Most of you know me well enough to know that I don’t put much stock in writer’s block. The past few months, I have struggling to get anything down on paper. I have always said when you can’t write, it’s your body’s way of saying it’s time to do something else. So I let my word counts continue to dwindle, refusing to admit defeat. I struggled to write much in January, but February I hit a stand still. I didn’t even open my Word document until last week. So I was in a pickle, I either had to admit I had writer’s block or I needed to take a longer break.
I started the month by thinking I just needed a break. Then I came to realize, I wanted to write, but I just couldn’t make the words flow. This a problem I haven’t faced or at least I never acknowledge the problem before. So I admitted defeat, I had writer’s block. This time I thought I would take a different path. I really wanted to get some writing down. I have goals I want to meet, while I know I have already missed my original goal of having Dissonance done by the end of this month, I can still stay on schedule for a late summer release. I started trying to figure out what was stopping me from writing.
Every time I opened my Word document there is that word count at the bottom of screen taunting me with 24,xxx words. It was frustrating knowing that I had written so few words since last November. I was irritated by the knowledge that I was so far from the goal. So between my last post The Fickle Mind of a Writer and realizing my word count mocked me, I decided it was time to change gears.
I decided that the fear of failure was too much. I have heard for some writers it helps to write in a different format; instead of typing they hand write it out. But I’m lazy and my hands cramp quickly while writing, so I put my word document aside and started writing scenes in OneNote. The pesky word count at the bottom of the screen is gone and I stopped worrying about flow. I am just writing disjointed scene after disjointed scene, with plans of puzzle piecing it back together. The meat of the story is in those scenes. I can always go back and work on making them flow together. I am not writing thousands of words a day, but at least I am making progress.
I realized once I admitted I had writer’s block, it was easier to get rid of. Writer’s block isn’t the end of the world, unless you let it be!
Amanda Staley 
I have yet to have writer’s block. There are days when struggling is all I do but I do get through it. The ‘OneNote’ idea makes sense to me. I’ll keep it in mind.
LikeLike
I have never really accepted the concept of writer’s block… but it really was a block. Not the standard type of I can’t come up with any ideas, but more the dragging myself by my hair to my keyboard to actually write. It was very frustrating, but once I identified the issue it was easy to compensate. Not to say I don’t sit there and want to bang my head against the keyboard trying to figure out where I want to go from here. 🙂
OneNote has worked very well for me so far. I know others who use Scrivener for the same purpose, while I like the cork board function in Scrivener, I don’t like the interface, it reminds me of Word 1997. *shivers at the thought*
And OneNote is now available online, all one has to do is sign up for an outlook.com email address. And the apps for your phones are free as well which means you can have OneNote everywhere.
LikeLike
I don’t buy into writers block much. I think it comes down to fear of failure.
LikeLike
OneNote is such a useful tool, I’m glad is helping you too. I have several tabs for writing and include random thoughts for my blog.
Also a good thing is that you can use it on your phone or tablet, so if you have an idea while commuting you can quickly write it down and work on it back home.
LikeLike