Date: Jun 25, 2016 06:58 pm Title: Writer's Block - Defeating it, once and for all
I have to thank you for the wealth of information you've posted to help the writers. I've been reading up on your advice topics and they have helped so much, especially this one. Writer's block has always been my biggest issue when it comes to writing. I will try out the pointers you gave and hopefully they'll help me when I'm so frustrated with myself for not knowing what to write.
Again, thank you!





Date: Mar 10, 2015 12:56 am Title: Writer's Block - Defeating it, once and for all
Wow, these are all absolutely wonderful tips and beauifully written, which I greatly appreciate. I took these all into great thought and I will definitely be incorporating these tips into my writing. Thank you for taking your time to offer critique and opinions on writing. It really helps.
Also, thank you for reviewing my story and leaving your feedback there. I'm always looking for ways to improve and I appreciate it.
Lots of love to you. <3
Author's Response:
Thank you for chiming in :) I figured that sitting and complaining is a waste of time; do something about the missteps I see or turn my head. I suck at turning my head.
Girl, I love your two stories, it'd be ridiculous for me to not comment. You've got a ton of us eager to see what will happen in 2000 watts, and I'm betting that if you consistently update that, you'll find that the number reviewing Starstruck will shoot up.





Date: Feb 26, 2015 10:48 am Title: Writer's Block - Defeating it, once and for all
Yes, agreed a week full of filler chapters would be too much. My maximum is 3 fillers (spaced over a good two or three weeks of each filler) and if anything hasn't sparked by then then I definitely would have to reread or watch interviews.... something.
-- And yes, I know who did it. I never confronted her about it, though. I started to reply to it and review but then her story continued to get more familiar each chapter. At first I was ignoring it until it went too far. So I stopped reading and she stopped writing it.
Author's Response:
She stopped writing it? I vaguely recall seeing something that caused my eyebrow to raise. Then again, my eyebrow tends to rise quite frequently. I need to watch that or else I'm going to get wrinkles.





Date: Feb 26, 2015 07:17 am Title: Writer's Block - Defeating it, once and for all
Ahh.... Johnny Depp. He's right up there with Michael in my top celeb crushes.
I get writers's block from time to time. What I do is just force myself to add at least 100 words a day to my chapter eventually it triggers something and I'll end up pulling it together.
At the MJ quote I don't believe in writer's block..... There's no such thing.
Please, easy for him to say.
I just had reviewer's block LOL I didn't know what to say to this chapter.
Author's Response:
Sounds like a good method!
NP. I have reviewer's block often. That's when mine get short.





