On Overcoming Writer's Block
*the river in your room*

1. Improve the Flow of Energy in Your Writing Space

Part feng shui, part mother's advice, you need to keep your writing space, be it your room or den or garden bench, you want to allow for as few distractions as possible. Therefore, keep it somewhat clean and organized. We're not looking for sparkling perfect Mr. Clean commercials, but we are looking for clear lines, few items loose around the room, and adequate lighting.

For lines, imagine your space as zen as possible. There's a reason many artists emulate zen philosophy. It minimizes distraction and promotes thought, both important in artist expression. Remove stacks of books and paper from your desk and put them in order. Odds and ends may be hidden in a junk drawer. Try not to let pens/pencils and other desk supplies fall into disarray. After organizing your clutter, reduce the clutter. My desk has a built in rack for cds. It used to be full. Now I have them in alternating slots, taking up half the space allowed. Books once scattered under my bed are in their shelves. Though those shelves may be stuffed already, I can lay a few on top of others. With only books on top of books, not the clutter of papers and plastic bags stuffed with them, the lines are kept clean and clear. The bottle of ibuprofen and the bag of cat treats that *must* stay on my desk are hidden behind the row of plushies that line the top shelf.

Energy is a river flowing through your space. Remove the stones that may impede it. Where a stone must be placed, like a desk, take away the clutter, like year old homework. Let the stone be clear, not moss covered. In a natural setting, like a real garden or bit of forest, natural lines will more than suffice. You cannot improve upon what God and nature have randomly created. You can, however, remove litter, and situate yourself in the spot most pleasing to your senses.

This pertains somewhat to improving the energy. In a space where you cannot kill the background noise, murder and property damage still being illegal, you can drown it out. In this, however, your favorite heavy metal or sitar music may not be the best choice. It may take some experimentation to discover what kind of music helps best. If you love Madonna to the point where you sing along, you may want to switch to something that engages you less on a conscious level and more on a subconscious level. Case in point: I rarely use Iron Maiden, as I often sing the lyrics and imagine something quite different to what I'm trying to write. A whole album may go by and I will have written one line. But if I use Mediaeval Baebes, where the songs are in wholly different languages with a rhythmic beat or slow with an intense melody, pages might come out of me. Loreena McKennitt's Mask and Mirror worked throughout my undergrad years, both for studying and writing. The music you use will be different, but should hopefully work the same way. Inspiration, not distraction.

Five stories waiting to be returned to, yet when you open the file and stare at the last few lines, you can't get yourself up to continue. This can happen for various reasons; you're in different place now than when you started those stories, or you can't figure out where to take the story next. Worse if it's a school report, then you never wanted to write it in the first place.

Forget about having to write. Deadlines can help and hurt you. We all know about the creative drive a good mix of adrenalin and caffeine can give us. A deadline can also make you want to ignore the story, simply out of spite. Forgetting about those deadlines and allowing the artist in us to work instead takes a person capable of telling practical matters like paying bills to fuck off, but this is somewhat vital. It's a case of the left hand needing to ignore what the right hand is doing. The left hand knows that the deadline is creeping up and keeps a sharp eye on the clock. The right hand does the writing/drawing.

That doesn't mean the left hand can't give the right one a good smack to hurry it up, but you want to smack it with info like, you've seen this cartoon already, don't you want to write that scene instead? Don't smack yourself with OMG the paper's due next week and I haven't started at all. In this case, remember that you have a week, and a week is plenty of time. Of course you don't want to keep doing this until the night before, thinking that five hours before class is plenty of time. It's a fine balancing act, less walking a tightrope than walking a razor blade. Slip one way and deadlines will kill you. Slip the other and sloth will consume you.

When you discover a subject or story you want to write about, you'll feel the drive to write. The clouds will part, angels will descend singing something Latin, and you will partake of that ephemeral creature called inspiration. You will write sentences on scraps of paper and notes on your skin, wishing you'd brought your notebook. When this happens, don't start editing yourself. If you start thinking that this sentence is in the wrong place, or that people online will call this cliché, you will kill inspiration and the angels will leave. During the stay of angels, you must ignore grammar rules, ignore sentence structure, ignore critiques in your own head, and follow where the story leads you. After it is written, there will be plenty of time to look over it, edit for grammar and clarity, and fix any gaps in logic and pave plot holes. But those angels, like all creatures of faith, thrive on following your story blindly and trusting your imagination to take them somewhere. Have faith in yourself and simply write. There will be time to refine your statue later. First you must give carve its basic shape.

This applies to school assignments as well. Often you will be given a choice in what you write. You may have to write an English report, but you can often choose your subject. In my sophomore year, we were told to write a twelve page paper on whatever we chose. Most people used the usual topics, abortion, death penalty, politics, whatnot. I chose the history of Christmas. It was my current interest. Perhaps the best way to find a subject is brainstorm all the popular topics you can. Then, put those away and find a different topic. Remember, your teacher wants to read something aside from the usual topics. If you write what your are interested about, you cannot help but convey your interest, and your paper will be all the more engaging. Likewise for your stories. Do not worry about what is popular or what is acceptable. Write to your interest, or else risk losing all interest and never writing again.

You cannot help but include your world view in your writing. If you think that evil will eventually be punished, your villains will receive their comeuppance. If you are cynical and world weary, the villain may escape unscathed. If your world is one shade of gray, your characters may be complex. If your world is either black or white, your stories will come alive in stark shadows and light.

If sex is taboo, you cannot but treat it that way. Your lemon scenes will be skittish and dark, fraught with peril. If sex is natural, the earth goddess will tinge your erotica with voluptuous sensuality. If sex is easy, sleaze and sluts will fill your work. If sex is nothing special, it will appear only as needed. Just because you might not like it doesn't mean you can't write about. You may despise violence, but instead of cutting it out of your work, you may portray it as evil and wasteful. If you love violence, it will have all the charisma of a droog.

Ultimately you must not be afraid of your writing, and especially of the reaction your writing may evoke in your audience. Think about it. If you hate war, you will hate any story that portrays war as vital, good and necessary. That does not render that story invalid or bad. Likewise, if you portray war/sex/religion as good or bad, you will have both positive and hostile reactions from your readers. If you live in fear of their opinion of you, you paralyze yourself. Your writing is your own, whether you keep it close or share it with the world. Critiques will be given. It's up to you whether you take them or not. If they help you improve, consider them. If they clash against your ideas or the way you want to write, discard them. Even if they point out a grammatical mistake, consider if that mistake hinders or helps the flow or clarity of your piece before changing it.

These considerations don't have to take long hours of meditation. Often you can decide in an instant what feels right and what feels wrong. Your instinct is born from the same subconscious that nurtures your artist creation and the angelic inspiration. Your opinions and thoughts cannot help but color your writing. Your duty to yourself is to follow them, come hell or high water, and let the audience take care of itself. As you practice and gain experience, you will better be able to take the audience in consideration, but remember this. Even great authors will write for themselves first. Shirley Jackson, who wrote The Lottery, said that when she submitted it for publication, her editor was disturbed and sickened by the story, but published it anyway because it was so powerful. It was powerful *because* it came from her mind, her world view, her philosophy, not because she tried to write a powerful story. It simply was. And then we're back to simplicity and clear lines.