Hi DD, Do you have any advice on how to battle writer's block? I've got like 8 story ideas and when I sit down to actually write I go blank. :( (BTW I adore the YW books and can't wait for GWP to come out! You are an amazing author and an inspiration!)
Aww, thanks!
First of all: you need to make sure that you’re really having a writer’s block. I get a sense that a lot of cases of “block” are misdiagnosed right out of the gate.
it’s possible that the difficulty you’re running into is a straightforwardly procedural thing. The problem is that there are a number of hidden processes that ideally need to occur before you can actually start writing. Or at least, start writing effectively.
The first thing to say is that having a story idea is only the very beginning, the merest hint, of what you have to do before you actually start setting down prose on paper. A lot of people get confused about the role of the story idea: they think it’s the most important part of being creative as a writer, when in fact it’s probably the least important.
Story ideas are easy. Everybody can have story ideas. Most of us who do this professionally have way too many story ideas. It would be a bad day around here if I hadn’t had an idea for a story between getting out of bed and making it downstairs for my first mug of tea. However, even after thirty years of doing this work for pay, there’s no guarantee that that story idea will actually be worth anything. Over time, you learn to cull relentlessly. But a how-to guide on culling is a subject for some other post.
Anyway. You get the story idea, and it impels you to write. That’s a good start. But there are other places you have to go first.
(Inserting a break here, because this is going to go on a bit…)