Date: Feb 25, 2015 09:08 am Title: Writer's Block - Defeating it, once and for all
You know what I think creates writers block sometimes? It would have to be (and I'm sure every person did this when they were just starting to write stories) putting all of your material in the first ten to twenty chapters. Which goes back to a story having excessive drama that it doesn't need. I feel like when a writer has so much drama in the start of the story that's why they get writers block so fast because they already used up everything instead of using one problem, working through it, SOLVING it and then coming to the next one... They just throw it all together. And when it gets like that and having so much drama its really unrealistic that the OG and Michael would even try to further their relatinnship to anything other than friends... but then again that's my opinion. I know I am very guilty of doing that when I first started writing.
I don't too often come across writers block it's just sometimes I know what I want to happen, but I don't know how I want to build it up just yet. Sometimes I have multiple directions to go in, but I want the direction I choose to be the right one and keep my readers intrigued, if you know what I mean. Now, I will ask people, as you know, what they would like to see happen in the story and when they give me suggestions it actually creates more ideas and sometimes it helps me narrow down the different pathways I want to take for a particular scene in the story.
But... when I do come across writers block I go back to what started the story in the first place: the song. If any of my readers and I listen to the same genre of music or even the same artist then some will catch the fact that my stories are named after songs from different artist.
- Gangsta Lovin by Eve ft. Alicia Keys
- I Want You by Janet Jackson
- Why You Wanna Trip On Me by Michael Jackson
- At Your Best by Aaliyah
- Mars vs. Venus by Usher
- Bad Boys Ain't No Good, Good Girls Ain't No Fun (this is actually just a line from the song Bad by Wale)
- Sweet Lady by Tyrese
So going back to what even started the creation of the story can help me get rid of the writers block. Mine is never anything major that will make me leave my story for five or six months, it's usually very minor and I'm back to writing it within three or four weeks. Nothing longer than a month and a week or two because that's just too long. If I ever got a serve case of writers block then you guys would just get a whole bunch of filler chapters until something sparked. They would be boring but it's better than leaving my story unattended for months at a time.
#7- I have this weird thing and it's happened ever since I started writing Gangsta Lovin'.... I'll go to sleep at a decent hour whether its a school night or the weekend, but then I'll wake up at 1 or 2 in the morning unable to go back to sleep. So I'll get on my computer and next thing I know it's 4:30 or 5 in the morning and I have a brand new update for Gangsta Lovin'. Lmao, it never fails. Some of my best chapters of that story come from writing at ungodly hours in the morning.
#4- My work has actually been copied from someone on this site. People really need to understand the difference between inspiration and straight up copying, just saying.
#8- I won't lie there are some times when I'll have a chapter written, but I'll just be too lazily to proofread it and upload it, but luckily by the Grace of God, I'm getting out of that. When I say I'll update I try my best to live up to it but sometimes life can get in the way (but sometimes people use life as an excuse for their laziness IMO).
#3- Reseaaarcccch. Oh yeah listening to his music, reading quotes by him, watching interviews... they all help in trying to get back into writing. Sometimes when I'm writing a chapter which sometimes takes a good hour and a half or two (with no interruptions) I'll listen only to his music. Put on his playlist on my spotify and it'll play all of his songs. That helps too. Gets my fingers to pumping. Woohoo!
#2- Agreed. Usually when I get done with a chapter I email it to myself just in case my computer decides to act stupid and not turn on the next day so I can upload it, I already have it handy. So with that being said I have all my story chapters in my email so sometimes I'll reread the entire story if I have to. That can get ideas going in my head and get rid of writers block. But also, like you said, reading others fanfics will help too.
Agreed on all!
Author's Response:
Your point about the common cause of writer's block is exactly why I wrote about planning and outlining long before I wrote this chapter. The person who does that (and critically looks at their outline) will be in a much better position, from the start, than the person who keeps their outline in their head.
Quote:
So going back to what even started the creation of the story can help me get rid of the writers block. Mine is never anything major that will make me leave my story for five or six months, it's usually very minor and I'm back to writing it within three or four weeks. Nothing longer than a month and a week or two because that's just too long. If I ever got a serve case of writers block then you guys would just get a whole bunch of filler chapters until something sparked. They would be boring but it's better than leaving my story unattended for months at a time.
I think it's important that you noted you would first wait a bit (but not too long). That's one concern I have about updating daily/every other day. While the frequency is lovely as a reader, as an author one might feel more pressured to post fillers, unless the story is properly mapped out. A week of fillers can be too much...
#4 do you know who did it?





Date: Feb 25, 2015 05:19 am Title: Writer's Block - Defeating it, once and for all
First of all... That cat gif!!! DEAD!!! Lmao. That's me tryin to rouse my motivation.
For me 'writer's block' is loss of creative motivation. I guess that could be one and the same but it's not so much not knowing what to write, it's wanting to write. Having the desire to write. I get that way with all the creative outlets I have from time to time. If art and fashion didn't pay the bills sometimes I wouldn't do it at all. There was a time when I didn't go not one day without a pencil/marker/ink pen in my hand. I'm talking 365 days of non-stop drawing. Now in the past year and a half its been a few here and there personal drawings and the others only when I'm getting paid to do it. Same with clothing design. Writing gets the same treatment. I don't get paid to write though. I just do it for fun. I guess it's lack of discipline why I juggle so much in my brain. It's a terrible thing I've combated my entire life. I live inside my head way too much. (this might fall into the category of rambling...Lol.)
However like you said if you make yourself accountable to someone else you have to follow through and I'm a strong believer in that. (It might take time. But I get there Lol) I don't like letting people down and I give my best when I promise and outcome. Never half ass.
Reading other fanfics is a good generator of energy and motivation for me. Some writers here a pretty inspiring.
My version of the slinky is a stress doll I squeeze the bejesus out of to get the juices flowing once I sit down to write. Lol
Thanks for this!
Oh and don't forget the writing genres post!!
More soon! <333
Author's Response:
LOL at the stress doll. Thanks for chiming in. I won't forget the genres post...I just need to think through how I'm going to narrow that down.





Date: Feb 24, 2015 07:52 pm Title: Writer's Block - Defeating it, once and for all
Okay, well first off I've never wanted something as badly as I want Michael Jackson to have signed my back so I could immediately get it tattooed, as in the pic from #9.
I agree a lot with the quote in 10. I'm definitely guilty of letting my writer's block (henceforth never to be called such ever again!) get the best of me. Once you decide that that's what's up, there's no way you can write really. On the other hand, I can't force writing. I just can't. My way of combating that, I guess, is just outlining and outlining over and over again. I start thinking of quotes that could go with random sub-plot points, I start trying to see if I can flesh out scenes or particular emotions. I totally agree that you just have to write SOMETHING. Anything!
I need my songs to be able to write, that's for sure. Ain't no way I can write without the chapter song. Which is probably a bad habit to have gotten myself into in and of itself...It's just so crazy how fast I can go from 0 to 100 with the perfect song to set the mood.
I'm very against setting a schedule/deadline, for me personally. If I try to force myself to write or if I say "okay, I'll update on Monday, promise!" That's just a total jinx for me. I can't force myself to create. There are a lot of times where I'm like, "Okay! A whole Saturday free! Leggo!" only to end up staring at a blank notebook for hours on end...these days usually end up with me FINALLY being able to write starting at like 9 PM. I swear I update usually in the middle of the night...ugh, another habit I wish I could break...
"Review Your Plot"-- I actually just did this from Sunday til today! I reread my ENTIRE fic for the first time ever! I think I was honestly expecting it to be cringe-worthy in the beginning, being the first creative work I've ever written and all, but I was actually really, really proud... Yeah, there's a lot of things I'd change if I could (Harry being one of them...ugh...but that's a whole other story...his character was going to go a COMPLETELY different way, but I really dropped the ball on that one...) but for the most part I was happy with what I found! It helped me review the pacing of the story, see if everything was flowing the way I hoped it was, check for constistancy, and inspire me to keep pushing forward.
Author's Response:
LOL. I hope he would have preferred signing your back than he did signing that dude's.
I think that I'm too used to having to force writing. All of mine is done on strict time limits. I used to have to "be in the mood"...now I just visualize, tease apart nuances, and then write.
I'm glad that you found reviewing to work!
Date: Feb 24, 2015 02:09 pm Title: Writer's Block - Defeating it, once and for all
you outlined some of the things I normally do when dealing with writer's block..I pretty much step away from the project and go work on some other fic that needs updating badly and if the muse happens to be awake then..also read my favorite fics and reread previous chapters of my fic to wake up my muse..when writing fics based on my favorite TV shows I also watch an episode of it. and of course it's those days when I actually wanna write and I feel lazy or am distracted..and agreed about not writing at the same time because when you go to proofread there will be all sorts of typos you don't remember writing.
Author's Response:
I think you mentioned some excellent point. I also think the most important one is that people don't just sit and wait for months to try and see if they can get the spark back. That just becomes procrastination, dread, and guilt....which won't help the writing process. Doing something like watching relevant media, reading other ff, and then turning back to one's story, is more productive.
Proofreading stories before posting them - do people still do that? LOL. Jokingnotjoking.