Life on the block - the writer's block, that is......

When trying to decide what to consider next in this blog, my mind started going over a lot of things I've read in the past.  You see, when I stated in an earlier posts that I read - a LOT - I neglected to mention exactly what I read.  I could start a list here of genres, authors, etc., but for the sake of trying to keep these posts short and informative, let me just say that, if it doesn't move out of my way, I'll read it...

This includes parts of books that a lot of people will either skim over or skip entirely:  the preface (usually written by the author), an introduction, or a foreward (the latter two often written by an associate of the author, but not always).  My reasoning behind this behavior is quite simple:  The publisher or author thought that information had to be included in the book for a reason, so if it was important enough to be included, it should be important for me to read it.

I've learned a LOT about my favorite stories and my favorite authors by reading these sections of the books.  It's the kind of information that I've been trying to share here for others who want to write, but who, like many of my friends and relatives, don't take the time to read the preface, the introduction or the foreward before leaping into the deep water of the first page of a book with both feet.

One of the things that is mentioned frequently is writer's block, that ever-popular bane of a writer's existence, when the muse who has been whispering in the writer's ear suddenly takes a trip to the Caribbean, leaving the writer staring at a page for hours, days, weeks or even months with no idea of where to go from here.  A frequent question from the people I've been talking to about writing is this:  "What do you do when you hit a block?"

My common answer is this:  "I get a bigger sledge hammer.  Or sometimes it's a situation that requires dynamite."

Oh yeah.  THAT'S a popular answer for the person who has seriously hit a major work blockage and has been struggling to continue with a story for a long time!  I usually get the stink eye for several minutes while I'm coming up with a real solution for them to try.  But what do I really do?

I usually hit that brick wall at a point when the story has gone somewhat off the beaten path, and I've followed the wrong character into a quagmire.  Sometimes, I get away from my writing space and do some mindless chores, letting the character I've been following stew in his/her own juices for a bit.  After doing some dishes, or running a load of laundry, or scrubbing out a toilet, the inspiration strikes and I can return fairly quickly to the tale, sometimes backtracking just a few feet to where the trail becomes solid again.  Sometimes, though, removing myself from the quicksand that the character led me into requires resorting to a four-letter word that we've already discussed:  it's time to edit!

When reading my work from the beginning, there is often an "a-ha" moment, when I see the spot where I was led off the proper trail and down some dead-end footpath.  If I change a word here and a sentence there, I'm saved and can continue writing the tale, often with no further "hick-ups".  Sometimes, however, I find myself following the same path and getting bogged back down in the same spot, where the mosquitos are the size of small cars, and the quicksand threatens to suck me down into a world where I'll never write again.

The latter scenario is when I put the story into a drawer and walk away quickly, pretending I never saw that world of lost souls.  Eventually, the voices from that tale come back around, so I pull it out, re-edit, and continue on my merry way.  I've almost never had a story that dried out completely, and the one that comes to mind as one of the few that did wasn't a total loss.  One of the characters from it drank a special formula and became a character in another story, with a sexier physique and a more exciting story to tell.