Obstacles

I’m back!

I’m sure you didn’t even miss me. Ah, well. I can only hope that somebody did. I have been away, but I have not been idle. I have been immersed in the creative throes of playwriting. Remember my first post, ‘The Email that brought me (and my writing) to life again?’ That’s why I haven’t been keeping up on my posts. I have been working on this play. Actually, for the past few weeks, I have been battling the bane of every writer’s existence: writer’s block.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I can’t think of anything to write. I have had many ideas, yes. As a matter of fact, I have not only been immersed in the writing of the script, I have been drowning in it. Yes, it is killing me to write this script! I have started over three times, each time with, what I thought was, a brilliant idea, only to get halfway and think ‘wait, this makes no sense.’ Then it’s back to the idea board.

How many times has that happened to you? Whether you’re a playwright or a novelist, or whatever you may write, how many times have you started a story only to find it goes nowhere? Isn’t it just totally frustrating?

So, after this third restart, I was at another dead end. Everything I’ve ever read about how to combat writers’ block says to just stop writing, period. Shut down the word processor, put the pencil down. Focus your attention on something different, and sooner or later everything will fall into place. Sooner or later. Of course it’s always later for me; much later. I can’t just get up, stretch, play a video game, and then get right back into writing, dead-end free. It takes me days, sometimes weeks to get something so far out of the front of my mind that, when I do come back to it, I can find fresh, new ways around the blockages.

So instead of starting over a fourth time with a totally different idea, I have found a way to work out the problem with my current idea. At least it works in my head. On a high level. The way I write is, if you’ll pardon the pun, unscripted. I have an idea, and some opening dialog, and then I just write. Words, conversations, scenes float by seamlessly, and each one feeds off the last. That’s what I find exhilarating about writing. I (usually) never know how it will turn out. So I won't know if it actually does work until I get it on the screen.

So, needless to say, I am back at it. And I think I might even make the deadline. So keep reading my posts, and I’ll let you know if I run into any more of those ‘dead-ends.’

And feel free to reply to this blog. Let me know what techniques you use to combat 'The Block.'