Teaching Children about Writer's Block

Last year, I explicitly taught my third graders about the term "writer's block." It was a remarkable thing to see how it changed their view of getting stuck or not knowing what to write about. They still got stuck, but suddenly, they knew this didn't mean they "couldn't write." They knew, instead, that this was something real writers, published writers, experienced and gifted writers, have struggled with throughout history. It made them part of the writing community.

Mind you, I didn't just tell them what writer's block was, I gave them some strategies writers use to try to break through writer's block. Their faces lit up in recognition as they realized some of these strategies are things they themselves have done, or could try. "I do that!" "That's what I do!" Getting up and stretching intentionally, in an effort to break through writer's block, with the goal of getting back to your writing, is very different than aimlessly wandering around the room sharpening pencils and annoying other writers.

It wasn't a fancy or complicated lesson. I simply told the kids that getting stuck happens to even the best writers, that it has a name, that they are not alone in this struggle, and that there are things they can try to help them get past it. I gave them a list of strategies, told a little about my own writer's block experiences, and about which strategies I or my writing friends used, and asked them to mark any of the strategies they thought they could try. I also gave them a visual, a quick sketch of a stick figure walking into a wall. We talked about the strategies as ways of dealing with the wall - one brick at a time, or digging underneath the wall or flying over it or going around it, etc. - thinking differently about it, in other words.

I revisited this lesson this year, with similar results. Suddenly, my students are seeing themselves as writers (which has been the goal all along, but it hit a new level after this conversation). "Is there an age limit on how old you have to be to publish a book?" asked one young man. "Can writers get ideas from other writers?" asked another, whereupon I told him about critique groups, and how writers plan times for working alone and times for connecting with other writers, and that it's important to know how to help yourself move through writer's block when you are working alone, but that another day I could teach them about writing groups.  At the end of the lesson, as we transitioned to the computer lab, the room was still buzzing. "Ms. McGean," announced another young author, eyes shining, "I broke through my writer's block today!"

When your enemy has a name, it loses power.

Exploring Moldy Leftovers

I'm working on a YA novel of a teenage girl's nightmarish vision quest in the vein of Terry Gilliam or Guillermo del Toro.  (Can you tell I've been ruminating on pitches?).  Now, I've done several drafts and synopses of this piece, but I don't feel like I've finished a real draft yet.  Why do I say that?  The story changes every time.  Radically.  Characters, major plot points, themes, story arcs.  It's a different animal with every pass, which is ironic since there's a lot of transformation that happens in the story itself.

I'm currently stuck at that awful precipice right before you launch into the potentially boggy morass of the middle.  And I'm afraid to go forward because the whole damn thing has been such quicksand I'm convinced I'm just going to go down another wrong tunnel.  Then I decide, "Let's look back at some of those old drafts."  So I do.

The experience is a lot like going through the leftovers in the fridge.  You know - the ones in tupperware containers that are too opaque to make out the contents.  The vague shapes wrapped in aluminum foil.  I open the container - in this case some old computer file labeled something like "Feathers Version 5".  At first, I'm not sure what I'm  looking at.  Then I get a little closer ... and the smell hits me.  And all I can say is "Yuck!  What a mess!  Why did I keep that?"

Then there's the ones that I sniff at and taste and try to remember how old they are and whether they've gone bad or not.  I find myself scraping off the mold and hoping to salvage chunks of the leftovers, like you might do with old hunks of cheese, or burnt toast.  And some of it seems worth saving.  You might call this the manuscript version of dumpster diving.

I'm not sure if I've just progressed a lot as a writer since I wrote these drafts, or if it's simply the nature of what Anne Lamott calls "shitty first drafts."  A friend in one of my writing groups recently suggested rereading Lamott's thoughts on this subject, and as I was writing this blog post, I did.  They were comforting, even inspiring, a reminder that those moldy leftovers served an important purpose in their day, and that maybe they still have a purpose to serve.

I'll close with a moldy leftover story from my summer.  My Mom and Dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this August by renewing their vows.  The day before the ceremony, Mom took a foil-wrapped lump out of the freezer.  It was a piece of their original wedding cake.  For years, they took it out and had a bite on their anniversary.  At some point, obviously, they thought better of that tradition for health reasons.  But there it was, this piece of 50-year-old wedding cake, preserved through five decades of change and life.

For the post-vow-renewal celebration, Mom put the lump of wedding cake out on a plate, under glass.  She placed it in the entry way for all to see, along with their original bride-and-groom cake-topper.  Then she had second thoughts about this and wanted to hide it in the corner somewhere, or even put it out of sight all together.  It was turning greener with every passing moment of exposure to air so it looked a bit like a lump of Kryptonite.  She was afraid someone might think it was an exotic cheese, eat a piece, get ptomaine poisoning and die.

