Every writer hits a brick wall now and then. You can’t move forward and there’s no going back. You can sit there, wailing at the ceiling, tearing at your hair, and gnashing your teeth, but chances are it’s not going to get you moving anytime soon. What do I do when it happens to me? I write.
Wait. Didn’t I just say I was writing and got stuck? And then I said the solution was to write? Right! Here’s how it works for me.
I put the brick wall project aside and write about something completely different. I’m currently working on a middle-grade novel and blogs are my brick wall solution. I recently wrote two blogs, one about ball fringe and the other about chocolate chip cookies. I’m not above a shameless plug, so you can find them on the social media tab of my website.
I love writing blogs – they’re short, successful bits that are done in a jiffy and posted (published) as soon as you hit that magic key. They’re salve for me when I’m worn down by the challenges of my current novel, feeling defeated by it, and I want to escape from its grip for awhile.
What I find interesting about writing my blogs is that, while I start out with an everyday, non-important subject idea, it becomes so much more by the time I’m finished. Writing blogs also helps me escape from the middle-grade world where my stories are set. I can write about whimsical ideas that pop into my head or adult issues that are swirling around in the news.
Blogs may not be your thing. There are other ways to keep writing – journaling, a different kind of writing, or a different subject/topic/genre’. Perhaps writing with a pen/paper rather than a computer keyboard. A break from the norm may be all that it takes to tear down that wall (thank you, President Reagan).
I’m a writer – I have to write. So, when I get stuck in one spot, I free myself by writing in another. I feel better about my abilities as a writer, have a finished piece in the “great out there,” and more times than not, I’ve found the solution to the problem that created that brick wall in the first place.
Dean Murphy
Anne: Good advice. When I (often) get stuck, I write travel reviews for TripAdvisor, now totaling more than a thousand. Book reviews are another venue to remove bricks from the writer’s block-wall. Not only do we get our name associated with bestselling books, organizing thoughts about another author’s plot presents possibilities to what may cause obstacles in our own work. My maxim has long been, When there’s nothing left, write. That, and Write on!