Never stare at a blank page because it will stare back at you.
You can find this and many more tips on how to avoid and overcome the shapeshifting writer’s block in this guide on daily writing productivity and how to beat writing resistance.
Besides explaining the different shapes of the writer’s block, How To Overcome With The Shapeshifting Writer’s Block offers creativity hacks and AI prompts to get unstuck and unleash the full potential of your inner writer.
The writer’s block comes in many shape and forms. It is a moving target. To begin, there is an author’s block and numerous writer’s blocks. With the help of the Eight Crafts methodology, you can break down the complex task of storytelling into eight crafts and numerous sub crafts. The same way, you can break down the writer’s blocks into little writing bumps.
How to Deal With the Shapeshifting Writer’s Block will show you how to:
- Distinguish between the author’s and writer’s block
- Make best use of the writer’s four sidekicks: the Muse, subconsciousness, your intellect, and generative AI
- Court the Muse for inspiration and original writing ideas.
- Tame your inner demons and turn them into allies.
- Practice creative imagination
- Get into the writing flow more often and stay there longer
- Kindle creative energy
- Lead a healthy lifestyle to cope with the strains writing puts on the body and mind
- Get started with motivation, learn from failures, and succeed with persistence.
READ THE OPENING:
A blank page is perfect. The first word you put on a blank page destroys its perfection. The writing process attempts to regain this lost perfection.
Which is impossible. But we can get close to perfection, maybe as close as Adam’s finger got to God’s in Michelangelo’s painting Creation of Adam. For that we need Michelangelo’s unconditional persistence.
This is a matter of disposition. If we aim for the stars, we might just hit the moon. But we need to balance our ambition, otherwise we end up with an ~ism, in this case, perfectionism. Perfectionism is one of the many shapes of the writer’s block. This one prevents writers from finishing their books.
The writer’s block comes in many shapes and forms indeed. It can assume the form of a blank page* grinning at you. It can take the shape of a barrier that blocks off inspiration. And it can morph into a cul-de-sac after an author wrote herself into a corner. And it may shift into the I-don’t-know-if-I-can-write scarecrow.
The writer’s block is a trickster and shapeshifter indeed.
Let’s put an end to this charade.
* Never stare at a blank page.
The Difference Between Art and Craft
Storytelling encompasses both art and craft, authoring and writing, plotting and pantsing.
Art and Authoring
Authoring is a creative process. Authoring translates inspiration into story ideas.
Turning story ideas into words and structuring them into a cohesive narrative with vibrant characters and an immersive world is a matter of craft.
The Writing Craft
The literal meaning of Kung Fu is a discipline achieved through hard work and persistent practice. Writing is Kung Fu and a matter of skill.
Craft forms story ideas. Forms limit. Writers are in love with the artistic aspect of writing, less so with crafting, especially crafting a story outline. Writers are prone to procrastinating crafting.
But no constraints, no story. No net, no tennis. No canvas, no painting. No plot, no story.
Understanding the difference between freedom and dominion helps to appreciate the constraints of craft. Freedom is a means to an end. We want to be free to do something, for example, to write a book. That’s all there is to freedom. Dominion, on the other hand, means mastery of form.
What Are We?
We are author-writer hybrids.
Our inner author is the artist and our inner writer is the crafts(wo)man.
Consequently, we’re dealing with a creativity or author’s block and a crafting or writer’s block.
Let’s examine the author’s block first.
[…] For a detailed view of the authoring and writing phases and a detailed manuscript revision management system, read The Eight Crafts Navigation system. […]