Writing

[piquant]

Aghh! I can't write! I try and write at least 500 words a day to help my writing skills, but for the past week I've been in a slump. I can't write anything. Whenever I start, it just feels cliche and contrived, and like I've said it a million time before, and other people have said it a million times before. I can't come up with any ideas for stories, and I don't think I've ever written a charachter that I don't abhor.

What do you guys do when you can't write? Do you have any spare ideas laying around that you're not using? Also, if any of you write fiction would you like to exchange work and maybe try to help each other out?

[fayefaye]

search for inspiration perhaps?

[Stanislaw]

I I have a block a walk away form the piece. turn up some baroque music and sit in a dark room and let the music take me away. Some of my most self satisfying pieces have been concieved in this state.

[Isagel]

"buy hyacinths to feed thy soul."

Take a break. Take a rest. Do something you do not normally do. Go somewhere you have not been, even if it´s just a short distance. By flowers.

[piquant]

Escape was just what I needed. Last night I ran away to canada, and went to a club where I told everyone I was a pianter who just graduated college and was roaming the country in search of my soul. It was so much fun. I got back at around four this morning. I got stopped by the border patrol, they suspected me of smuggling in fruits and vegetables. I have some ideas, and I don't feel quite so trapped. Thanks!:)

[Koa]

I've been blocked for months... Well I've never written much cos most of my ideas remain in my head, talk of laziness i think, too much of an effort to grab a pen and a piece of paper. I used to be a frustrated writer (poet, actually), now I'm just a frustrated normal mediocre person.

[fayefaye]

me too. the problem is i forget to write down my ideas and then they just melt away. 'suspected of smuggling fruits and vegetables'-LOL

[piquant]

I used to be the same way. I always wished that I could seriously study writing and literature, but I never had time. I was very unhappy doing what I was doing (pre-med major) and was driving myself crazy. So, I took the semester off from science, and took about six different english courses--some writing, some literature. I feel so good. I know its what I want to do now. I have a full tuition scholarship for science though, and I only have one more semester left of science classes to get my degree, so I'm going to take an extra year to graduate and double major. The best of both worlds! Now that I know that writing is what I want to do, I've thrown myself into it. The excitement will probably wear off soon enough though, and I'll be lazy again. Sorry my reply is so long and pointless. Oh, and all my professors/books say that most people have to spend at least an hour everyday writing to get anywhere. I want to get somewhere so bad!

[fayefaye]

that's pretty interesting actually. i'm having problems picking a uni course because i can't imagine ever committing myself that strongly to anything. i get bored veerrrry easily.

[ihrocks]

Being a little older, I'll pass on a little advice.

Writing is mostly discipline and inspiration. For discipline, I keep a journal and write in it just about everyday, inspired or not. For inspiration, I keep notepads everywhere, next to the bed, in my car, in my purse. If I'm at work, I'll e-mail myself at home, just enough to help me remember the train of thought I had going or the phrase I liked.

The most difficult thing for me, being a working Mom, is making the time to write, but I find it (again, discipline). After the e-mails, notes, and journal entries, I'll sit down at the computer in the evening and again early in the morning to actually compose the little bits and pieces.

If you feel completely blocked, write down your dreams, something that happened to you a long time ago, a conversation you overheard at the supermarket. If nothing works, step away from the computer and ask yourself why. Too many distractions? Something upsetting you? Sort it out and let the ideas flow.

If all that does still doesn't work, then you need the third element for writing: experience. Go out and have yourself an experience. Do something out of character, try something new, go to a new place. Watch the people around you so you can describe them later. Look at your surroundings, how would you describe the sky, the clouds, the street? Sometimes it's just the smallest thing that will spark an idea.

I hope that's helpful some of you.

ihrocks

[Koa]

Some random things that came to my mind while reading all this...

I keep paper and pen near my bed...the best of inspirations come when I'm about to fall asleep...always been too lazy to get up and write... the problem comes when I'm too sleepy even to grab the pen I have on my nighttable... lol *sleepwriting* :D

But still lately I never ever sit down and edit...I have 10000 pieces of papers with no more than 2 sentences...and *sighs* most of them are really old... My mind is dead lately.

I don't write at computer! I actually think the computer is what destroyed my intelligence and my inspiration... I'm a paladin of handwriting :D I've never finished to type the only short stories I've ever concluded writing (and for the 2 I did, I took like 2 years...and they were really short!:rolleyes: ... )I think there will come a time when I won't be able to read the handwriting anymore, cos it was hurried :D

I knew I wanted to write...Now I don't feel anything anymore, I live so passively... :mad: :eek:

[ihrocks]

Did I mention "discipline"? :)

Don't you go giving up Koa, you're far too bright for that!

I'm always encouraging people to write and to express themselves. I look at the world and I think what we need more than anything right now are more poets, more dreamers, more thinkers, and of course, more truth and more kindness.

As a friend of mine says, "Peace out, dawgs." (I have no idea what that means, but it makes me smile!)

ihrocks
:cool:

[piquant]

Thanks ihrocks, excellent advice. I've srarted trying to write down phrases that stick with me when I hear them, which actually is a lot of fun. My favorite I heard at church-- "...in the fullness of time." For the rest of the mass I just sat there rolling it around in my mind. I picture time as being pregnant, with skin streched so tight across her belly that it seems she might burst, about to birth destiny and meaning. She is ripe with seed, sweet and juicy, a peach.

Also, I started observing people at the beginning of the semester. When I go to lunch I take my glasses with me, and sit and watch people. Usually I'm discreet enough, but the other day these three girls noticed what I was doing and gave me some pretty angry looks. I figure I'll satirize them someday for revenge.

Koa, I know exactly how you feel. Sometimes everything is so alive you can hardly breath for all the feeling, but other times its just death, and wasteland, and a terrible dryness where you feel nothing and think nothing, and you despair of ever being alive again. Fortunately though, I think it runs in circles. Just start grabbing onto little things, like the way a leaf rolls over in the breeze, and shove them deep inside yourself until you feel the miracle of it all--the infinite unlikeliness that there is a leaf, and that there is a you, and that the leaf is turning. Do this with everything. At least it will wake you up, at most it will drive you crazy.

[imthefoolonthehill]

this too will pass.