~~I know you've all heard of the dreaded malady, Writers' Block, and shudder in fear that it's out to get you. Well, thanks to Beth, one of my Books and Writers Forum friends, I'm found the neatest list of the different types of blocks, complete with suggestion to blow them out of your way. Check out "The 10 Types of Writers' Block (and How to Overcome Them)" at io9.
~~Here's the list. Be sure you check out the cures. I'll admit to falling prey to three of these regularly. ; )
1. You can't come up with an idea.
2. You have a ton of ideas but can't commit to any of them, and they all peter out.
3. You have an outline but you can't get through this one part of it.
That's me in a nutshell. I usually handle it by cutting the item from the outline or skipping over it and coming back later.
4. You're stuck in the middle and have no idea what happens next.
5. You have a terrible feeling your story took a wrong turn a hundred pages back, and you only just hit a dead end.
6. You're bored with all these characters, they won't do anything.
7. You keep imagining all the reasons people are going to say your story sucks, and it paralyzes you.
Oh, yeah! I do this one. Darn that Inner Critic, AKA Miss Inner Editor. ; )
8. You can't think of the right words for what you're trying to convey in this one paragraph.
Oh, yeah, this one, too. The neat thing about the suggestions is that it's all right to linger at least a little while. That's an eyeopener for me. ; )
9. You had this incredibly cool story in your head, and now you're turning it into words on a screen and it's suddenly dumb.
10. You're revising your work, and you can't see your way past all those blocks of text you already wrote.
~~So which of these problems blocks your words? What do you think about the suggestions for handling them?
