DAY 7 PROMPT: Do you ever experience writer’s block? What do you recommend to help overcome writer’s block? Any foolproof tricks that always work for you?
Oh man, nothing like a prompt that totally smacks you up side the head! Writer’s block? Who doesn’t get writer’s block? Just this prompt gave me a serious pause–or maybe writer’s block. Ah, so the definition of writer’s block then would be the lack of ideas, put to paper, for one hour? One day? A week? Serious writer’s block set in with the anthology–it was eventually solved in two ways: 
- I took a page from NaNoWriMo which holds to an interesting concept–50,000 words in 30 days. That translates roughly into 1,667 words per day. NaNo doesn’t read, doesn’t edit, doesn’t critique. It’s a count of words. The whole idea is to GET THE WORDS ON THE PAPER. Doesn’t really matter how many typos or whether it good prose. But getting it down, even bad sketches, can sometimes, later, be the forerunner of a brainstorm. THEN you can refine, edit, critique.
- AND, you can take another credit from NaNo, in that a specific deadline (in their case 30 days) usually works wonders for me. If you’ve set yourself a deadline for the debut great–but even self-imposed you have to use that aforementioned discipline. It’s a deadline–it has to be finished; ready to submit. Or perhaps the deadline is for a chapter–doesn’t matter. A time line can work.
Sometimes something as simple as getting away from it for a period of time will help–and don’t think of it! When I still had my motorcycle, a good ride always cleared the air. There is something about riding that pastes a grin on the face, lowers the blood pressure, and goes about gently resetting the attitude. The wind in the face (or in the hair for states that allow choice), the feel of the power of the bike, the smells (you can’t get those in a cage); guaranteed you won’t be thinking of the novel. If you don’t ride, see the two suggestions posted above. Sorry.
Rosepoint Publishing 