August 6, 2018 • 34 mins
Staring at a blank page, unsure what to do next? If you’ve ever felt stuck, this episode is for you. Writer’s block can feel paralyzing, but there are proven techniques to break through and keep writing—even when inspiration seems out of reach.
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(00:00):
Welcome to the inside creative writing podcast.
The weekly discussion of craft and technique for
writers of fiction and creative nonfiction.
And now here's your host, writer and educator,
Brad Reid. Episode 28. In today's show, we're
exploring the writer's nemesis,
writer's block. What is it? Where does it
(00:21):
come from? And how can we move past
it?
Welcome back to the inside creative writing podcast.
My name is Brad Reed and I am
so glad that you're spending some time with
me here today. I'm excited about today's topic
because it's something that affects
almost every writer I know and something that
(00:43):
I think there are some simple solutions for
especially
once we understand its source. But, we'll get
to that in a minute. First, I wanna
thank everyone who's, checking out the now free
to everyone,
Patreon video resources that we made available last
week. I'm really excited about opening up these
companion videos to the podcast and
(01:05):
I really appreciate the feedback that I'm starting
to get on those. If you haven't checked
them out yet, you can head on over
to patreon.com/bradreedwrites.
Again, they're all free for everyone. You don't
have to be supporting the show as a
member of the Patreon team to have access
to those.
If you do find value in what we've
got there for you though and in the
(01:26):
podcast in general,
I really hope you'll consider spending,
just a few bucks a month and sending
that our way to help us pay the
bills here at the podcast
and keep working to produce,
great content for you.
One other quick thing before we dive into
today's topic.
I just discovered a few days ago that
our bradreedwrites.com
(01:47):
email system
has been down,
for for who knows how long. It forwards
to a catch all email address so I
hadn't noticed that I wasn't getting email
through that particular email
address until I had people start to contact
me through Twitter and say, hey, why haven't
I heard back from you? I emailed you
a few days ago or a week ago.
(02:08):
As you can imagine,
that's more than a little frustrating,
for you as well as for me,
especially after my announcement last week that we're
starting to accept
guest host audio submissions. So,
anyway as of this morning it looks like
that email address is working again.
So, please, please, please reach out to me
(02:29):
if you sent me an email in the
past week or two,
maybe three or four, I don't know how
far back it goes,
and if you didn't hear back from me
so please touch base again. The email address
that I'm talking about is bradreedbradreedwrites
dot com. So, oh and if you're interested
in being a guest host on the podcast
like I talked about a week or so
(02:50):
ago you can now check out all the
information related to that. I just added that
to the website
about how to do that, what it entails,
and how to submit,
your guest host podcast segment. So, just click
the be a guest host link
on the bradreedwrites.com
website.
But enough about all that stuff. Let's get
(03:12):
into today's topic. It's an important one because
we're dealing with one of the banes of
a writer's existence,
writer's block.
So we're exploring writer's block today. What it
(03:33):
is, what causes it, and how to get
past it or get through it. Now, I'm
gonna warn you of a couple of things
right up front in today's show. I have
some pretty strong
opinions about writer's block that some of you,
maybe even a lot of you,
won't share. You won't agree with me or
you'll at the very least find them hard
to accept. Now, I get that and I
(03:55):
don't expect you to take, everything I say
on anything as
writing gospel.
Right? As always,
simply take what works for you
and leave anything that doesn't work for you
behind, right? That's what I do with writing
resources
as I, find them and read them and
listen to them.
But I hope that you will give some
(04:16):
consideration to what I'm going to talk about
today because I think it can be a
huge
part of pushing through the really difficult parts
of writing
and pushing yourself into a place of productivity
and creativity.
So let's start with probably my most controversial
take on writer's block and it's this. I
(04:38):
don't believe that writer's block exists.
That's right. I don't believe that writer's block,
at least not in the sense that we
usually think of it, is actually a real
thing.
Now, if we mean that there is some
process that takes place in the writer's brain
that occasionally just turns off the water spigot
of creativity and forces us to sit in
(04:59):
front of a keyboard with a sense of
panic and fear,
then no. I don't believe that that's actually
what's happening
when, this thing happens that we want to
call writer's block. Now, perhaps you think of
writer's block as something different. Maybe you think
of it as just a, reluctance to write
or the frustration
(05:19):
that sets in when you're struggling to write
a scene or if you're not sure
what to write next. Well, if that's what
you mean by writer's block,
that's just writing. Right?
Writing is often full of
joy and excitement and creative insights,
but by its very nature,
it also has within it those moments of
(05:40):
struggle,
moments of panic, moments of self doubt, and
those are all just a natural part
of writing, just like the highs are. Right?
We're gonna get the lows as well.
Writing is like solving an incredibly,
complicated puzzle.
And, we don't get puzzling block when we're
(06:00):
stuck looking for the right piece in a
puzzle. Right? We know that piece is out
there somewhere. Right? It's lost in that myriad
of pieces or maybe it's dropped on the
floor and we have to find it there.
But, we know it exists somewhere and as
long as we just keep looking for it
and we keep trying out various pieces that
look like they might fit,
eventually
(06:21):
one of them is going to click into
place and we're off and running again. Now,
that's the world of writing too.
But, actually that analogy takes us kind of
temptingly close to the solutions that we're gonna
talk about
towards the end of the show. So, I
wanna leave that puzzle analogy there for a
moment.
We'll return to
it. Alright, so let's jump into our controversial
(06:45):
claim number two, right? The first was that
writer's block, I don't think even actually exists.
Controversial claim number two, I think of the
idea of writer's block, I think it's come
about
as a means to justify procrastination.
Now, I can feel some of you gritting
your teeth right now and probably cracking your
(07:06):
knuckles to get ready to send me a
flaming email or tweet.
And I don't mean to minimize the fear
and frustration
that people experience with what they call writer's
block. I know it can be
incredibly debilitating
and it can even start a downward spiral
of self defeating behavior. So, I don't make
(07:28):
this claim lightly about writer's block being just
another form
of procrastination,
but I am making that claim. And, here's
why.
I I hope you follow me on this.
So, yes, as writers,
we are artists.
There is
absolutely
some sort of almost
(07:48):
mythical
alignment of stars and muse and,
that perfect cup of coffee
that results in bursts of astounding creativity and
productivity.
But as writers,
we also have to see our art
as our job.
Even if we don't do it for a
living or ever even make a dollar from
(08:09):
it.
After all, we're seeking to create a product
for a consumer. Now, I know that's that's
hard for some of us to hear, especially
those of us who lean much more towards
writing as art rather than writing as business.
But I want you to follow me, through
kind of this logic because I think it
will help unlock this puzzle
of writer's block. So remember, we're seeking to
(08:31):
create a product
for a consumer.
