WRITERS BLOCK

[TheBlackadder]

Serious. It’s annoying as all hell. I mean, I have lots of stories and ideas and such, but the problem is lack of motivation. It ticks me off! Mostly because it used to be that I could knock out 100 typed pages of a story, just let the thoughts flow out of my head through my fingers and come up with some pretty good stuff. Now? I’m just like . . “ . . . .um .. . .”

I LOVE to write! It’s my escape, it’s perhaps my favorite thing to do with my time next to Theatre (of course) and I just feel like my head is on pause. Part of it is due to all of this @#$!( Bipolar meds they put me on. The more they pile on, the more difficult it is to write. How is that supposed to make me happier and more satisfied in life? Really?

So I have 10 or 11 stories up on AFF right now, most of them are still Works In Progress, and it irritates me because I feel like I should have most, if not all of them finished by now. Ya know? But here I am, writers blocked into a corner and it feels like banging my head against a wall.

It’s not fair when the one thing you love more then anything else gets turned into a nightmare. It almost feels like a chore now to get a few more chapters added, when it used to be a joy.

Damn doctors.

Oceans of Love, ~Marian The Blackadder~

[Melrick]

My impression of bipolar medication is that it's more designed to keep a person calm rather than strictly happy, but it more than likely is also dulling your creativity a little, which would be very annoying.

I can well and truly sympathise with your writers block. I always suffer from it. My giant Achilles heel is coming up with a good idea in the first place. I seem to be very hard to please when it comes to my own story ideas, so my brain simply refuses to spit out any good ones. And the problem with writing a story with only an okay idea is that I invariably loose interest in the story before I finish, then I abandon it or delete it. Unlike most people, I never upload a story that I haven't finished. I always wait until I've finished it and then upload one chapter a week or so. If you dump a twenty chapter story on the site all at once then you're pretty much doomed yourself to getting no reviews, or at least extremely few. But a chapter a week is more likely to encourage people to keep coming back.

Now if only I could get a good idea! I write original fiction, and that's where my problem lies; I really want it to be ORIGINAL, as in, nobody else has done it before. But as they say, there's no such thing as an original idea anymore, and I think that's true. So I may well be cursed to never come up with another idea again.

So yes, I can WELL and truly sympathise with you.

[Gnome]

I don't believe in writer's block. I believe in procrastination.

Sometimes I spend far too much thinking about writing when I should just get on and do it. Even if the words aren't there if I sit down in front of a blank screen, or a new chapter, tell myself I'm not allowed to move until I've written something, and jab out some nonsense, the words usually start to run. If it really isn't working then either I'm trying to pull a story from no inspiration or somewhere a long the line the plot has derailed.

I try and tweezer out a few words a day. Sometimes it's agony. Sometimes the flood gates open.

[greenwizard]

Writer's block really is a bitch. I'm working on a chapter and have it almost finished.... but I'm stuck. The words just aren't coming out.

As far as bi polar meds, I'm supposed to be on them, but I'm not. I won't take medication of any kind because I'm not myself. They make me a drooling zombie. I would make a bet that your meds have a big part to play in your problem.

[shinigamiinochi]

some medication can you help you. my zoloft helps me a lot with my social anxiety disorder and I take meds for my hypthyroid which keeps me, ya know, alive, and neither have hurt my writing. But there are also some medications that seriously mess with your brain chemicals. My cousin is schizoaffective and has PTSD and it got to the point where he was taking so many meds, not only could he no longer write or draw, he was having 'minor' seizures. But now he's off all but one anti psychotic and is doing much better. The morale of the story is this: you have to make a choice, your well being versus what you love to do. Yes, being bi polar might suck and is not a good thing, but neither is a med that messes around with your though patterns and hobbies.

[TheBlackadder]

The morale of the story is this: you have to make a choice, your well being versus what you love to do. Yes, being bi polar might suck and is not a good thing, but neither is a med that messes around with your though patterns and hobbies.

That's my vote. However my attempt to back off my meds or at least lower the dosages backfired severely. Now the list goes something like Welbutron, Cymbalta, Lamictal, Topamax and Lorazepam. Nice eh? When I complain about it, I always get the "Well your meds are just out of balance, we have to get you stabalized" thing.

Talk about wanting to say "BITE ME! I want to write and act again!" on a daily bases.

Life isn't the only important thing, there is a quality of life issue here too.

Oceans of Love, ~Marian the Blackadder~

[Obsolescence]

I'm not on any meds, but I'm in the same boat as you. I can think of things to write but I can't be bothered to do it. so instead I'm working on character templates and other things, to hopefully motivate me. So far no luck.:/

[greenwizard]

I finally finished my story! Go me! And yea, I suppose meds are the best thing for some people. All meds did for me was make me a drooling zombie. I wasn't depressed, but had no interest in anything. I didn't like it.

[TheBlackadder]

Well,

I still have alot of ideas. But motivation seems to be a problem. I got a review on one of my stories the other day, and BAM! Knocked out five chapters right after. Just because someone was reading it and it made me feel like I had a duty to that reader to add some more so they stayed interested.

Which of course goes back to the “FEEDBACK!! Always give feedback guys!!!” thing.

I love writing, I really do. I mean it’s fun! You get to create your own characters and your own world where anything can happen and your only limit is that of your own imagination. I don’t care how cheesy that sounds, it’s true. It’s like . . . world domination on your own personal level LOL.

Still, you get writers block and then your just sitting there, starring at the screen, with your finger up your nose wondering what to do now.

