Today’s guest blog is by Julia Crouch a former
theatre director, playwright and graphic designer. Her debut novel Cuckoo was published
in 2011 to wide acclaim. Her third novel Tarnished was recently published.
Terry Pratchett said: 'There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who
couldn't write.'
I tend to agree with him. However, in my experience, it is quite
possible for a writer to get stuck.
If, like me, you are a pantser you
might have reached a point in your unfolding story where you have no idea
whatsoever what is going to happen next.
Or, if you're a plotter, you may be realising that you've lost all faith
in your once-lovely outline and you're just slavishly going through the motions
to get from point A to point B.
Or perhaps it's a crisis of confidence that's
stopping you – every word that comes out of you is rubbish and the order you're
putting them down in is embarrassingly inept and whatever gave you the temerity
to think you could write anyway?
It's insanely easy to work yourself up into this
kind of lather when you sit on your own all day with only Google and twitter
and Facebook and email for company. Everyone
else seems to be having a ball but you can't string even one word together (and
yes, it is impossible to string one word together, but it gets to the point
when you can't even see that).
Or perhaps you're about twenty thousand words into
your novel and all you can see is this mountain of unwritten words towering
over you, paralysing your typing fingers.
Every writer has been there and those of us who say
we haven't are just indulging in fiction.
But what to do when these paralysing moments hit
you? Particularly if you are under
contract to produce a manuscript by July and it's April and you know that if
you don't hit your two thousand daily word count you're not going to make it? (Did that sound as desperate as it feels?).
I have two methods for you. The first is to write your way out of the
hole. Disable the internet for ninety
minutes, tell yourself that you are allowed to fail, and then write really
quickly without worrying about the outcome.
I aim for 1500 words in the time it takes for the internet to come back
on again.
The second is to stop. Get up from the desk, move away from the laptop,
and do something else.
I might go to the cinema or an art gallery (I call this feeding my beast.). Or perhaps I'll take a bath. It worked for Archimedes... But my favourite way of stopping is plugging
my headphones into my iPhone, putting on my trainers, and going for a long walk
(or a run if I haven't already done that).
I have to have music while I move, and I choose it
carefully: whether instrumental or with lyrics, it has to fit the mood of the
section I'm working on.
While I'm walking I don't consciously think about
the problem I'm having. I don't expect a
solution. Instead I focus on my breathing
and count my steps. This is all stuff I
learned studying meditation: it clears the mind, puts the brain into a neutral and
receptive state.
I'm lucky because from my Brighton home I can walk
for fifteen minutes and be up on the South Downs, down by the sea or in the
centre of town. But it doesn't matter
all that much where I go. Sometimes I
notice what's around me, others I allow it to wash over me.
Then (hopefully) the magic begins: the problem
begins to loosen, the ideas begin to flow.
I have a little microphone on my headphones and I use the voice recorder
on my iPhone to take notes without breaking stride. I used to carry a notebook, but, such is the
effectiveness of this technique, all the stopping and starting got really tiresome. If I'm lucky, by the time I get back home I
am itching to get at the keyboard, play back my voice notes and get
started.
Very occasionally none of the above work. What to
do then? Visit Lastminute.com. It's probably time for a holiday somewhere
warm. But don't forget the notebook,
because as with writer's block, there's no such thing as a writer's holiday. As Stephen King said: 'I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for
Christmas, the 4th July and my birthday. That was a lie.. The truth is, when I’m writing, I write every
day. That includes Christmas, the fourth
and my birthday.'
Tarnished - Peg has never thought to query her family
background despite her strange childhood until she meets the straight-talking
Loz who reckons she understands the world of psychotherapy. As the skeletons start falling out of the
family closet, Peg wonders if truth and honesty are such good things after all.
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