Our product might be a book for a
consumer who's a reader.
Our product might be a screenplay
for a consumer who's going to be
a producer or an actor or eventually an
audience.
If you remove kind of this,
artistic halo
(08:52):
from the act of writing and that's admittedly
hard to do but if you remove
that I don't know why I'm saying halo
but that's kind of what I think. Right?
This, this kind of artistic
atmosphere that surrounds the the act of writing.
It really boils down to
you're producing a product.
You could even look at it as part
(09:14):
of the service industry. Right? We're seeking
to entertain or inform our audiences
with what we write. And once you look
at writing as even just a little bit
business,
it becomes clear how writer's block
sounds like a concept that you can't really
back up.
(09:34):
Let's take a plumber for example.
I can't imagine
that plumbers wake up every day excited and
joyful
about plumbing. I'm sure there are days that
it is the last thing that they want
to do. I'm sure they have off days
where they're not even very good at doing
it, right, because they're not invested in it.
They're not actively
(09:55):
engaged in it in a passionate way. But
they still get up and they
plumb.
I guess that's what plumbers do is plumb.
There's no such thing as plumber's block.
Right? A plumber never
sits in front of a job, even if
it's an incredibly
complex one,
and finds that they can't do anything.
(10:15):
No. What they do is they jump in.
And maybe they make a total mess of
it. But eventually,
they're going to figure it out or at
the very least, they're gonna call in someone
with more expertise
to help them figure it out. So, there's
no such thing as plumber's block, right? There
may
be astounding reluctance for them to wanna do
their job but it's not, kind of the
(10:37):
psychological
phenomenon
that we think of, like writer's block.
So, years ago, actually it's been decades now,
I used to be a letter carrier for
the postal service and
for whatever reason, I hated
that job.
Not initially, but eventually,
I hated that job.
Towards the end, there was nothing I felt
(10:58):
less inclined to do than go out and
deliver another day's mail. I know that probably
sounds
insane to you. Right? From the outside,
being a letter carrier looks like a pretty
chill job, right? You're just kind of out
in the open air. You're getting lots of
exercise. You're saying hello to neighbors and you're
delivering the mail. What's so bad about that?
(11:19):
But, on the inside,
dealing with all the
insane rules and the overbearing
management,
it turned out to just be miserable. At
least for me, right, over time. Just became
one of those things
that I just loathed.
Anyway, that's that's kind of beside the point.
What I want you to understand is that
(11:39):
even on my worst day
of being a letter carrier,
I never had a case of mailman's
block.
Right? I might have done a terrible job
that day. Right? Put some letters in the
wrong boxes, missed a few houses, you know,
things like that.
I may have even, required another letter carrier
to come and help me finish my route,
(12:01):
but somehow it got done. Right? Mail got
delivered. There was no such thing as mailman's
block. So,
essentially, here's what I'm saying about the concept
of writer's block.
Unless you've literally
lost the use of your hands or are
injured or disabled in some way
that absolutely
(12:21):
prevents you from writing,
you don't have writer's block.
You've got something else going on that is
legitimately
really hard to deal with.
It would have to be,
for writers all over the world to come
up with the concept of writer's block in
the first place. But here's the thing, you
can
write.
You could put your fingers on the keyboard
(12:43):
and write something, right? Even if it was
pure gibberish.
You could scroll a few words across a
piece of notebook paper,
even if they end up just being random
words kind of pulled from thin air. So,
you can
write something so you don't have
writer's block. And, I think that's one of
the first steps in getting past
writer's block is doing away with, this
(13:06):
almost mythology
about what it is and how it works.
Okay. So, even if you haven't completely bought
into my claims about the non existence of
writer's block, I hope you'll listen through
some of the techniques
to break through
whatever is hindering your writing.
And the good news here is that these
things are going to help whether or not
(13:28):
you accept my previous premises
or not. Right? I think the most common
advice for getting past writer's block is just
write through it. I know I've heard this.
Right? When I've been stuck before and had
writing mentors or teachers say, well, the best
thing to do with writer's block is just
continue to write.
And I don't think that advice is all
that helpful. There's a negative truth there, but
(13:50):
it's not all that helpful because we're stuck.
Right? Whether it's,
writer's block or not, we are stuck.
And while I may not believe that such
a thing as writer's block exists,
there definitely
are times
when we get stuck in a very real
sense for whatever reason.
So, the techniques I'm going to show you
go beyond
(14:11):
that trite advice of just write your way
through it. Because,
these techniques are intentionally
designed
to reduce the pressure, to change
your perspective on what you're writing, and find
that way back to that creative space that
you're trying to get to.
So, all of these ideas are based on
one simple truth and that truth is this.
(14:34):
Writing
begets more writing.
In other words, once your brain and your
hand are in sync and putting words on
the page, it's more likely
that the creative system will kick back in
and get to work. In fact, I think
of it like push starting a car.
Now I drive, an old restored,
(14:55):
nineteen sixty three VW Bug. Her name is
Lucy. She's blue and white, and,
all my students know her pretty well. I
get lots of waves and peace signs as
I drive around town. But I drive this
old car, right? This old '63 Bug.
So, I know a thing or two about
push starting a car. So, here's the scenario,
right? The car is dead. There's no battery,
(15:15):
no power.
Now, to get it started without
jumper cables from another battery,
you have to push it, right? And what
you do is you push it until you
can get it moving as fast as you
can then you quickly leap into the driver's
seat, you pop it into gear and let
the clutch out. And what happens is the
engine starts turning
(15:36):
because of the forward momentum of the wheels
on the ground. So, the crankshaft is turning,
the pistons are moving up and down, the
fuel pump begins to squirt a little fuel
into the engine. So the car
isn't really running yet. Right? You can't say
it's alive. It's it's not, under its own
power. It's not running yet. So it's still
dead.
(15:57):
But everything in the system is moving as
if it's running.
Then at some point, if you've got it
rolling along fast enough,
a spark plug will fire.
And that sets off that little
explosion of gasoline that begins to turn the
engine.
Then
your engine is actually running, right? And now
you're off down the road. That's essentially
(16:20):
what these techniques I'm going to show you
are designed to do, to give your brain
a sort of push start.
So, it starts going through the motions
until the engine finally fires and you're off
and running.
There's one other aspect of this analogy that
I think is really important to understand.
When you're push starting a car,
(16:41):
you don't really care about what direction you're
headed.
I mean, if there's kind of a downhill
slope, you're definitely going to push the car
in that direction because you want the help
of gravity to build up even more speed.