Oceans of Love, ~Marian the Blackadder~

[shinigamiinochi]

After turning out 100,000 words for Solstice, I feel like my brain is exploding. Words and scenarios and ideas are attacking my brain at a frightening speed. This isn't even a joke, it's a serious problem. I write to get this shit out of my head, yet the more I write, the more ideas I get... it's a never ending cycle! I WISH I had writer's block, but nnooooo, my brain won't bloody shut up and it's one in the morning.

[Guest Zyx]

After turning out 100,000 words for Solstice, I feel like my brain is exploding. Words and scenarios and ideas are attacking my brain at a frightening speed. This isn't even a joke, it's a serious problem. I write to get this shit out of my head, yet the more I write, the more ideas I get... it's a never ending cycle! I WISH I had writer's block, but nnooooo, my brain won't bloody shut up and it's one in the morning.

I hate you so much right now >_>

[canterro]

I hate you so much right now >_>

and I see it as a problem...

too much is not good either;

if you have 100 ideas, don't put them all into one book; it'll become a mess;

divide them between a few stories, I think it works better

[Psybee]

and I see it as a problem...

too much is not good either;

if you have 100 ideas, don't put them all into one book; it'll become a mess;

divide them between a few stories, I think it works better

I have to same problem and I do that too but then I think it becomes even worse. If you want to really finish one story but ideas of another one pops up, what do you do?

I end up continuing the new idea and it really ticks me off.

[canterro]

I have to same problem and I do that too but then I think it becomes even worse. If you want to really finish one story but ideas of another one pops up, what do you do?

I end up continuing the new idea and it really ticks me off.

Believe me, I know the feeling...

In such a case I write all my ideas down not to forget any of them and I choose the best for my actual story. The rest is waiting in my file for their time

I do what I can to stick to this plan and it works pretty good...

[shinigamiinochi]

and I see it as a problem...

too much is not good either;

if you have 100 ideas, don't put them all into one book; it'll become a mess;

divide them between a few stories, I think it works better

No, I definitely don't plan on putting all of my thoughts into Solstice. It is for that reason that I wrote up a timeline/plot sheet before I tackled the book, so I wouldn't go off into a direction that I could never get back from. My brain seems to be babbling. It makes me hyper and all the ideas that are left over give me crazy ass nightmares.

[shinigamiinochi]

I have to same problem and I do that too but then I think it becomes even worse. If you want to really finish one story but ideas of another one pops up, what do you do?

I end up continuing the new idea and it really ticks me off.

I balance my new ideas with my old ideas. If there is a way to encorprate them into the story without destroying the original flow of the story, if not, it goes into the recycle bin of my brain. Painful, yes, but necessary, otherwise Solstice would never be done and would make no sense whatsoever

[TheBlackadder]

What urks me the worst sometimes, is when it takes me months or even YEARS to get back to a story. I mean jeez! You want to finish it NOW! but the dumb writers block sets in and your just stuck. Like quicksand.

Which reminds me . . . anyone see the Quicksand Giraffe from Robot Chicken. Kind of what you feel like when Writers block comes around isn't it?

Quicksand Giraffe Video

Oceans of Love, ~Marian The Blackadder~

[TheBlackadder]

on the brighter side though? When your doing Movie Fanfictions, sometimes it helps to rewatch the movie or even the series if your stuck. Maybe a new idea will spark, or it'll refresh the whole genre in your mind.

Oceans of Love, ~Marian the Blackadder~

[Guest MortiferLascivio]

I kind of have the same but different problem. It's not writer's block, but I do have medications for Chrone's disease and cancer that really...really...REALLY suck out all of my energy and will to live. I have a whole mess of crap inside my head just waiting to written down, but I can't get my body to want to get out of bed sometimes. Sometimes my trusty laptop is good for that, but even then typing takes too much energy. I can plan out an entire chapter in my head and I just itch to type it down but my body isn't willing.

But sometimes I do get writer's block. The worst case was an entire year of not being able to get a chapter out. So I decided to just delete the damn story. It wasn't worth agonizing over. But, writer's block doesn't affect me a lot for some reason. I typed out a 180,000 word story in about six months (I was on a two month hiatus right in the middle because of the sudden increase in my chemotherapy). But normally, you couldn't stop me from getting 1-2 chapters out a day.

[Saitochan]

Man, I hate whenever I find myself unable to write. It's happened quite some times before, and most of the time, it's due to lack of feedback. Even if I begin writing an amazing story I'm totally in love with, if I get little or no reviews (which is the case for all my fics on AFF), sooner or later I lose interest and stop writing.

As for writers block, I wouldn't know what medications do to you, since I don't take any, but every time I need inspiration to write, I force myself to write at least one or two pages a day. "Let inspiration find you working" they say, but that's not always a good thing.

Recently, I went over the first chapters in my main story (Naruto het fic, check my AFF page if you want to read it, and hopefully, review it), and I noticed they were so filled with emotion, and the writing was good (to my opinion anyway), but after I stopped recieving feedback, every chapter I managed to get done is just plain, dull and mind-numbing. And after that, it's kind of a cycle. The fewer reviews I get, the crappier my story gets, and so, I get no reviews.

Crap, I really want to finish my fic.

[greenwizard]

Lack of reviews is a common problem. Even great stories get few reviews because most readers are too lazy to bother. I don't review every single story I read, but I do review the ones that make an impression on me.

[Guest Monsterking]

i think i finaly have experianced what this dreaded disease unique to fanfic writers is and boy do i hate it!

[saffron]

At the moment I am going through Writer's block. It sucks I feel your pain.