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World Pirates

Cristina

New Member
Greetings everyone!

I'm Cristina and I am new to Mythic Scribes. I love fantasy stories and everything that goes along with it. I am working on a pirates novel but I'm sorry to say that I am currently under the spell of "writer's block" lol. I hope that someone here has suffered the same spell and can give me advice on how to break it.

Oh, and I love Basset Hounds.
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
Hail and well met Cristina
[Or should that be Ahoy and Avast!]
Anyway... Good to have you here.
The fear of the empty page!
The only way I know out of it is to write.
Write something.
Write Twilight/Transformers FanFic, a shopping list as an epic poem, an office email in Cockney rhythming slang [okay this one can get you into trouble or at least lead to some interesting questions:whistle:], rewrite your favourite movie.
Just write.
Don't worry if it is good or bad, it is the act of getting words on to the page that matters and it can take a while.
But then [at least for me] the fear of the empty page fades and ideas come back. Maybe not the ideas I was expecting but they return.
Good luck and I hope you enjoy MS as much as I do.
 

Cristina

New Member
Hail and well met Cristina
[Or should that be Ahoy and Avast!]
Anyway... Good to have you here.
The fear of the empty page!
The only way I know out of it is to write.
Write something.
Write Twilight/Transformers FanFic, a shopping list as an epic poem, an office email in Cockney rhythming slang [okay this one can get you into trouble or at least lead to some interesting questions:whistle:], rewrite your favourite movie.
Just write.
Don't worry if it is good or bad, it is the act of getting words on to the page that matters and it can take a while.
But then [at least for me] the fear of the empty page fades and ideas come back. Maybe not the ideas I was expecting but they return.
Good luck and I hope you enjoy MS as much as I do.

Thank you CupofJoe, I'll take yoursuggestions. :)
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Christina, when you say "writer's block" what exactly is happening? I assume you don't mean to say you cannot write anything, right? So it's not that you cannot write. It's that you cannot write ... well, you say it and we'll listen.

Also, just for context, is this your first story? Eighty-fifth? Is it a novel? Short story?
 

Cristina

New Member
Christina, when you say "writer's block" what exactly is happening? I assume you don't mean to say you cannot write anything, right? So it's not that you cannot write. It's that you cannot write ... well, you say it and we'll listen.

Also, just for context, is this your first story? Eighty-fifth? Is it a novel? Short story?

Hi, skip.knox, thanks for the note...What is happening is that I get stuck on the story. I review what I wrote and for some reason or another, I find that the last paragraphed I wrote is not of my likings so I go back and re-write it. Then I continue with the story, that will go on for a page or two and that is when it happens...total block and I cannot proceed. The story is in my head, but no matter how I try to write it I cannot so I stop. This is happening with three other novels, sometimes I think I'm losing my marbles because the stories are there, is not that my mind is blank about them, the problem is I cannot put it in writing.

Responding to your second question. I have four novels in the making, all with great stories (if I may boast about it) but they are partly written and the rest in my head.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Thanks for answering. That's really pretty common among writers. The usual advice you will get is not to rewrite. Only go forward, no matter how awful you think that last paragraph is. But you do go ahead. Another page or two. Then ... wham. The wall.

I don't know how to fix that. There are hundreds if not thousands of fixes, and only one is going to work for you and all you can do is keep trying until you find it. Here's what I do. Maybe it will connect in some way, but if it doesn't, don't worry about it. Well, do worry about it, but only in the sense of keep trying other ways forward. Remember: the only way to fail is to stop.

Anyway, I call it telling myself the story. The story is in your head. No it ain't. The idea of it is. The feeling. Probably some major plot points, maybe even a few scenes imagined in detail. Probably the ending. But all that together is not the story. So what I want to do is to get down in words whatever I can.

I call it telling myself the story because I write out that stuff that's in my head, but I don't try to write it as a story. Call it an outline, call it freewriting, call it George. For me, it winds up as first this happens, then that happens, and then I'm not quite sure what but then my characters are over here, ... and so on. Sometimes there's dialog in there. I don't worry about how I write, whether it's any good or not, because *this isn't the story*. It's just me writing stuff down. My eyes only.

I still get to places where I am stumped. This might happen or that might happen, and depending on which, the story goes in different directions. It's daunting. Or else, I get to a point and it's like the story stands at the edge of a chasm. I know it's supposed to get over *there* but I've no idea at all how to get there. Maybe I have to back up and come at it from a completely different direction, but I'm not sure about that either. At such points, I write "then a miracle occurs" (this is a callback to an old cartoon) and I pretend I've solved it, and I go on. I've had story chasms that persisted for a dreadfully long time. I just keep writing around them, trusting that I'll get them solved.

Now, I don't recommend this method to anyone. It's what I do, not because it's the very greatest thing to do or even because it's best for me, but because that's what I did and eventually I finished a book, so as a method it does not entirely suck. I dearly hope you find something better. My way is about as efficient as skateboarding in a jungle. But I got there.

You can too.

The only way to fail is to stop.
 

Cristina

New Member
Thank you Skip, truly appreciate your insight. My problem seems that all along I’ve been prematurely focusing on precision writing (composition, bad grammar, typos etc.) and most importantly overlooking the essence of the ideas in my head. The concept of the story is there and I will definitely keep on writing.

Regards,
 

abydos6

Dreamer
Hi there Cristina, newbie here as well. One way to tackle it, can be to interview your main characters and villian, it might get you out of the rut. Also because your block occurs after focusing on getting everything you have written perfect, train yourself to let that perfection go, and keep on writing. I also find outlining works wonders.
 
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