Writing Through Writer's Block

By Susan

I’ve always been pretty consistent with my writings… from journal entries to this blog, to working on my novel. If I don’t write new words every day, something’s wrong.

Yet over the past few months something changed. Blame it on summer. Blame it on my own weariness with my novel. Was this writer's block? I wasn't sure, but I certainly wasn’t writing. I’d been in a restless place with the editing of my manuscript, and editing didn't feel like writing at all. I felt stagnant and stuck, unable to put new words on paper--because I’d been too busy worrying about the novel instead of writing one. (Worrying about writing isn’t the same as writing. Trust me on this.)

Then I spent a week cradled by mountains at the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop. I got to listen to what other people do with their pens--poets spinning words into golden threads, essayists painting a new perspective on life’s simplest tasks. I listened to the words of people who are just as crazy about writing as I am as they spoke the truth, even when it hurt. And I came back to Texas inspired. It was a great reminder of why I write.

Since my return, I have challenged myself with different prompts to stretch my words to new places.

I started by writing poetry and short essays on nature. I wrote a creation myth that might find its way into my next novel. I played around with the idea of writing down children's stories--the tales I used to tuck in my daughters with when they were small. None of it has had anything to do with the manuscript I am currently editing. Not one word has felt like worry about what I've already written… and it felt like freedom.

And then I figured it out: all of a sudden, I’m only writing for me again. I’m not thinking about my agent, or editor. I’m not thinking about a book deal and what that even might mean. I’m just putting new words on paper because that’s what I do. And it’s felt great.

I suppose this means that I've been writing through my writer's block. I can’t think of any other way to do it. I’m showing up every day, hoping to capture a muse or a glimpse of genius. And of course, some days are better than others. But the worry has gone away. The dread of editing has lifted. It’s all a process, of course, this ebb and flow of a writing life. But it’s been a great reminder—it’s only a writing life if I am writing. Every day.

The Dreaded Scene

By Kim

In my last post I wrote about the ghosts of Christmas past. Originally I included the tale of another spirit, but her story didn’t match the tone of the rest of what I had to say, and so I left it out. Like most toddlers, my Great Aunt Penelope is rather persistent. In fact, she is Writer’s Block personified. I doubt she will release her grip until I acknowledge her.

Perhaps it’s best to let Penelope’s mother explain why I dread writing chapter 26 of The Oak Lovers.

In December [1910] little Penelope developed a cold, then the croup. The doctor said it was nothing serious. She was obviously not well at all, however, and I slept on a cot by her crib. The last night she was restless. I was heavy and tired, and dozed for a bit and dreamed. I thought I had wakened and saw the window wide open, the window frame free. Penelope was not in her crib. I went to the window and saw her walking in her nightgown in the snow that covered the porch roof outside the window. I quickly went to her and picked her up in my arms and wrapped her up warmly She looked up at me and smiled. Then I wakened. Penelope was sleeping quietly beside me. I felt a glow of happiness and thought, “the doctor is right after all. She will be better in the morning.” But she was not, and that evening she died in my arms…She was beautiful and rare. I loved her very much and always with a touch of fear. She seemed too lovely to be true, like a dream from which one prays not to waken. We had her for only two years and eight months, but for even that I am grateful.

From the memoir of Madonna Ahrens, written in about 1945

The first time I read these words, my oldest daughter, Sasha, was exactly two years and eight months old. I reacted how any mother would; I rushed into my child’s room to make sure she hadn’t stopped breathing in her sleep. I plucked her from her crib, rocked her, and wept into her hair, imagining how horrific such a loss would be. Even if I were nine months pregnant at the time, as Madonna was, I’m not sure I could ever recover.

I suspect Madonna got through the loss by keeping Penelope’s memory alive, something her husband, landscape painter Carl Ahrens, would likely have encouraged. At least a dozen photographs of Penelope survive, some in historical frames. Newspaper articles from as late as 1917 mention her along with the Ahrens’ other, still living, children. My grandmother, Chloris, born in 1912, spoke of Penelope as she did her other siblings, as if she had grown up with her. I remember a photograph of Penelope in my own dining room when I was small, which is more than I could say for Aunt Sigrid and Uncle Laird. While I knew she had died shortly after the photograph was taken, I always found the image comforting. It hangs in my home now.

She is alive again in my book now, a happy, beautiful child, cherished by both parents, and my own maternal instinct screams at me that as a novelist I have the power to give her a different fate. As much as I want to protect her, it would change the whole family dynamic if I spared her, not to mention that it would go against my desire to tell the truth as much as possible. So, I must kill my darling. I’ve killed characters before, even ones I love, but never a child, and never someone who once existed outside of my own imagination. What makes this deed even more heart-wrenching is that I see whispers of Penelope in my four-year-old daughter, Ashlyn.

