If this sounds like you, then you’re in the same boat as acclaimed science fiction author Ray Bradbury, whose mind would often go blank in the middle of writing. It feels like you’ve stalled out in the middle of your story and don’t know how to get it started again. The words won’t come and you delete every paragraph before you finish typing them out. Suddenly, no matter what you do, you just can’t move forward. Things are going great! Until they aren’t. Everything is outlined and you’re writing. You have your story set up and ready to go. ![]() ![]() The same can be said of ideas.īut then, sometimes it’s the ideas you do have that could be the problem. It has to be watered and nurtured before it can sprout even the smallest shoot. “I think a lot of what people refer to as ‘writer’s block’ is the period during which ideas gestate in the mind, when a story grows but isn’t necessarily being written in sentences on the page.” Jhumpa Lahiri considers writer’s block a time to think and let your story grow.Īccording to Lahiri, the time you spend thinking, simply letting your story develop in your mind, counts as writing too. For her, it’s all just a time during which you gather material. ![]() Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri doesn’t think this kind of writer’s block is necessarily a bad thing. If you go to the well too many times and come back empty-handed, you’ll soon question whether your past ideas were any good and start doubting your general worth as a writer. You may find yourself staring blankly at your notebook or computer screen waiting for the muse, only to throw your hands up in frustration and give up. You might have a concept that’s based on a web of thoughts and hunches that you can’t get to come together in any meaningful way. Sometimes the urge to write comes at the most inopportune times - namely, when your ideas aren’t ready yet. If you’re not reaching for something, if you don’t care to write it, if there’s no consequence, it makes sense that you’d have a hard time putting anything on the page.Īlternatively, it’s possible that your motivation is perfectly intact, but your creativity is suffering instead. That’s what it is to start a project: engineering a set of delusions that the act of writing has consequence and simply must be done.” “Part of the beginning of any project is the discovery of what matters to me, followed by an attempt to conceive of it in terms of fiction. Without consequence, there is no motivationįor some writers, like Notes from the Fog author Ben Marcus, finding that reason is just part of the larger writing process, as he explained in an interview with Literary Hub. But when you’re interested in the topic - or your grade depends on it - you suddenly have the incentive to do it well. When you are told to write an essay in school “just because” it immediately kills any joy you’d get from doing it. ![]() Writing just to write isn’t particularly motivating. Not having a reason to write can often make it feel impossible to get anything done. When a short break isn't enough or turns into a much, much longer break, it's clear that motivation is the problem, specifically a lack of incentive. You find yourself overflowing with ideas, but every time you sit down to write, your mind goes blank and you can’t get the words to come, so you take a break, or you find yourself procrastinating: endlessly researching or turning to neglected chores. Click to tweet! You lack of motivation, which saps your creative drive
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |