Getting through writer’s block

On April 2nd I left work while the sun was shining, set up a writing space, and posted to Facebook: “After working on the first draft of my novel for three years, tonight I take to the air chair on my sun porch to start the second draft.  Wish me luck!”

Of course, as soon as I sat down I dove head first into a brick wall of writer’s block.  Instead of starting my brilliant next draft, I ate an entire chicken parm sub and glared at all the likes and encouraging comments my post was getting on Facebook.

It was almost two weeks before I could write again.

At first I tried to force myself to write, to plan, to edit, anything that would get me working.  It didn’t take long for me to decide that I was a horrible writer, that I never had a chance, and that my story would never come to anything.

But after the first agonizing week I started doing two things that finally let me break through that brick wall, albeit slightly bruised and licking my wounds.

1.)  I read.  A lot.  Since I was convinced I wasn’t going to be a good writer, I decided all I would ever be good at is reading other people’s work.  I picked up a comfort book, the sixth Harry Potter to be precise, and covered my own agonies with those of Ron, Hermione, and Harry.  After a bit of that, I returned to my writer’s bible: Bird by Bird.  I absorbed the labor, stories, and ingenuity of these two fabulous writers and bit by bit I began to feel like maybe this whole writing thing might work out.

2.)  I acknowledged that I was having writer’s block.  It took a while for me to admit that I’m not, in fact, the worst writer ever to walk the face of the earth.  My story is not a piece of crap that should be thrown in a dust bin and burned.  I was just blocked.  And it felt awful.  Really, really awful.  But I started to feel just the teensiest bit better when I started to blame the writer’s block instead of myself.

Over the next two weeks, I threw myself into worlds create by other writers while continuing to remind myself that I was just blocked.  That soon it would end.  And, though it wasn’t the immediate sparkling eyed end I had hoped, soon enough the brick wall did crumble and I got to sit down and tentatively put pen to paper once more.