The connection between the two girls was especially frightening a couple of months ago, when Ashlyn had the Swine Flu. After the fever broke, she had a week or so of a horrendous croupy cough and temporarily had to go on breathing treatments. The doctor assured me she would be fine and that there was no need to bring her to the ER unless she appeared to be in respiratory distress. Thankfully I didn’t have to experience that particular terror. I did, however, end up rushing her to the hospital about a week before Christmas. My parents and I took both girls to a local park, and the children were anxious to explore a path down by a nearby stream. Sasha, now eight, began running down a steep hill, Ashlyn close on her heels. My mother and I were both poised to yell ‘stop’ when Ashlyn fell. We could tell she landed on her knee, and she cried, but there was no outright screaming. My dad lifted her pant leg, expecting to see a scrape or abrasion that he could kiss better. Instead, we found a long gash, the skin nearly peeled away from her kneecap. Had I had my wits about me I’d have realized the wound, while awful to look at, was nothing serious. My wits were nowhere to be found. For a breathless moment I waited for blood to spurt, and feared we would lose her before reaching the hospital. I’ll never forget that feeling of helplessness.

I’ve already discussed how difficult it is for me to emotionally distance myself while I’m working on a chapter. While I realize my own child will barely even have a scar from the thirteen stitches it took to close the wound, writing about Penelope will require me to channel that feeling I had in the park, to psychologically dwell there until I finish the chapter. It is fitting, perhaps, that I’ve felt the weight of this burden throughout the holiday, and that I would prepare to write this scene so close to the anniversary of her death.

So here I sit unable to start my next chapter. From those of you who managed to push through and successfully write a dreaded scene, I’d appreciate any advice and encouragement you can give me...

Getting Lucky

By Susan

Sometimes, if I get lucky when I’m writing, something happens and I am in The Zone. It is hard to explain what this means: I just know that my pen flies across the paper, as though possessed. My hand can’t keep up with the images in my mind. Some times, when I read it later, I have no real memory of writing it.

On other occasions, I might wake in the middle of the night with a dream on the tips of my fingers and get up and write without a thought to what it may mean. I curl into my biggest chair and scribble away. Or if I am driving alone, I may be overtaken by an idea—a bud of a flower that demands instant water, food and sunlight. Sometimes it’s a fleeting thought, sometimes a complete sentence. Regardless, I am compelled to stop and take notice.

Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) refers to the Greeks and their daemons, to the Romans and their genius. Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead) called it The Spooky Art. Stephen King, the master at modern creative fiction, writes, “Your job isn’t to find these ideas. It’s to recognize them when they show up.”

So what is this thing, that when captured, can pour out of writers like magic? And what is it, that when absent, quite stereotypically drives writers to drink?

Therein lies the problem: it’s another story altogether when you summon the muse and she refuses to speak. Your fingers become clumsy, as though this is the first time you have ever attempted such a thing. I’ve sat for nights on end, waiting for something to appear on the page. I think back to my creative writing classes from 20 years ago, trying to remember a nugget of instruction to help me summon inspiration.

I buy books on writing (I have a full shelf of writers telling me how to write). Yet reading about writing, I have found, is not writing. Reading about not writing is never the cure for not writing. Just like the only cure for obesity is eating less and moving more, the cure for writers block is whining less and writing more. Just write.

Here are some exercises and suggestions that have helped me. (See? I am now a writer talking about writing to writers who are having a difficult time writing). Keep in mind that the key to all of this is just doing the work. You can write longhand or type, sitting or standing, it doesn’t matter. Just get the words out.

1) Begin a paragraph with the following sentence: “In my mind I see…” and take it from there. If you are working on a specific piece, put this in your character’s point of view. Write at least 200 words, more if you catch inspiration by the tail. One of my favorite pieces that I ever wrote started with this exercise.

2) Go stand outside and describe what’s out there. How’s the weather? (Hemingway said, “Remember to get the weather in your god damned book- weather is very important. “) How does the air feel: heavy and sticky, or brittle and cool? How will the weather affect your scene? If you are writing about a hurricane, don’t tell me it’s raining. I want to smell it, hear it and feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck with the electricity of the storm. Don’t shortchange your readers by leaving something this crucial out of your work.

3) Working Papers- The Artist’s Way recommends journaling three pages each morning before you start the work of the day. Three pages of purging, I call it, shaking the leaves from your trees, shedding the dead skin cells before getting to the flesh of things. “I need to go to the store today,” Or, “I am worried about my mother.” Get these things out of your system before really working on your project. De-clutter your brain matter of all the things that are on your mind. Then you can find your story.

These three simple exercises may help, or they may not be for you. Remember that your writer’s block is your own—not mine, not Hemingway’s or Virginia Wolfe’s. Remember that your muse, too, belongs to you. Welcome her and don’t let her pass you by. At the same time, don’t curse her when she is somewhere else. Show up for the job whether your inspiration is there or not. And the words will appear, sometimes like blood from the pen, sometimes flowing like a Colorado stream. But show up. There is no easier way to fail at your novel than simply not writing it.