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How to break down this writing wall, which is stretching away from us, and growing higher all the time?<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a problem we all encounter from time to time. Writers\u2019 Block!<\/p>\n
Having said that, I don\u2019t believe in writers\u2019 block, per se. But what I do believe is that sometimes, our imagination gets stuck on how to progress a story, and the more we focus on the fact that the writing has stopped, the more the psychological pressure increases, especially if there is a deadline, either self-imposed or externally imposed.<\/p>\n
How to break down this writing wall, which is stretching away from us, and growing higher all the time?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The way to do this is to:
\na) have a break from writing. Don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re forcing yourself away, or that you\u2019re giving yourself a break so you can worry about the writing some more. Tell yourself you\u2019re going to take a day\u2019s break, not think about writing, do something else entirely. Go to the beach. Go shopping. Watch a film or a concert. Something that can take your focus away from writing, and give your \u201cwriting muscles\u201d a chance to recover. Like we need sleep to regain our strength, writing muscles need a complete break every now and again
\nb) When you come back to writing again, do something completely unconnected to your writing project.
\nI have tried these three exercises before, and they have worked.<\/p>\n
Exercise One<\/strong><\/p>\n Write 3 sentences, each one from a different viewpoint from wherever you’re sitting. Turn on your chair, look through a window, look really closely at the items on a shelf. The subject doesn’t have to be anything poetic or literary, but you should try and work as much poetry (in prose form) into the sentence. The more poetic about the more mundane, the better. For example (and I\u2019m not that a good writer): The wooden magazine file, dull brown, joints exposed to the grainy early evening light, were lined up perfectly with the edge of the shelf – except one, the rogue, the exception, the wild one, which, like an artist, dares to be different.<\/em><\/p>\n Exercise Two<\/strong><\/p>\n Hold your arms out in front of you, and form a circle or a square hole with your fingers, around an inch or so across. Look at what you see there, and write a hundred words. Just a hundred. Find something reasonably interesting (not a blank wall!) and write exactly what you see, in as colourful prose as you can get.
\nHere\u2019s an example I did, seeing a wall across the road from my house:
\nThe red-brown of the bricks, solid and reliable, marking out a territory, keeping invaders out. \u201cThis is my land\u201d, they say. Or they would, if they could speak. Atop them, grey-white concrete blocks add decoration. They have swirls moulded into them, gaps through which bushes and flowers can peep through, and say \u201ccome, we\u2019re not dangerous or unwelcoming\u201d. Green and dusty brown from a harsh winter with little sun and plenty of rain, they are waiting for the early spring sun to enliven them. As it does each year, without fail. Sometimes early, sometimes late, but always spring follows winter.<\/em><\/p>\n
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<\/a>Here’s a picture of a door. In a forest. What’s going on here? Who is approaching it? What do they do? Where will it lead? What’s it doing there?