So, in other words, the act of push
starting the car
is not part of getting where you want
to go. In other words, you're not concerned
about how much ground you're covering in the
(17:03):
direction of your ultimate destination when you're push
starting the car. No, all you're really trying
to do is get the dang thing running,
right? So, you can
go where you actually wanted to go. Now,
some of these techniques I'm going to show
you work the same way.
They may not feel like they're related to
what you're actually trying to write at all.
But, they are working to get that system
(17:25):
fired up and running. So, there is value
in them, even if it feels like it's
writing that isn't going to serve a purpose
in your story.
What I found though is
even when I think all I'm doing is
kind of jump starting my writing brain,
I almost always find value
in what I've written,
to get that system running again. So, without
(17:47):
further ado, here are the techniques. I wanted
to introduce you to three of them today.
There are certainly more, but these are three
of my favorites that I find really effective.
And we're starting we'll start with my favorite
one.
And that take technique is this. Write about
what definitely
will not happen next.
(18:07):
So if you're stuck because you have,
no idea what the next scene is going
to be,
start writing the scene that you absolutely
know
won't be what happens next. So, for example,
if you're trying to write about a couple
falling in love,
instead write about a huge fight where they
break up. Or, if you're trying to come
(18:29):
up with, some sort of inciting event that
will kick your story into gear, write the
opposite. Right? Attempt to write the world's most
boring scene where absolutely
nothing happens.
Or maybe if you're stuck writing an ending,
this is almost always where
I get the most stuck is with endings,
then write a joke ending or a tragic
(18:51):
ending if it's supposed to be a happy
ending. Right? The point of writing the opposite
of what you're actually trying to do is
that it bypasses
the perfectionism
program in our heads that is so often
the real reason
for what we call writer's block.
And it gives us a license to write
a piece of total crap,
(19:13):
because we never intend to use it. Right?
It's push starting that car. You never intended
to cover the ground that you're covering as
you're push starting that car, but it's a
means,
to an end.
And this approach even allows you to have
some fun with what you're writing, which is
huge in the middle of the panic
and desperation of being stuck.
(19:34):
And, you know, more than once, it's been
through this kind of writing,
where I'm writing what definitely won't happen, that
I've discovered
the actual thing that will work.
And suddenly, I'm kind of off in this,
creative writing fever because I've unlocked
that puzzle piece. I've even tried this technique
and discovered that the thing I thought was
(19:56):
the opposite of what should happen is what
the story actually needed.
So let's say you're ready to get the
lovers together for example.
So you're stuck kind of writing that scene.
So instead, you write a fight scene
and you discover that what your story really
needed
was a fight to add tension
and conflict and that the scene you were
(20:16):
trying to write actually needed to come later.
So like I said, that's my favorite technique,
writing the opposite
of what you think should happen.
If you've never tried that, I hope you'll
give it a whirl. Even if you're if
you're not stuck in something,
you might call writer's block. It can be
a great warm up exercise
before you get down to the serious work
(20:38):
of actual writing. So there's technique number one,
writing the opposite of what you think
will happen
or maybe you could look at as the
least likely thing to happen next.
Our second technique is one that I actually
hinted at as one of our weekly challenges
on the podcast. Oh, I don't know. It
was it was a month or so or
(20:58):
maybe two ago.
And this technique asks you to,
write a letter
from your character
to you, to yourself as the writer.
And I like this one because,
again, it's not something you'll actually use in
your story.
So it removes
all that pressure of writing something good.
(21:20):
It also breaks you out of,
the perspective that you've been using in the
story, breaks you out of the world
that you've been inhabiting to write that story.
And that can sometimes
shake things loose to see them in a
different perspective.
So, there's a few different ways to approach
this letter.
My favorite way is actually to write two
letters.
(21:40):
One from my character is if they are
writing to me before I've even started the
story.
And then another letter,
as if they're writing to me after I've
finished writing the book and it's come out
and they're they've read it. So, in the
first letter,
what they're doing is they're telling me about
the kinds of things
that they hope I will write about them.
(22:00):
Right? So, these letters often come off as
worried. Right? They're worried about how I'm going
to portray them in the book
and they're trying to influence me to present
them to the world in a positive light.
The second letter. So, once I've written that
one, I write another one
and I pretend that this is after the
book comes out and the the character is
(22:20):
furious
with me for what I've written in the
book. Right? So, the book's come out, they've
sat down to read it and they are
incensed. They are furious
about what I've done. So, now they're writing
me a letter of discontent. Right? They're angry
with me. And they're writing about, you know,
the things that I revealed about them that
maybe pissed them off.
Or maybe they're telling me about how they
(22:41):
feel like I misrepresented
them or how I left out key scenes
or
perspectives that they wanted included or felt like
they should be included. Now, this can be
a really fun
form of writing. It's a blast
to get into the minds of your characters
and let that awful mean writer
know exactly how you feel about them.
(23:04):
And what's really great
about this kind of writing is that it
can't help but teach you something about your
character that you didn't know before.
It's sometimes during this this, this writing,
this letter writing that I figure out what
my character's inner weakness is. Right? As I'm
writing this letter,
to the writer, who is me,
(23:26):
I'm beginning to understand what their fears are,
right? What their character flaws are.
And at the very least, it's gotten your
creative engine turning and hopefully
fired that spark plug
to get your engine running again.
So, look at one more. The last one
we're gonna look at is one that I've
toyed with, over the years. I've never invested
(23:48):
in it fully,
but I find that a return to it
in moments of struggle or even,
you know, over days or weeks, sometimes months
of struggle, I'll return to this and find
it really helpful. And a lot of writers
swear by this, so it's probably something that's
not unfamiliar to you, but I wanted to
to bring it out as one of the
(24:08):
great
tools to get past this thing we call
writer's block. And this third thing is the
idea of keeping a writing journal.
Now John Steinbeck,
journaled consistently during the writing of most of
his books,
and his journals make for absolutely
fascinating
reading.
I mean, here's John Steinbeck, and you read
(24:29):
how he was,
often convinced he was writing a complete
piece of crap while he was working on
The Grapes of Wrath. Right? The Grapes of
Wrath, one of the great American novels,
and he often thought it was garbage as
he was writing it.
His journals from that time period show him
wrestling with some
(24:50):
pretty severe demons
and really wrestling with what we might want
to call writer's block.
He used his journal as a warm up
before he got around to working on his
novels nearly every day. Right? And he started
with a, I was gonna say a short
journal entry, but sometimes they become quite long.
And he'd write about,
all sorts of things. Right? What was going
on in his life?
(25:11):
Who had come to visit him recently?
How he was feeling about the the book
that he was writing, good or bad? What
his plans were either for the book or
just for his
day, right, after he got done writing? And
then,
the journal would end and he'd dive in
and he'd get the work done. So there
was something
about the process of putting words down on
(25:32):
a page that primed his creative pump.
