I often talk about having Writer’s Block. I’m no stranger to it, as I’m sure 99.9% of other writers aren’t, and I’ve done my time beating it into submission and learning to push through. But lately, when I tell people I’m suffering from writer’s block or nod and agree when they ask if that’s why I haven’t been writing, that’s not entirely true. What I have at the moment is something different. Something, in my opinion, worse. Right now, I’m struggling with Creative Block.
In an attempt to stop jumping between the 6,128 projects I have in various stages of brainstorming, plotting, or drafting, I set myself a goal this year to only focus on two projects — my new adult paranormal romance, project: wisteria, and my YA to NA high school romance duology, project: junebug. I know exactly where I’m going with both of them. Junebug is a rewrite of one of my earliest, most popular fan fictions, so the story is there in my mind, waiting to be laid out; wisteria isn’t fully fleshed out, but I have its bones, so it too is just waiting to be written. I can be at work all day knowing that when I get home, I want to write this scene in one or the other. I amp myself up about it all day. By the time I leave work or the weekend rolls around, I’m excited to get to my computer and start typing.
And then I just…don’t.
I’ll open my documents. Navigate to where I’m up to in the manuscript. And then I’ll sit and stare at it, or suddenly find that something else around the house requires my attention, or I’ll find myself doomscrolling Instagram. Looking at my manuscript is overwhelming. There’s so much to write, and all my words suck, and how can I move to the next part of the story when the previous part isn’t perfect? I’ll move over to Canva and create some marketing graphics — because that’s almost like writing, right? It’s writing adjacent. It’s something that needs doing to help my writing career move forward. But inevitably, I’ll come back to that word document and grimace, because at the end of the day writer’s write, and how can I call myself a writer when I’m not?
I find myself stuck in this never ending cycle.
Some days I’m fine. I can pump out thousands of words and be happy with them, ready to move on to the next chapter. The next day, I’ll come back to where I left off, and suddenly I hate everything. Nothing I’ve written is good enough. My FMC feels flat; I hate the meeting with the MMC. I’m 20,000 words into project: wisteria, and I feel like nothing’s happened. I’d be bored as a reader, ergo my writing sucks. I should scrap the whole thing and start over. Again and again. Until it’s perfect.
Except, as we all know, this isn’t conductive to good writing.
I’m constantly having to remind myself that:
- this is a first draft — it’s allowed to suck, because its only job is to get the story on the page;
- nobody is reading this but me — the language doesn’t have to be perfect and pretty, because I’ll be coming back around and rewriting things in draft two;
- today is for experimenting — if I keep myself focused on what I think the story needs, it will never become what it wants to be;
- nothing is set in stone — if I decide I hate my beginning, I can fix it later, but I won’t know what the beginning needs if I never make it to the end.
It’s 100% true when people say you will always be growing and learning as a writer. But I’m beginning to realise that not every lesson I learn is going to be productive to my creativity.
When I left school, I had no idea what I wanted to be. Writing was my only real hobby, but back then I didn’t think being an author was a solid career choice, and I didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a pointless university degree. Gradually, I picked up photography as a hobby. I loved taking photos. Loved walking around the looking at the way light fell, at the way it brought out textures on a variety of surfaces, at how it could bring a space to life. I bought myself a decent camera and started shooting, intent on maybe making a career of this new passion.
I took this photo when I was 21, trying to keep up with the 365 Day Challenge or the 52 Weeks Challenge. There were days I would be too drained from life to want to take any photos, so a lot of my old albums on Facebook are filled with quick snapshots taken just so I could say, “There, I did it.” This was one such photo. Back then, I hated it. It was just a boring shot of my bed because I couldn’t find anything interesting to shoot that morning.
Now, I like that photo. I love the simplicity. I love how comfortable it looks. I love the way the light hits the blinds, and the grain of the wood on the headboard, and the texture of the sheets as they twist. I feel this way about a lot of the old “boring” photos I took.
I found that once I started studying photography and looking into it as a career, I liked my shots a lot less. They’re flat. They’re dull. There’s something lacking even in the most well-framed, well-composed shots, and back then I couldn’t have told you what it was. Now I know it was creativity — those shots were missing the creativity that my early work showed, because I’d stopped experimenting, stopped not caring what other people thought, stopped shooting for myself, and was entirely focused on technique, popular editing styles, and pleasing other people.
I stopped shooting in 2014 for a variety of reasons, but the main reason was that I wasn’t enjoying it anymore.
So now, when I start to feel myself heading down that same road as a writer, I have to remind myself to pause. To think about what I’m doing. To think about why I’m writing.
Do I want to make a career of this? Sure. Am I going to stop writing if I feel like that’s not a possibility? Absolutely not. Because I love telling stories. I love bringing my characters to life. I love interacting with readers, and making new friends, and learning all the ins and outs of being an indie author, but at the end of the day it all comes back to the fact that I love to write. That’s why I do this. That’s why I’ll keep doing this.
So on days like today, where I’m staring at my manuscript and feeling that creative block hard, I’m reminding myself to step back. I don’t have to feel overwhelmed like this. I can take a break when I need to. I can let my words suck. I can write my novel in pieces and pull it together later, or I can shove it aside and work on another project until I’m ready to come back to this one. I can experiment. I can take the boring, shitty photo, because someday I might look back and think it’s beautiful.
Creative block can take a hike. I’ve got this. <3
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