'Round and Round the Writer's Block...

First?

Baby powder is a brilliant invention. Seriously. You can use it as dry shampoo that also lightens your hair, you can use it when it's too hot to keep decorum, you can use it as face powder/foundation, you can use it to get smells out of clothes, you can use it to make things soft....

And it's really cheap.

*cue evil laughter*

I love it.

And look what I found!!!

*grins* I love it. It's so...pretty. The lyrics and the melody and I can't even remember how I found it....

But I'm memorising it.

But writer's block....

....let's say that writing this post sort of brought on a case of it?

*sighs*

So yes....

I've never really gotten writer's block where I just...couldn't write. Anything. My problem is that I would MUCH rather be writing backstory or history, or just any of the other countless stories I have... So I might not beable to write the ONE story but I have countless ideas for the OTHER story.

It's infuriating.

Especially because as soon as I change stories then I can't write that story either. I can never win....

Sometimes I wish I just couldn't write - it sounds simpler.

There are some things I do to realign my inspiration.

Read the Bible: ....if you know me this is NOT what you'd think of because I'm REALLY bad at all things Christian...  However, most of my stories are actually inspired by sections in the Bible. Why? I don't remmeber. But I love the wording and the scenes and the language and the metaphors and the symbology and the....  Yeah, alright, I love reading the Bible. For that matter: Shakespeare. Besides the sheer genius of the stories and the turns of the phrase, my love for Shakespeare stems from the Bible. I've grown up on the King James Version of the Bible, so reading Shakespeare is actually familiar English to me - it's what I grew up with.

Listen to Music: Again, I generally have a list of things that are related to each story, songs, pictures, videos, quotes....  So i listen to the music again. Also, I listen to songs that fit the scene or the story I'm trying to write. If I'm working on a scene filled with battle and revelations, I'll choose epic songs and battle songs. If I'm doing an introspective or still scene, I'll listen to more instrumental pieces. If I'm doing an amusing scene I'll find a song that fits the scene or find one of the ironic ballads. Most often, I listen to folk songs from Scotland and Ireland, symphonic metal that's more symphonic than metal, soundtracks that have orchestras, Musical's soundtracks, chorale pieces, Big Band, classics, classic rock...... If I'm writing I basically have to be listening to music though - I have trouble concentrating if there isn't music. That being said, it doesn't matter if there's lyrics or not - I can tune it out.

 Write Poetry: I'm a poet before I'm an author. Partly because I learn by ear and I am better at imitation than originality - better at following an example than blazing a way. So while I started writing prose first, my poetry is better. And it's not great - but it's better. So I write poetry. I can make a poem from anything so it doesn't matter how stuck I am I can still write. So when I'm stuck, I can narrate the whole storyline in a poem - describe and build the characters in poems. It's easy and simple and WAY too often I get another story idea from it....

Make Pictures: Very much related to the first. I can make wallpapers and pictures and....character pictures. Go back to yesterday's Interviews and I made both of those pictures. Making pictures let's me tell stories of the characters in an abridged sense - let's me show them clearly. And not for everyone else. In those pictures, in those wallpapers, the WHOLE story is told, the good the bad the ugly. The thing is that most of the pictures are...hidden. They aren't visible. Only I can see them. Or others once they know the whole story....

Watch Music Videos: Fanvideos. Have you SEEN some of them?? They are....works of art sometimes. I am ever surprised and amazed and my research lately has once again....whittled down my stack of acceptable words for earthly things. As it should be, ja? But music/fanvids are tricky things. Obviously, you can watch them with the original story in mind - with the tv show or the movie that it was made for in mind. But what I also love doing is forgetting all about the source material and instead just...watching it. You can get interesting inspiration if you listen to the song and watch the scenes and forget everything about the inspiration. This works wonderfully for me.

Research and Worldbuild: This is...such a dangerous, dangerous route...  Because researching and worldbuilding? Can both stall and inspire me. It's tricky.

Pinterest: This is a new one actually. I only really use it to search for pictures for my wallpapers, but I can make boards for each story/universe to hold character and scene inspiration and I don't have to save infinite images on my computer.

 Right now for Adam's series, I have a collection of wallpapers, a Pinterest board, ten poems right now, about five songs that are immediately inspiring, two music videos, vintage in general and history.

.....and I still can't write it.

The other main thing with writer's block?

I. can't. write.

I tell myself I can't, I'm afraid to try. I don't want to be rejected, to fail, to disappoint.

This?

More than any lack of inspiration - this is what keeps me from writing.

And this I haven't found a cure for.