And, I have no doubt that the same
thing will,
almost certainly work for you.
You know, if you're a fan of The
Grapes of Wrath or or really any of
Steinbeck's works for that matter,
I recommend a, that you pick up a
copy of a book called Working Days,
The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath. And
(25:54):
and this is all of his journal entries
as he's writing this great American novel.
I find it oddly inspirational
to see the behind the scenes struggles
of one of my favorite authors while writing
one of my favorite books. So it's really
fascinating
reading and I think you'll you'll get a
lot of value. It's a little bit hard
to find,
(26:15):
certainly in a bookstore or anything like that.
Go on Amazon.com
or something and look for Working Days, the
journals of the Grapes of Wrath and you
should be able to pick up a copy.
So those are the three techniques that I
find,
particularly
effective
in getting things moving again
when I'm stuck in my writing. And I
hope you give them a shot. Try them
(26:36):
out and, I bet you'll have some success
with them
as well.
One thing I didn't fully flesh out from
my push starting a car analogy
is the idea of getting help.
Sometimes you just can't push the car fast
enough
to get it to jump start or to
to push start. I've been there. Right? Sometimes
(26:58):
you need that, good Samaritan
to come along and offer to help you
push or better yet, pull out a set
of jumper cables from their trunk and,
and, you know, jump start the car rather
than have to push start the car. But
this is equally true of writer's block.
If we try to tackle it alone,
we may not always have the energy
(27:20):
or the strength that we need to push
through that. Sometimes,
we need help.
I know it often helps
me sit to, sit down with somebody I
trust,
usually a writer, but not always,
and just talk through
what's going on.
Not so much about the actual writer's block
that I'm facing. I'm not rehashing
(27:41):
kind of my fears and and,
and desperation.
But I'm talking through what I'm trying to
accomplish in the story.
See, the brain uses different pathways
when it's speaking about something than when it's
thinking about something.
And sometimes, just,
using these new pathways in the brain
unlocks something new. It frees whatever was stuck
(28:05):
and you'll find the solution
just talking it through. So, it's either that
or your trusted writer friend sees things in
a new perspective that that gives you the
insight that you need to get moving again.
This is one of the things I actually
love about the Twitter writing community and it's
not so much that people are
helping each other with actual writing
(28:26):
live on Twitter. Right? There's there's probably not
enough characters to do that,
often doing it in DMs. But it's definitely
where I've met
those trusted friends that I turn to
when I need somebody's help when I'm stuck.
Speaking of Twitter, I'd love to connect with
you there and have you as part of
my writing community.
(28:46):
I'm at at brad reedwrites
if you're interested in, in connecting on Twitter.
I'd love that.
We're going to leave our exploration of writer's
block there for today. Now, I'd really love
to hear from you
about today's show. I'm guessing I struck some
nerves
and, that you probably have your own kind
of go to techniques
(29:08):
for pushing through the rush rough times as
well. Techniques that other people could benefit from,
including me.
So what I'd really love for you to
do this week
is to call our message line and leave
us some feedback that we could use on
a future show. I'm gonna give you the
phone number here in just a minute. So
this is your chance to either find a
pen or,
if you're driving, please don't find a pen.
(29:29):
Maybe ask somebody who's writing with you in
the car to jot it down.
When you call,
there's not a live person's going to answer.
It's just a message phone, so you can
leave a recording. So on that recording, let
me know your name, where you're calling from.
You could even mention your Twiddle hand or
I can don't know why I can't
say that. Twitter handle,
or your website or whatever you may wanna,
(29:52):
promote.
And then tell me about your reaction to
the show,
along with any techniques that you use
to get through writer's block. Okay. Here's that
number if you're ready for it. It's (541)
952-2406.
1 more time in case you're writing that
down. (541)
(30:12):
952-2406.
And, if you're not in a place where
you can write it down, just when you
get to a computer or a phone,
head on over to bradreedwrites.com
and click that talk to us link. You'll
find the number there. So, I'm really looking
forward to hearing from you and hopefully
getting your voice on a future episode of
the podcast.
(30:38):
Today's wise word is a little bit longer
quote than usual.
It comes from Malcolm Gladwell and, he's talking
about his approach to encountering,
writer's block. And here's what he says.
I deal with writer's block by lowering my
expectations.
I think the trouble starts when you sit
down to write and imagine
(30:59):
that you will achieve something magical
and magnificent.
And when you don't, panic sets in.
The solution is never to sit down and
imagine that you will achieve something magical and
magnificent.
I write a little bit, almost every day.
And if it results in two or three
or, on a good day, four paragraphs,
(31:21):
I consider myself a lucky man. Never try
to be the hare.
All hail the tortoise. So that's Malcolm Gladwell.
And I don't think there's anything I can
add to his take on this. So I'm
just gonna leave that quote there for you
today.
And it's time for the weekly challenge. We've
(31:42):
talked a lot about writer's block this week
and instead
of just having you do one of the
techniques that we talked about on the show,
I wanna flip things up just a little
bit. So this really isn't even a writing
challenge this week, but it's still a weekly
challenge.
This week, I want you to reach out
to a writer friend
and have a conversation about writing.
(32:04):
Perhaps, you're feeling stuck and just need someone
to talk through it with, or better yet,
maybe you can find a fellow writer who's
stuck and take the time
to help him or her,
sort through whatever it is they're dealing with.
You could be that good Samaritan that comes
along to help them push start their car.
So this could be in person. That'd be
(32:25):
great. This could be done on Twitter, could
be done in a writer's group, whatever. Just
try to connect with someone
who you can lean on and who can
lean on you
when, your creative car is dead and needs
that push start. So, that's gonna wrap it
up for us this week. Our real time
revision videos which are now free for everyone
(32:46):
through our Patreon site are releasing on Thursdays
now. It used to be Mondays but we're
starting those on Thursdays now. So, watch for
a new one of those, coming in just
a few days.
And I'm continuing to work through the story
grid editing system with my current work in
progress novel
and I'm about ready to start on the
graphing step. If you're familiar with Story Grid,
(33:07):
you'll know what that means. If not, you
might check out storygrid.com
or,
at story grid on Twitter to familiarize yourself
with it. But right now, in that real
time revision, you're seeing me
live kind of work through that revision process.
And that's probably what you'll see in this
week's video. I'm hoping to be ready
to begin the graphing portion of that
(33:29):
editing process.
So until next week, remember the best way
to improve your craft is by writing. That's
what I'm off to go do, and I
hope you're off to do the same. Let's
get some words on paper this week, and
we'll meet up again next week for another
episode of the Inside
Creative Writing Podcast.
