I have been participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for many years now! Sadly...I've never ever finished it (big oof).I'd like to use this post as a word of encouragement to both you and also to me!
Writing a book is never easy, to do so is to pour your heart and soul into something as simple and limiting as words.
Can you imagine using mere words to try to describe emotions, people, or even an entirely new world?
Just think about it. You, as a writer, have been able to store a whole world inside of your head and have somehow managed to put the beauty of it into words. Suddenly being a writer sounds a lot more challenging and important.
A writer must go through so many drafts of their book to reach perfection, they have to face criticisms from the haters (dab those haters off), and have to even sometimes witness people steal their work, something which they worked so hard for.
Being a writer is incredibly hard, as you can see. So you should know that when the time for NaNoWriMo comes around, you are not the only one who is curled up in the corner crying.
You are definitely not the only one who has found your ideas all dried up, and the faucet of creativity is dripping uselessly into your brain.
Because you're not the only one, there's a lot of different methods that people have conjured up in order to escape the deadly pit of THE WRITING BLOCK.
dun dun dun...
The writing block, very similar to the art block, is:
'a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work, or experiences a creative slowdown. The condition ranges in difficulty from coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce work for years.'
Sounds scary...I know (I pulled it from Wikipedia, a scary place).
But it's not as scary as that long definition sounds, because there are ways to escape it!
I'm going to list out a few very unprofessional thoughts which I'm coming up with as I go along.
1. Set aside your current work, and start something new.
a. Make a short story.
b. Write about the death of a character who you're not planning on killing.
c. Write the ending of a book, trying to explain subtly what's going on without out-right explaining it.
d. Skip whatever you're stuck on and write a future chapter.
e. Write the end of your book.
f. Heck, write a paper, anything to get the rusty old wheels of your brain spinning again.
2. Draw your characters.
a. Either draw them as they are, or imagine them in an alternate universe.
b. Draw them interacting with other people's characters.
c. Draw literally anything.
3. Try changing it up.
a. Maybe you have no more ideas for your book because your plot isn't in-depth enough, maybe you need to kill off a character?
b. Try introducing a new character who is neither good nor bad but a chaotic neutral and makes it harder for both the protagonist and/or antagonist reach their goals.
c. Maybe change the plot itself and revise everything, just for kicks at first, but it may spark some new ideas.
d. Have a character do something you never thought they'd do.
e. Give your protagonist more problems.
4. Force yourself.
a. Okay I know this sounds blunt, but just suck it up and write, and inspiration will come to you like a drop of water in the dry desert of your brain (I can vouch for this method, it works).
5. My last bit of advice is to go on Pinterest and look at all the different writing prompts (most of the best ones are pulled from Tumblr).
a. This is my humble Pinterest board of random writing stuff, it's not huge, but it'll get you started!
I hope that you all find some great inspiration, I hope this post was helpful, and have a GREAT NaNoWriMo!
