Walk, cultivate a nemesis, watch a really bad movie - how to get out of a sticky writing patch.

(I have no nemeses, obviously. I love absolutely everyone)

I wrote in my last post about a time when I struggled to write: I’m not sure it really qualifies as actual writer’s block, given we were in the middle of a pandemic and I was having my own personal annus horribilis, but it got me thinking about those times when we get stuck, and sorting the sock drawer or cleaning behind the dishwasher becomes a weirdly compelling pastime.

So I thought I’d list a few things that work for me, when I’m struggling with a sticky patch of writing. It is of course pure coincidence that I’m doing this at a point where I’ve stared at the same dinner scene for two days and still not worked out how I want to do it.

1.        Do something else. Most writers will tell you the breakthroughs happen when you’re walking the dog or chopping onions. My own favourite is the 5am sit-bolt-upright as suddenly, thanks to my subconscious whirring away in the background, the pieces that were floating around untethered suddenly slot neatly together. If you’re really struggling, don’t sit and stare at your unfinished page feeling wretched about the work and yourself. (A 2014 study at Stanford University found that walking is great for the creative mind, less so for a specific problem that has one answer) Just go and do something else. If nothing else it will up your dopamine and you will feel better when you sit down again.

2.        If you can’t work out what to do with a scene, skip forward to a scene you are looking forward to writing. Often you’ll find that if you do, the one you have to write either becomes more approachable, or sometimes isn’t even needed. A wannabe author recently told me she was struggling with her writing “because of filling in the boring bits”. She meant the nuts and bolts of how her characters got from a to b. Honey, if you’re calling them ‘the boring bits’ in your head, how is your reader going to feel? Skip them. Or jump straight into the next scene. If my character had to go to a meeting she was dreading, I might say something like: “Stella sweated the whole way to the meeting, crushed between rush-hour passengers on the bus”. Or maybe just dump her into the lobby of the building? “The office was one of those glass-fronted anonymous structures that have cavernous marble-clad interiors…” You see what I’m getting at. BUT DO MISS OUT THE BORING BITS (this may also be a good rule for life).