one of them...

Instead I've been watching Stargate Atlantis, Doctor Who and Torchwood on the internet...I really want to finish each of them but just can't get motivated.

I spend about two hours of my day on the job search...then try to write, no deal. The words are in my head but won't come out my fingers. I fall asleep thinking of where the plot in each should go, I have even put down on paper these thoughts the next morning. No deal.

Help!!!???

Anyone in a similar situation?

You only have four stories in the works? I have around 60...

I haven't written more than a couple of sentences in a row in years...

 

[moonfae]

I feel ya. I am living a dream (sorta) on disability, so I have all day to write if I want to. Damned if I can get anything to come out. I occasionally write little vignettes for here, and the demands of my best friend lol, but other then that, the well is DRY. Next month I'm going to try writing a 50,000 word novel at the same time as one of my friends. We are gonna check up on each other for word counts and such. Wish me luck I don't even have a plot idea yet...

 

[Zeb_Carter]

You only have four stories in the works? I have around 60...

I haven't written more than a couple of sentences in a row in years...

Well get busy...

I feel ya. I am living a dream (sorta) on disability, so I have all day to write if I want to. Damned if I can get anything to come out. I occasionally write little vignettes for here, and the demands of my best friend lol, but other then that, the well is DRY. Next month I'm going to try writing a 50,000 word novel at the same time as one of my friends. We are gonna check up on each other for word counts and such. Wish me luck I don't even have a plot idea yet...

Good luck.

 

[English Lady]

Okay, this is going to sound a bit shitty, but it's not meant to.

Force yourself to write. sit down and do it. Yes, it may take you three hours to push out a couple of hundred words but it is progress and this is the only way I get anything done.

Last week I spent *all* day on astory, from the moment i got up 'til I went to bed (take out time for eats and taking and picking up daughter and motherly type stuff) and I got out 600 measly words.

The next day though I banged out a thousand before breakfast and I'm now close to finishing the damn thing.

Okay, I have added incentive, I've got a deadline I need to meet on this one, so it can be published but I do it with all my stories these days. If I let myself not write, I won't write. I have to make time and make myself do it.

I know it's not awfully easy, but I think in the end, it's just what it always comes down to.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Okay, this is going to sound a bit shitty, but it's not meant to.

Force yourself to write. sit down and do it. Yes, it may take you three hours to push out a couple of hundred words but it is progress and this is the only way I get anything done.

Last week I spent *all* day on astory, from the moment i got up 'til I went to bed (take out time for eats and taking and picking up daughter and motherly type stuff) and I got out 600 measly words.

The next day though I banged out a thousand before breakfast and I'm now close to finishing the damn thing.

Okay, I have added incentive, I've got a deadline I need to meet on this one, so it can be published but I do it with all my stories these days. If I let myself not write, I won't write. I have to make time and make myself do it.

I know it's not awfully easy, but I think in the end, it's just what it always comes down to.

Oh I write, after the job search I open a chapter or story and type some words. Then the next day I read what I wrote the day before and re-write most of it. I type about four or five hundred words a day, but some days it just doesn't pay to type them.

I now have whole chapters I'm going to have to re-write 'cuz I don't like them anymore...go figure.

 

[SemiColon]

I have this enitre story that I love in my head, but when I go to write it is doens't flow. I've never had this before. So then I open a new story to clear my head, and that doesn't flow either, so I surf the web for a while. Now I have several things in the works and they all are inching along, but nothing pleases or inspires me lately.

Do you ever start to write a sex scene and think, oh God, do I really have to write this again?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

30-something years ago I spent 4 years learning developmental geometry. Computers do it now, but back then a person did the math and hand-made patterns for automobile fenders and doors, aircraft skin, etc.

Occasionally something came along that stumped you. The rules and the math didnt work. Even the experts were puzzled. So you burnt the midnight oil and inched your way to a solution.

Writing wouldnt be a thrill if words dripped from your fingers every time.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I have this enitre story that I love in my head, but when I go to write it is doens't flow. I've never had this before. So then I open a new story to clear my head, and that doesn't flow either, so I surf the web for a while. Now I have several things in the works and they all are inching along, but nothing pleases or inspires me lately.

Do you ever start to write a sex scene and think, oh God, do I really have to write this again?

Uh-huh. I have a threesome in the shower, with one woman going down on the guy and the other woman just about to.... What? take a fucking nap? I don't KNOWwwww.... owww... owww....

 

[Guest]

Uh-huh. I have a threesome in the shower, with one woman going down on the guy and the other woman just about to.... What? take a fucking nap? I don't KNOWwwww.... owww... owww....

Do interesting things with a bar of soap.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Do interesting things with a bar of soap.

To each of the others in turn. And since soap is really tickly, the possibilities for either BDSM or comedy are rich.

 

[Liar]

I'm there too. But only when it comes to writing erotica.

I do other creative stuff with no efforyt, write scripts, essaysm, the occasional poem and music whenever I feel like it, and there's never any blockage.

If writing smut was something that was important to me, I'd follow EL's advice. Just sit down and squeeze it out until the mind unclogs. It usually worls.

As ti is now, I just shug and do something else.

Seriously, if I'll never write another piece of Lit smut, I won't shed a tear. It was fun, but there are other fun things to do in life.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

You only have four stories in the works? I have around 60...

I haven't written more than a couple of sentences in a row in years...

Only four I'm actively working on...I have at least 20 more that I have put aside or just plain given up on for on reason or another.