Thanks for listening to the Inside Creative Writing
(33:50):
Podcast with your host, writer and educator,
Brad Reed.
We'll be back next week.
Welcome to the inside creative writing podcast.
The weekly discussion of craft and technique for
writers of fiction and creative nonfiction.
And now here's your host, writer and educator,
Brad Reid. Episode 28. In today's show, we're
exploring the writer's nemesis,
writer's block. What is it? Where does it
(00:21):
come from? And how can we move past
it?
Welcome back to the inside creative writing podcast.
My name is Brad Reed and I am
so glad that you're spending some time with
me here today. I'm excited about today's topic
because it's something that affects
almost every writer I know and something that
(00:43):
I think there are some simple solutions for
especially
once we understand its source. But, we'll get
to that in a minute. First, I wanna
thank everyone who's, checking out the now free
to everyone,
Patreon video resources that we made available last
week. I'm really excited about opening up these
companion videos to the podcast and
(01:05):
I really appreciate the feedback that I'm starting
to get on those. If you haven't checked
them out yet, you can head on over
to patreon.com/bradreedwrites.
Again, they're all free for everyone. You don't
have to be supporting the show as a
member of the Patreon team to have access
to those.
If you do find value in what we've
got there for you though and in the
(01:26):
podcast in general,
I really hope you'll consider spending,
just a few bucks a month and sending
that our way to help us pay the
bills here at the podcast
and keep working to produce,
great content for you.
One other quick thing before we dive into
today's topic.
I just discovered a few days ago that
our bradreedwrites.com
(01:47):
email system
has been down,
for for who knows how long. It forwards
to a catch all email address so I
hadn't noticed that I wasn't getting email
through that particular email
address until I had people start to contact
me through Twitter and say, hey, why haven't
I heard back from you? I emailed you
a few days ago or a week ago.
(02:08):
As you can imagine,
that's more than a little frustrating,
for you as well as for me,
especially after my announcement last week that we're
starting to accept
guest host audio submissions. So,
anyway as of this morning it looks like
that email address is working again.
So, please, please, please reach out to me
(02:29):
if you sent me an email in the
past week or two,
maybe three or four, I don't know how
far back it goes,
and if you didn't hear back from me
so please touch base again. The email address
that I'm talking about is bradreedbradreedwrites
dot com. So, oh and if you're interested
in being a guest host on the podcast
like I talked about a week or so
(02:50):
ago you can now check out all the
information related to that. I just added that
to the website
about how to do that, what it entails,
and how to submit,
your guest host podcast segment. So, just click
the be a guest host link
on the bradreedwrites.com
website.
But enough about all that stuff. Let's get
(03:12):
into today's topic. It's an important one because
we're dealing with one of the banes of
a writer's existence,
writer's block.
So we're exploring writer's block today. What it
(03:33):
is, what causes it, and how to get
past it or get through it. Now, I'm
gonna warn you of a couple of things
right up front in today's show. I have
some pretty strong
opinions about writer's block that some of you,
maybe even a lot of you,
won't share. You won't agree with me or
you'll at the very least find them hard
to accept. Now, I get that and I
(03:55):
don't expect you to take, everything I say
on anything as
writing gospel.
Right? As always,
simply take what works for you
and leave anything that doesn't work for you
behind, right? That's what I do with writing
resources
as I, find them and read them and
listen to them.
But I hope that you will give some
(04:16):
consideration to what I'm going to talk about
today because I think it can be a
huge
part of pushing through the really difficult parts
of writing
and pushing yourself into a place of productivity
and creativity.
So let's start with probably my most controversial
take on writer's block and it's this. I
(04:38):
don't believe that writer's block exists.
That's right. I don't believe that writer's block,
at least not in the sense that we
usually think of it, is actually a real
thing.
Now, if we mean that there is some
process that takes place in the writer's brain
that occasionally just turns off the water spigot
of creativity and forces us to sit in
(04:59):
front of a keyboard with a sense of
panic and fear,
then no. I don't believe that that's actually
what's happening
when, this thing happens that we want to
call writer's block. Now, perhaps you think of
writer's block as something different. Maybe you think
of it as just a, reluctance to write
or the frustration
(05:19):
that sets in when you're struggling to write
a scene or if you're not sure
what to write next. Well, if that's what
you mean by writer's block,
that's just writing. Right?
Writing is often full of
joy and excitement and creative insights,
but by its very nature,
it also has within it those moments of
(05:40):
struggle,
moments of panic, moments of self doubt, and
those are all just a natural part
of writing, just like the highs are. Right?
We're gonna get the lows as well.
Writing is like solving an incredibly,
complicated puzzle.
And, we don't get puzzling block when we're
(06:00):
stuck looking for the right piece in a
puzzle. Right? We know that piece is out
there somewhere. Right? It's lost in that myriad
of pieces or maybe it's dropped on the
floor and we have to find it there.
But, we know it exists somewhere and as
long as we just keep looking for it
and we keep trying out various pieces that
look like they might fit,
eventually
(06:21):
one of them is going to click into
place and we're off and running again. Now,
that's the world of writing too.
But, actually that analogy takes us kind of
temptingly close to the solutions that we're gonna
talk about
towards the end of the show. So, I
wanna leave that puzzle analogy there for a
moment.
We'll return to
it. Alright, so let's jump into our controversial
(06:45):
claim number two, right? The first was that
writer's block, I don't think even actually exists.
Controversial claim number two, I think of the
idea of writer's block, I think it's come
about
as a means to justify procrastination.
Now, I can feel some of you gritting
your teeth right now and probably cracking your
(07:06):
knuckles to get ready to send me a
flaming email or tweet.
And I don't mean to minimize the fear
and frustration
that people experience with what they call writer's
block. I know it can be
incredibly debilitating
and it can even start a downward spiral
of self defeating behavior. So, I don't make
(07:28):
this claim lightly about writer's block being just
another form
of procrastination,
but I am making that claim. And, here's
why.
I I hope you follow me on this.
So, yes, as writers,
we are artists.
There is
absolutely
some sort of almost
(07:48):
mythical
alignment of stars and muse and,
that perfect cup of coffee
that results in bursts of astounding creativity and
productivity.
But as writers,
we also have to see our art
as our job.
Even if we don't do it for a
living or ever even make a dollar from
(08:09):
it.
After all, we're seeking to create a product
for a consumer. Now, I know that's that's
hard for some of us to hear, especially
those of us who lean much more towards
writing as art rather than writing as business.
But I want you to follow me, through
kind of this logic because I think it
will help unlock this puzzle
of writer's block. So remember, we're seeking to
(08:31):
create a product
for a consumer.
Our product might be a book for a
consumer who's a reader.
Our product might be a screenplay
for a consumer who's going to be
a producer or an actor or eventually an
audience.
If you remove kind of this,
artistic halo
(08:52):
from the act of writing and that's admittedly
hard to do but if you remove
that I don't know why I'm saying halo
but that's kind of what I think. Right?
This, this kind of artistic
atmosphere that surrounds the the act of writing.
It really boils down to
you're producing a product.
You could even look at it as part
(09:14):
of the service industry. Right? We're seeking
to entertain or inform our audiences
with what we write. And once you look
at writing as even just a little bit
business,
it becomes clear how writer's block
sounds like a concept that you can't really
back up.
(09:34):
Let's take a plumber for example.
I can't imagine
that plumbers wake up every day excited and
joyful
about plumbing. I'm sure there are days that
it is the last thing that they want
to do. I'm sure they have off days
where they're not even very good at doing
it, right, because they're not invested in it.
They're not actively
(09:55):
engaged in it in a passionate way. But
they still get up and they
plumb.
I guess that's what plumbers do is plumb.
There's no such thing as plumber's block.
Right? A plumber never
sits in front of a job, even if
it's an incredibly
complex one,
and finds that they can't do anything.
(10:15):
No. What they do is they jump in.
And maybe they make a total mess of
it. But eventually,
they're going to figure it out or at
the very least, they're gonna call in someone
with more expertise
to help them figure it out. So, there's
no such thing as plumber's block, right? There
may
be astounding reluctance for them to wanna do
their job but it's not, kind of the
(10:37):
psychological
phenomenon
that we think of, like writer's block.
So, years ago, actually it's been decades now,
I used to be a letter carrier for
the postal service and
for whatever reason, I hated
that job.
Not initially, but eventually,
I hated that job.
Towards the end, there was nothing I felt
(10:58):
less inclined to do than go out and
deliver another day's mail. I know that probably
sounds
insane to you. Right? From the outside,
being a letter carrier looks like a pretty
chill job, right? You're just kind of out
in the open air. You're getting lots of
exercise. You're saying hello to neighbors and you're
delivering the mail. What's so bad about that?
(11:19):
But, on the inside,
dealing with all the
insane rules and the overbearing
management,
it turned out to just be miserable. At
least for me, right, over time. Just became
one of those things
that I just loathed.
Anyway, that's that's kind of beside the point.
What I want you to understand is that
(11:39):
even on my worst day
of being a letter carrier,
I never had a case of mailman's
block.
Right? I might have done a terrible job
that day. Right? Put some letters in the
wrong boxes, missed a few houses, you know,
things like that.
I may have even, required another letter carrier
to come and help me finish my route,
(12:01):
but somehow it got done. Right? Mail got
delivered. There was no such thing as mailman's
block. So,
essentially, here's what I'm saying about the concept
of writer's block.
Unless you've literally
lost the use of your hands or are
injured or disabled in some way
that absolutely
(12:21):
prevents you from writing,
you don't have writer's block.
You've got something else going on that is
legitimately
really hard to deal with.
It would have to be,
for writers all over the world to come
up with the concept of writer's block in
the first place. But here's the thing, you
can
write.
You could put your fingers on the keyboard
(12:43):
and write something, right? Even if it was
pure gibberish.
You could scroll a few words across a
piece of notebook paper,
even if they end up just being random
words kind of pulled from thin air. So,
you can
write something so you don't have
writer's block. And, I think that's one of
the first steps in getting past
writer's block is doing away with, this
(13:06):
almost mythology
about what it is and how it works.
Okay. So, even if you haven't completely bought
into my claims about the non existence of
writer's block, I hope you'll listen through
some of the techniques
to break through
whatever is hindering your writing.
And the good news here is that these
things are going to help whether or not
(13:28):
you accept my previous premises
or not. Right? I think the most common
advice for getting past writer's block is just
write through it. I know I've heard this.
Right? When I've been stuck before and had
writing mentors or teachers say, well, the best
thing to do with writer's block is just
continue to write.
And I don't think that advice is all
that helpful. There's a negative truth there, but
(13:50):
it's not all that helpful because we're stuck.
Right? Whether it's,
writer's block or not, we are stuck.
And while I may not believe that such
a thing as writer's block exists,
there definitely
are times
when we get stuck in a very real
sense for whatever reason.
So, the techniques I'm going to show you
go beyond
(14:11):
that trite advice of just write your way
through it. Because,
these techniques are intentionally
designed
to reduce the pressure, to change
your perspective on what you're writing, and find
that way back to that creative space that
you're trying to get to.
So, all of these ideas are based on
one simple truth and that truth is this.
(14:34):
Writing
begets more writing.
In other words, once your brain and your
hand are in sync and putting words on
the page, it's more likely
that the creative system will kick back in
and get to work. In fact, I think
of it like push starting a car.
Now I drive, an old restored,
(14:55):
nineteen sixty three VW Bug. Her name is
Lucy. She's blue and white, and,
all my students know her pretty well. I
get lots of waves and peace signs as
I drive around town. But I drive this
old car, right? This old '63 Bug.
So, I know a thing or two about
push starting a car. So, here's the scenario,
right? The car is dead. There's no battery,
(15:15):
no power.
Now, to get it started without
jumper cables from another battery,
you have to push it, right? And what
you do is you push it until you
can get it moving as fast as you
can then you quickly leap into the driver's
seat, you pop it into gear and let
the clutch out. And what happens is the
engine starts turning
(15:36):
because of the forward momentum of the wheels
on the ground. So, the crankshaft is turning,
the pistons are moving up and down, the
fuel pump begins to squirt a little fuel
into the engine. So the car
isn't really running yet. Right? You can't say
it's alive. It's it's not, under its own
power. It's not running yet. So it's still
dead.
(15:57):
But everything in the system is moving as
if it's running.
Then at some point, if you've got it
rolling along fast enough,
a spark plug will fire.
And that sets off that little
explosion of gasoline that begins to turn the
engine.
Then
your engine is actually running, right? And now
you're off down the road. That's essentially
(16:20):
what these techniques I'm going to show you
are designed to do, to give your brain
a sort of push start.
So, it starts going through the motions
until the engine finally fires and you're off
and running.
There's one other aspect of this analogy that
I think is really important to understand.
When you're push starting a car,
(16:41):
you don't really care about what direction you're
headed.
I mean, if there's kind of a downhill
slope, you're definitely going to push the car
in that direction because you want the help
of gravity to build up even more speed.
So, in other words, the act of push
starting the car
is not part of getting where you want
to go. In other words, you're not concerned
about how much ground you're covering in the
(17:03):
direction of your ultimate destination when you're push
starting the car. No, all you're really trying
to do is get the dang thing running,
right? So, you can
go where you actually wanted to go. Now,
some of these techniques I'm going to show
you work the same way.
