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Writer’s Block

So you’re staring at a blank screen. You’re stuck on your story and you’re not sure exactly where you’ve gone wrong. You’re stuck on an idea to blog about. Heck, you feel like you’re even stuck on what to put on the grocery list. Here are twelve ways to break your writer’s block.

1) Leaf through a magazine and rip out a picture that calls to you. It doesn’t have to look like your character–maybe it’s something they are looking at, or thinking about. Write a page about the picture. See if it jump starts you into your writing. The same can be done for ideas for your blog. Look through a magazine and see if a picture will give you an idea for your blog post.

2) Go outside and take a walk. A change of scene and a chance to let your mind wander might be just the thing to jiggle something loose that works for you.

3) Try some other creative outlet. Photography. Knit. Cook. Garden.

4) Clean the house. Really. I find that this will always drive me right back to my computer…

5) Write out of order. Skip the scene you’re stuck on. I know those of you anal write-the-book-page-by-page, scene-by-scene writers are thinking no way. I was one of those writers. Then I tried my hand at out of order writing. It works. I no longer let myself say “well, I can’t write because I don’t know what is happening next.” I jump to some scene I know will happen and work on it.

6) Get all the whining out. Open a blank page and write down all the reasons your story is stuck, how stupid the character is acting, how the plot is unraveling, how you just have no clue and need to Give. Up. Writing. Forever. Then open your story back up and start writing.

7) Some times you’re just at the lull in your life when you’re not feeling very creative. Give yourself a definite time off. 3 days. One week. Set a time. Then get back in front of your computer and try again.

8) Try listening to a Brainsync CD or MP3. I find the Increase Creativity CD a wonderful writer’s block breaker.

9)If you’re freezing in front of the computer screen, change something. Write in a different place. Grab a notebook and go to the coffee shop. Take your laptop outside. Write at a different time of day than you normally write. Write in the bathtub. (works especially well with a side order of red wine).

10) Use the search feature on StumbleUpon to get ideas to spark your imagination. Book set in New Orleans? Stumble it.

11) Re-read the beginning of your story right before bed. Or read the few chapters before the spot that got you stuck. Sometimes just having the story rumbling around in your head while you sleep will provide that ah ha moment.

12) Life dishing out major blows to you? Sometimes the guilt of doing something for ourselves versus doing something for others puts up a big old block that we need to overcome. Instead of thinking you’re too brain dead to write, change the thought process. Think of your writing as an escape from reality. Give yourself permission to write everyday even if life is pulling you in a million different directions.

For more tips on writer’s block…specifically bloggers block, check out Suzanne’s How to Blog Workshop lessons three and four

So what do you do to battle writer’s block? Any other techniques you use to break through your writer’s block?

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Tags: Creativity //