WriteWorld

Muse-ings on Inspiration

youremygorgeouschaos asked: What’s a good way to get over a long lasting writer’s block? I have wrote but, I can’t seem to continue on anything. It’s highly frustrating. Any tips? :)

A common piece of advice for this would be to continue writing; keep the writing muscle supple and flexing. Keep your ideas flowing. Not everyone takes to this advice so well as it is so simple to the point where it’s patronizing. However, there are benefits to simply continuing to write.

Here are some more things to consider in conjunction with that:

Don’t sit around. Inspiration doesn’t always come knocking.
Frank Tibolt said:

“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”

Action generates flow. Inspiration can come up at any point, but if you simply wait around for it, you’re not writing, are you? Might as well write at the same time and assume that your action will generate new ideas.
Seriously. Write. Nothing will happen if you don’t commit.
Cassandra Clare, author of the Mortal Instruments series, talks about a “Secret Writer Mantra” on her website:

B.I.C.H.O.K.
It stands for Butt In Chair. Hands On Keyboard.

Simple really; just a case of remembering to write, write and, you guessed it, write.
Look around. Sometimes sitting down just isn’t enough. Sometimes you write but you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere. Or, in the wise words of Kiki’s Delivery Service:

“Take long walks, look at the scenery, and don’t even think about flying. We have to find our own inspiration… sometimes it’s not easy.”

Follow this advice. Take time out, take long walks, look at the scenery. Don’t even think about writing. If you take a little time to think without distraction, you will discover your own inspiration, your own drive to write—why you do it and what keeps you going. After all, if you’re not experiencing the world, what’s there to write about?
At the same time, stay vigilant. Be a writer by noticing your surroundings and interactions between people. Ideas will pop up in the most unlikely places (for instance in bed on the verge of sleep, in the supermarket, at a musical, or even on the toilet). Then, when you’re ready to return to the keyboard, you can bring some of those ideas back up to the boil. Odds are the best ones are the ones you will remember the longest (though this is not always the case, of course), and then you have a lead for a new story or scene.
Charge! When you do begin again, don’t give up if what you write doesn’t seem any good. It’s important to write as if no one is looking over your shoulder.

Ernest Hemingway said:

“Write drunk, edit sober.”

Write like you’ve just had a bottle of vodka and then edit your writing later to make it presentable to others. But for the time you are writing it, the page can be as messy as you want and as crazy as you want; no one’s gonna read it. Yet.

Writing is a personal venture; write for yourself and what interests you. Then the passion is more likely to stay bubbling, if you keep the story alive for yourself it will jump off the page for your readers.

Don’t give up, find your own inspiration, fall back in love with why you write and be happy with what you have made. Even if you hate it. Because if you’ve made it, it’s proof of your efforts, that you have put your but in your chair and your hands on the keyboard and written something, which is more than what many aspiring writers can claim.