They may not feel like they're related to
what you're actually trying to write at all.
But, they are working to get that system
(17:25):
fired up and running. So, there is value
in them, even if it feels like it's
writing that isn't going to serve a purpose
in your story.
What I found though is
even when I think all I'm doing is
kind of jump starting my writing brain,
I almost always find value
in what I've written,
to get that system running again. So, without
(17:47):
further ado, here are the techniques. I wanted
to introduce you to three of them today.
There are certainly more, but these are three
of my favorites that I find really effective.
And we're starting we'll start with my favorite
one.
And that take technique is this. Write about
what definitely
will not happen next.
(18:07):
So if you're stuck because you have,
no idea what the next scene is going
to be,
start writing the scene that you absolutely
know
won't be what happens next. So, for example,
if you're trying to write about a couple
falling in love,
instead write about a huge fight where they
break up. Or, if you're trying to come
(18:29):
up with, some sort of inciting event that
will kick your story into gear, write the
opposite. Right? Attempt to write the world's most
boring scene where absolutely
nothing happens.
Or maybe if you're stuck writing an ending,
this is almost always where
I get the most stuck is with endings,
then write a joke ending or a tragic
(18:51):
ending if it's supposed to be a happy
ending. Right? The point of writing the opposite
of what you're actually trying to do is
that it bypasses
the perfectionism
program in our heads that is so often
the real reason
for what we call writer's block.
And it gives us a license to write
a piece of total crap,
(19:13):
because we never intend to use it. Right?
It's push starting that car. You never intended
to cover the ground that you're covering as
you're push starting that car, but it's a
means,
to an end.
And this approach even allows you to have
some fun with what you're writing, which is
huge in the middle of the panic
and desperation of being stuck.
(19:34):
And, you know, more than once, it's been
through this kind of writing,
where I'm writing what definitely won't happen, that
I've discovered
the actual thing that will work.
And suddenly, I'm kind of off in this,
creative writing fever because I've unlocked
that puzzle piece. I've even tried this technique
and discovered that the thing I thought was
(19:56):
the opposite of what should happen is what
the story actually needed.
So let's say you're ready to get the
lovers together for example.
So you're stuck kind of writing that scene.
So instead, you write a fight scene
and you discover that what your story really
needed
was a fight to add tension
and conflict and that the scene you were
(20:16):
trying to write actually needed to come later.
So like I said, that's my favorite technique,
writing the opposite
of what you think should happen.
If you've never tried that, I hope you'll
give it a whirl. Even if you're if
you're not stuck in something,
you might call writer's block. It can be
a great warm up exercise
before you get down to the serious work
(20:38):
of actual writing. So there's technique number one,
writing the opposite of what you think
will happen
or maybe you could look at as the
least likely thing to happen next.
Our second technique is one that I actually
hinted at as one of our weekly challenges
on the podcast. Oh, I don't know. It
was it was a month or so or
(20:58):
maybe two ago.
And this technique asks you to,
write a letter
from your character
to you, to yourself as the writer.
And I like this one because,
again, it's not something you'll actually use in
your story.
So it removes
all that pressure of writing something good.
(21:20):
It also breaks you out of,
the perspective that you've been using in the
story, breaks you out of the world
that you've been inhabiting to write that story.
And that can sometimes
shake things loose to see them in a
different perspective.
So, there's a few different ways to approach
this letter.
My favorite way is actually to write two
letters.
(21:40):
One from my character is if they are
writing to me before I've even started the
story.
And then another letter,
as if they're writing to me after I've
finished writing the book and it's come out
and they're they've read it. So, in the
first letter,
what they're doing is they're telling me about
the kinds of things
that they hope I will write about them.
(22:00):
Right? So, these letters often come off as
worried. Right? They're worried about how I'm going
to portray them in the book
and they're trying to influence me to present
them to the world in a positive light.
The second letter. So, once I've written that
one, I write another one
and I pretend that this is after the
book comes out and the the character is
(22:20):
furious
with me for what I've written in the
book. Right? So, the book's come out, they've
sat down to read it and they are
incensed. They are furious
about what I've done. So, now they're writing
me a letter of discontent. Right? They're angry
with me. And they're writing about, you know,
the things that I revealed about them that
maybe pissed them off.
Or maybe they're telling me about how they
(22:41):
feel like I misrepresented
them or how I left out key scenes
or
perspectives that they wanted included or felt like
they should be included. Now, this can be
a really fun
form of writing. It's a blast
to get into the minds of your characters
and let that awful mean writer
know exactly how you feel about them.
(23:04):
And what's really great
about this kind of writing is that it
can't help but teach you something about your
character that you didn't know before.
It's sometimes during this this, this writing,
this letter writing that I figure out what
my character's inner weakness is. Right? As I'm
writing this letter,
to the writer, who is me,
(23:26):
I'm beginning to understand what their fears are,
right? What their character flaws are.
And at the very least, it's gotten your
creative engine turning and hopefully
fired that spark plug
to get your engine running again.
So, look at one more. The last one
we're gonna look at is one that I've
toyed with, over the years. I've never invested
(23:48):
in it fully,
but I find that a return to it
in moments of struggle or even,
you know, over days or weeks, sometimes months
of struggle, I'll return to this and find
it really helpful. And a lot of writers
swear by this, so it's probably something that's
not unfamiliar to you, but I wanted to
to bring it out as one of the
(24:08):
great
tools to get past this thing we call
writer's block. And this third thing is the
idea of keeping a writing journal.
Now John Steinbeck,
journaled consistently during the writing of most of
his books,
and his journals make for absolutely
fascinating
reading.
I mean, here's John Steinbeck, and you read
(24:29):
how he was,
often convinced he was writing a complete
piece of crap while he was working on
The Grapes of Wrath. Right? The Grapes of
Wrath, one of the great American novels,
and he often thought it was garbage as
he was writing it.
His journals from that time period show him
wrestling with some
(24:50):
pretty severe demons
and really wrestling with what we might want
to call writer's block.
He used his journal as a warm up
before he got around to working on his
novels nearly every day. Right? And he started
with a, I was gonna say a short
journal entry, but sometimes they become quite long.
And he'd write about,
all sorts of things. Right? What was going
on in his life?
(25:11):
Who had come to visit him recently?
How he was feeling about the the book
that he was writing, good or bad? What
his plans were either for the book or
just for his
day, right, after he got done writing? And
then,
the journal would end and he'd dive in
and he'd get the work done. So there
was something
about the process of putting words down on
(25:32):
a page that primed his creative pump.
And, I have no doubt that the same
thing will,
almost certainly work for you.
