| Author | Post |
|---|
laughlines
Member
| Joined: | Thu Jan 18th, 2007 |
| Location: | Miami, Florida USA |
| Posts: | 15 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: |  |
|
Posted: Sat Feb 3rd, 2007 04:23 am |
|
Hello one and all,
In an effort to keep the conversation going. Here's another topic of interest. Would love your feedback:
I'll be honest with you...I often go through long periods when no idea I come up with excites me to the point where I want to sit and develop it. So the question is:
How do you break out of "writer's block" and/or what do you do when you can't seem to come up with any "Fresh" ideas to write about?
|
spiny norman
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jul 21st, 2006 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 69 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Sat Feb 3rd, 2007 05:36 am |
|
a word of advice from sting:
"what am i going to write about? i'm totally empty of ideas & inspiration." and then i realized after about five years of this terrible block that some of the time you have to be on "imput." you just have to receive and then retransmit it and hope it comes out as something else.
hope that helps!
|
leon
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jun 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Upstate, New York USA |
| Posts: | 301 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: |   |
|
Posted: Sat Feb 3rd, 2007 05:52 am |
|
| read. you're a writer, new ideas from other writers get processed through your writer's computer-brain and start forming even newer storylines. even a mystery novel can spark an idea... a direction that the author did not pursue, but a fantastic idea all the same. try it. it always works.
|
Poet
Member
|
Posted: Sat Feb 3rd, 2007 07:12 am |
|
| I'm humble enough to say that unlike many here I haven't yet written enough to have exhausted my own shallow ideas pool (how Uriah Heap!) but a friend at my theatre swears blind that almost every idea he has had for anything he has ever written came from the women's interest magazines!
|
Proboscisbunny
Member
|
Posted: Sat Feb 3rd, 2007 12:31 pm |
|
I follow a heavy writing cycle with a knitting cycle. I wrote from October to November, knit all my Christmas gifts in December and then back to writing in January when the thought of knitting needles made me sick. Sometimes just doing something else gets the juices flowing again.
I do collect articles from newspapers and read them over from time to time...and just plain old living life can bring new ideas.
Vanessa
|
nic
Member
|
Posted: Sat Feb 3rd, 2007 10:31 pm |
|
Me too, Having a tough time with a new play at present for which I have a pile of research. I keep heaps of newspaper cuttings etc... most recent one on a growing business of providing discreet affairs for women bored by their mariages. I probably will never use it as a source but reading and rereading it will spark something else.
In the mean time will some one please tell me whether I'm actually working on a full length play or a very long one act play... the first scene just grows and grows
In frustration Nic
|
shirleyk
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jun 30th, 2006 |
| Location: | Benicia, USA |
| Posts: | 100 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Sat Feb 3rd, 2007 11:05 pm |
|
I might not be the right person to post on this topic because I keep it simple. Every day I just sit down and write. Eventually something comes to me. I also find three or four new ideas every day in the morning newspaper.
I make lots of false starts but never discard anything because most of these early ideas can be developed later, often into something quite different.
I like theme opportunities. You might want to check the opps to see which theater companies are seeking plays on a particular theme. For me, themes provide an interesting challenge.
Most of all, I have a good time when I write. If I didn't I would do something else.
Good luck to those who are feeling blocked. I hope the muse returns very soon.
Shirley
|
Anubian Nights Theatre Co
Member
|
Posted: Sun Feb 4th, 2007 12:28 am |
|
I think Shirley has the right idea - she sits down every day and gets on with something. Everyone in every profession must have days when they feel lifeless and uninspired, but it seems to be only writers who have invented the concept of a 'block' as a justification for not going to work - writing is very demanding and hard work sometimes and one can't just stay in bed under the sheets hiding from it!
I can't remember the last time I heard of 'road sweepers block', 'nurses block' or 'waiters block'....
It also helps to be nice to yourself - go out and buy some lovely new notebooks and pencils as a special treat and think of all the great things you are going to write when you get back home.
Regards TKL
|
shirleyk
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jun 30th, 2006 |
| Location: | Benicia, USA |
| Posts: | 100 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Sun Feb 4th, 2007 12:50 am |
|
Thanks for your comments. TKL. Years ago I worked as a newspaper reporter and also a columnist and this is where I got in the habit of thinking of writing as a job. For me it happens to be a pleasant job, so I guess I'm lucky.
I agree, there's a lot to be said for just getting up and doing the work. I also think it helps to get something -- anything -- down on paper or in a WP document, because something is always better than nothing.
Giving up doesn't work as an option for me. Neither does agonizing over bad writing, of which I certainly do my share.
But even when what I write is total junk I tell myself okay, tomorrow I'll come at it from a different direction and see what happens. Often I'm surprised by the result.
Shirley
|
Anubian Nights Theatre Co
Member
|
Posted: Sun Feb 4th, 2007 01:01 am |
|
I also worked as a freelance journalist so I learnt that if you don't deliver the goods you don't pay the rent - that certainly concentrates the mind. Writing plays is my job and I need to constantly have something to sell to fund my extravagent lifestyle eating lots of cake and drinking tea.
I don't think that we do ourselves any favours as writers going on about writers block - most people imagine we are decadent folk who just lie around in silk dressing gowns smoking opium all day anyway before tapping out a page or two on an old typewriter.
They whole modern, over-romanticised concept of 'being a writer' (as opposed to writing something) has a lot to answer for - gosh, what a miserable old man I sound.... I blame Hemmingway and all of those Americans in Paris (except Gertrude Stein who was a genius and also wrote solidly day in and day out)!
Regards TKL
|
Poet
Member
|
Posted: Sun Feb 4th, 2007 08:41 am |
|
Interesting... three writers here were previously employed as writers in other media. Me too, and still am.
I have to pen about 50,000 words a month on beauty issues for a magazine and probably another 30,000 words in creative work of other sorts (ads, PR etc). That totals around 2,000 words a day to research and write... which really isn't very much and, in fact, is no more than 3 or 4 pages of published A4 material in magazine-type font.
But doing that every day for 5 days, I'm now finding that I'm writing less for me!
When you were writing for a living, did you find the same?
|
Anubian Nights Theatre Co
Member
|
Posted: Sun Feb 4th, 2007 12:52 pm |
|
Hi Poet - I still write for a living but mainly plays. I found when I was doing journalism that it often gave me ideas for fiction, but I did have to be careful that the two didn't start to 'drift' together. I reviewed plays for quite a while but had to stop it when I started writing theatre myself - the temptation to be really horrible was far too great.
I also used to sub-edit a trade magazine for the TV and film industry which was the most boring job I ever had - I imagined it would be interesting and there would be plenty of inspiration for plays but it was deathly dull.
I only write fiction, whether it is a play a poem or a piece of prose, for three hours a day (it all gets into a dreadful muddle after that and I end up repeating myself), so juggling the two sorts of work wasn't too difficult. I do miss the regular money but I am getting used to a life of feast or famine - I find with theatre it is either carrier bags full of used notes or bowls of lentil stew..... ugh!
Regards TKL
|
Current time is 05:09 am | |
|