When she went to hide it, I got furious.  "You didn't make it through 50 years of marriage by hiding the moldy parts!  You didn't get here by being perfect!  You got here because you love each other even with all the flaws and imperfections.  They're part of who you are.  They're part of your journey.  That moldy lump of wedding cake is beautiful.  Don't you dare hide it away!"

So, here's to moldy leftovers.  Who knows what they might teach you?

Shared Thoughts On Writing Routines

I've been deeply immersed in stories and queries and school stuff, leaving me with nothing but scraps and incomplete drafts for blog posts.  Lucky for me, there are other awesome folks out there in the blogosphere with helpful thoughts on writing.  So, this week, I share with you a blog post on the pros and cons of writing routines, from K.M. Weiland at WordPlay.   How appropriate, given this current disruption in my blog-posting routines!

Writing routines have definitely amped up my own productivity as a writer, getting those creative muscles in shape.  However, the willingness to break routine has also helped, especially when I'm stuck or frustrated with one piece and can break routine to work on something completely different.

Check out Weiland's post and share your thoughts on the ups and downs of routines.

Into the Abyss

I have had two highly unproductive weeks.  I have no words of wisdom about it.  I sent off a bunch of stuff and the waiting game has been going and going and going.  I worked on some new stuff.  I wrestled with some structural things on novel #3.  I got sick and couldn't manage my usual 5 AM writing before teaching.  Every spare moment seems filled with the demands just to keep the basics of body and soul together, with no energy, brain power or waking time left to write.  I know I am not alone.  I know others have been here before me.  I know I will eventually get to write again.  Hell, summer vacation is coming.  But just at this moment, I am staring into the abyss.  It doesn't feel like I'm germinating ideas or  doing anything but pure survival, with no fuel to draw on.  Stalled out and ready to abandon the damn car on the side of the road.

Call it my "dark night of the soul."  I will try to trust that this will pass.  Maybe when I get the taxes done the abyss won't seem so deep and dark.

This blog post is me calling "hallooo" into the abyss and waiting for something more than an echo.

Lessons from a Seed

This week, I've been thinking about seeds and writing.  I've been thinking about what some people call writer's block and others call a dormant period, where ideas are germinating but nothing is visibly being produced.  I sat down to write this blog post thinking I knew what all those terms meant.  Then I looked them up and here's what I learned.

Seeds have two states that give them added survival strength when conditions aren't right for growth.  When seeds are in the packet and haven't been planted, they're dry and inactive.  They're not growing, but they aren't vulnerable either.  They can handle severe environmental changes.  When seeds are dormant, they're alive and they've been planted, but they're not growing.  They're waiting.  In dormancy, usually, something about their conditions has to change to get things moving again - temperature, water, sunlight, soil.  Dormancy is a way of surviving by making sure seeds don't put energy into growth until ALL the conditions are right.

Then there's germination.  The seed has been planted.  The conditions are right.  But you can't see anything happening.  That's because germination is the growth of an embryonic plant inside the seed.  You don't know it's happening until the sprout finally breaks through and emerges.

If you never give the inactive seed what it needs, it will stay inactive, and may eventually die.  If you plant the seed, but conditions aren't right, it may lie dormant until the right conditions come along.  If it's dormant for too long, you can bump it out of dormancy by changing the conditions.  And if the seed is germinating, it's in a vulnerable period and needs the right nutrients and conditions maintained while it does its work.

Lessons for the writer who is blocked or stuck?  First, you have to figure out WHY you're not writing.  Which state are you in, if you apply the seed metaphor?  Are you inactive, giving yourself the toughest possible protection against harsh external conditions (maybe massive life stressors, for example)?  Are you in a dormant period, where many conditions are right but things just aren't moving forward?  Which conditions aren't right?  What crucial element is missing that is causing you to conserve your energy?  Or are you germinating, taking in nutrients and developing the embryo of an idea through mental work that just cannot be seen yet?

How you proceed next depends on which kind of blocked you are.

Me?  I have a project that's well beyond the embryo stage, and I even have a plan for how to work on it.  But the timing doesn't feel right.  Every time I sat down to work on it, something held me back.  That project is in a dormant phase.  Some of the elements it needs are in place, but the conditions aren't quite right.  If it lies dormant for too long, I will need to kick start it by experimenting with which conditions have to change.  For now, I'm content to let it lie dormant, rather than expending energy at the wrong time.