You know, if you're a fan of The
Grapes of Wrath or or really any of
Steinbeck's works for that matter,
I recommend a, that you pick up a
copy of a book called Working Days,
The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath. And
(25:54):
and this is all of his journal entries
as he's writing this great American novel.
I find it oddly inspirational
to see the behind the scenes struggles
of one of my favorite authors while writing
one of my favorite books. So it's really
fascinating
reading and I think you'll you'll get a
lot of value. It's a little bit hard
to find,
(26:15):
certainly in a bookstore or anything like that.
Go on Amazon.com
or something and look for Working Days, the
journals of the Grapes of Wrath and you
should be able to pick up a copy.
So those are the three techniques that I
find,
particularly
effective
in getting things moving again
when I'm stuck in my writing. And I
hope you give them a shot. Try them
(26:36):
out and, I bet you'll have some success
with them
as well.
One thing I didn't fully flesh out from
my push starting a car analogy
is the idea of getting help.
Sometimes you just can't push the car fast
enough
to get it to jump start or to
to push start. I've been there. Right? Sometimes
(26:58):
you need that, good Samaritan
to come along and offer to help you
push or better yet, pull out a set
of jumper cables from their trunk and,
and, you know, jump start the car rather
than have to push start the car. But
this is equally true of writer's block.
If we try to tackle it alone,
we may not always have the energy
(27:20):
or the strength that we need to push
through that. Sometimes,
we need help.
I know it often helps
me sit to, sit down with somebody I
trust,
usually a writer, but not always,
and just talk through
what's going on.
Not so much about the actual writer's block
that I'm facing. I'm not rehashing
(27:41):
kind of my fears and and,
and desperation.
But I'm talking through what I'm trying to
accomplish in the story.
See, the brain uses different pathways
when it's speaking about something than when it's
thinking about something.
And sometimes, just,
using these new pathways in the brain
unlocks something new. It frees whatever was stuck
(28:05):
and you'll find the solution
just talking it through. So, it's either that
or your trusted writer friend sees things in
a new perspective that that gives you the
insight that you need to get moving again.
This is one of the things I actually
love about the Twitter writing community and it's
not so much that people are
helping each other with actual writing
(28:26):
live on Twitter. Right? There's there's probably not
enough characters to do that,
often doing it in DMs. But it's definitely
where I've met
those trusted friends that I turn to
when I need somebody's help when I'm stuck.
Speaking of Twitter, I'd love to connect with
you there and have you as part of
my writing community.
(28:46):
I'm at at brad reedwrites
if you're interested in, in connecting on Twitter.
I'd love that.
We're going to leave our exploration of writer's
block there for today. Now, I'd really love
to hear from you
about today's show. I'm guessing I struck some
nerves
and, that you probably have your own kind
of go to techniques
(29:08):
for pushing through the rush rough times as
well. Techniques that other people could benefit from,
including me.
So what I'd really love for you to
do this week
is to call our message line and leave
us some feedback that we could use on
a future show. I'm gonna give you the
phone number here in just a minute. So
this is your chance to either find a
pen or,
if you're driving, please don't find a pen.
(29:29):
Maybe ask somebody who's writing with you in
the car to jot it down.
When you call,
there's not a live person's going to answer.
It's just a message phone, so you can
leave a recording. So on that recording, let
me know your name, where you're calling from.
You could even mention your Twiddle hand or
I can don't know why I can't
say that. Twitter handle,
or your website or whatever you may wanna,
(29:52):
promote.
And then tell me about your reaction to
the show,
along with any techniques that you use
to get through writer's block. Okay. Here's that
number if you're ready for it. It's (541)
952-2406.
1 more time in case you're writing that
down. (541)
(30:12):
952-2406.
And, if you're not in a place where
you can write it down, just when you
get to a computer or a phone,
head on over to bradreedwrites.com
and click that talk to us link. You'll
find the number there. So, I'm really looking
forward to hearing from you and hopefully
getting your voice on a future episode of
the podcast.
(30:38):
Today's wise word is a little bit longer
quote than usual.
It comes from Malcolm Gladwell and, he's talking
about his approach to encountering,
writer's block. And here's what he says.
I deal with writer's block by lowering my
expectations.
I think the trouble starts when you sit
down to write and imagine
(30:59):
that you will achieve something magical
and magnificent.
And when you don't, panic sets in.
The solution is never to sit down and
imagine that you will achieve something magical and
magnificent.
I write a little bit, almost every day.
And if it results in two or three
or, on a good day, four paragraphs,
(31:21):
I consider myself a lucky man. Never try
to be the hare.
All hail the tortoise. So that's Malcolm Gladwell.
And I don't think there's anything I can
add to his take on this. So I'm
just gonna leave that quote there for you
today.
And it's time for the weekly challenge. We've
(31:42):
talked a lot about writer's block this week
and instead
of just having you do one of the
techniques that we talked about on the show,
I wanna flip things up just a little
bit. So this really isn't even a writing
challenge this week, but it's still a weekly
challenge.
This week, I want you to reach out
to a writer friend
and have a conversation about writing.
(32:04):
Perhaps, you're feeling stuck and just need someone
to talk through it with, or better yet,
maybe you can find a fellow writer who's
stuck and take the time
to help him or her,
sort through whatever it is they're dealing with.
You could be that good Samaritan that comes
along to help them push start their car.
So this could be in person. That'd be
(32:25):
great. This could be done on Twitter, could
be done in a writer's group, whatever. Just
try to connect with someone
who you can lean on and who can
lean on you
when, your creative car is dead and needs
that push start. So, that's gonna wrap it
up for us this week. Our real time
revision videos which are now free for everyone
(32:46):
through our Patreon site are releasing on Thursdays
now. It used to be Mondays but we're
starting those on Thursdays now. So, watch for
a new one of those, coming in just
a few days.
And I'm continuing to work through the story
grid editing system with my current work in
progress novel
and I'm about ready to start on the
graphing step. If you're familiar with Story Grid,
(33:07):
you'll know what that means. If not, you
might check out storygrid.com
or,
at story grid on Twitter to familiarize yourself
with it. But right now, in that real
time revision, you're seeing me
live kind of work through that revision process.
And that's probably what you'll see in this
week's video. I'm hoping to be ready
to begin the graphing portion of that
(33:29):
editing process.
So until next week, remember the best way
to improve your craft is by writing. That's
what I'm off to go do, and I
hope you're off to do the same. Let's
get some words on paper this week, and
we'll meet up again next week for another
episode of the Inside
Creative Writing Podcast.
Thanks for listening to the Inside Creative Writing
(33:50):
Podcast with your host, writer and educator,
Brad Reed.
We'll be back next week.
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