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January 2012 is rapidly ebbing away. The challenges we face this year, like any other are many: broad and varied to pointed and obvious. Sometimes we bring them on ourselves, other times we lift our shield to fend them off while we’re being run over by a tank; you just can’t avoid them.
The challenge of being a writer while taking care of others and working brings a completely new dimension to driving yourself crazy. I’m somewhat lucky because I’m a shift worker, and I have understanding people around me who leave me be when I need to write. You may not be so lucky. But if you truly want to give your
creative edge a chance you have to sit down and do it; mental telepathy does nothing to a keyboard, believe me I’ve tried.
But what happens when you sit down and the wheels of your brain have augered into a mud hole? I know this is happening to me when the scenes I play out in my head before I write them look like a bad episode of a cop show. The creative bubble is bursting with cliché—ugh. That’s my style of creating: I daydream—and yes—I’m caught in the act of giggling to myself a lot.
Sometimes the best answer is to just write, no matter what comes out. Ernest Hemmingway said it best, “The first draft of anything, is shit.” …And he’s absolutely right!
Don’t succumb to
the quagmire of cliché or the many voices of your characters who spout one-liners you’ve heard over and over again on Monday night T.V. Refuse them with diligence, and hijack that tank I mentioned earlier and bulldoze through the bullshit of your brain. You’ll get there. Whether you’re writing a campy horror story or a seductive romance, writers block is meant to be busted through. You’ll succeed, you’ll write that query letter that snaps an agent’s eyes open even before they’ve had their morning coffee, and you’ll write that one page synopsis after tearing every strand of your hair out.
I hope these are the only challenges you will have to face this year, except for the self-imposed ones that make you grow.
Love, Hope and Faith
Natasza