Instead of working on that project, I pored over old notebooks and picked out a couple of ideas that spoke to me.  I find myself wanting to read, read, read - taking in nutrients.  The more I read the more I feel that creative urge pushing up inside of me, looking for an outlet.  Definitely germination.  It's a delicate phase.  I need to be patient, continuing to take in nutrients and sustain the favorable conditions that are feeding me.

I realize I've extended this metaphor well beyond the bounds of decency.  It's helped me.  I hope it's helped you.  Anyone else out there feeling blocked?  Which seed state is it - inactive, dormant or germinating?  

Breaking Up the Logjam of Mid-story Writer's Block

In the old days, breaking up a logjam was incredibly tricky and dangerous. Loggers carefully removed one or more “key logs” (a little like reverse jenga, I guess) and if it was a really bad jam, they had to use dynamite. These days, they use a machine to haul out big chunks until the logs start moving.

I've been working on revisions for my YA novel, THE SPARROW'S SECRET HEART. It was my first novel, and it's been through more rewrites than I can count, including a complete point of view shift from third person to first person, but I keep coming back to it because I still love the protagonist and he just won't let me give up on him.

Recently I hit a logjam. I'm trying to rewrite a pivotal scene that introduces an important character, the protagonist's Aunt Megan, a complete stranger to him until this moment. My critique group demanded a better description of Aunt Megan and her house, as well as a restructuring of the scene to raise the tension and conflict. I kept coming at the scene and stalling. Over and over and over. Finally, I realized I really didn't know enough about this aunt of his. So I sat down and started working on the backstory.

Now, I'd worked out a backstory for Aunt Megan before, but it really was surface stuff, more about plot logistics as they affected my protagonist than about Aunt Megan herself. I realized I didn't even have a clue how to get inside her head yet. So I started with the timeline, her age when certain key events took place. I pieced together the ways those events affected her and her life. Then I wrote my problem scene in first person from Aunt Megan's point of view. Mind you, I have no plans to rewrite the novel in her point of view. This was an exercise to help me find my way into the scene.

I wish I could say the words flew from my finger tips, but they didn't. With each key log I thought I'd removed, new ones took its place, new questions about who Aunt Megan was. I wrote scenes that had nothing to do with my protagonist. I followed lines of thought well beyond the necessary conclusion. I got out my sketchpad and drew a complete floor plan of her house. It was a little terrifying to make such a commitment to the interior world of a character who isn't my protagonist. Why was I spending all this time on stuff that wouldn't even make it into my final draft?

But it was worth it. Bit by bit, the logs began to break free. Aunt Megan came into focus. Critical motives and subtexts revealed themselves. It's taken me a good week or so, and a lot of words that won't end up in the novel itself, but the logs are floating downriver again.

Mine was definitely a case of removing key logs one at a time, gradual and painstaking. But I've also had those dynamite situations - just sit down and power through it with some insane, off-the-wall notion. I've even used the chunks at a time method - cut this chunk, move this chunk, and soon it makes sense again.

When you've faced writer's block, how did you break up your logjam? Chunk-chomping machine? Key logs? Or dynamite?

I Get My Best Ideas On the Treadmill

For some people, inspiration hits them in dreams or while meditating or during conversation. For me, it often hits at the gym. Exercise triggers something and the neurons start firing. No doubt somebody somewhere has studied this. Maybe it's related to endorphins. I started exercising as a way to address depression, but it's proven a useful tool for conquering writer's block and collecting ideas for new stories.

When I get on the cardio machine, I start thinking about my story. I may even focus on a scene or element that's giving me trouble. But I don't actively try to solve the problem. I just contemplate that section, holding it in my brain, sometimes telling myself the story. When things start clicking, I grab my ipod and text myself.

The ideas that hit at the gym don't always pan out. Like dreams, they might not make much sense later. "Why did I think a giant purple hippo would work here?" I may find myself wondering. But even when that happens, the process seems to shake something loose and open the door for the right idea to find its way in.

Confession time - I don't actually go on the treadmill itself at the gym. I prefer the eliptical machine. Maybe its the result of too many sitcoms where some poor shlub can't keep up with the machine and they slide all over the floor instead. Or maybe I developed an aversion when I learned that the treadmill was developed in Victorian England as a punishment for prisoners, part of the "hard labor" sentences - 6 hours a day on a hideous version of a giant gerbil wheel, designed to force prisoners to lift their legs extra high. If they didn't, and couldn't keep up with the machine, the result could be ugly - a lot uglier than any of those sitcoms. I believe Oscar Wilde spent his prison time on the treadmill. Maybe some of his stories were born there. But I wouldn't recommend 6 hours a day. I think I'll stick with my 30 minute workout.

Where and when does inspiration hit you?

For a little more background on treadmills, check out www.uh.edu/engines/epi374.