Something that helps me a lot is watching craft videos like these. Even ones with topics I feel good about. They almost always give me an idea about something that can be tweaked with my project and that tweak sparks more ideas and then well I'm out of the slump. I highly recommend switching from scrolling socials with your morning coffee and watching authortubers 😁
My advice to anyone with a writing slump is to know your characters better. You can have entire interviews with them and this way they can direct the flow of the story rather than being bound by the plot.
these tips are useful. i hate having to just write through it but its like "get something down now and when you think of something better, write then,"
Turn your internal editor and heckler off and just write. Don't worry about spelling, grammar, or anything else. Just get the words down and don't look back until you are finished.
Begin by writing short declarative sentences, no cliches or second-hand emotions. Write quickly, you can polish it later. Go as deeply as you can, things you might not say aloud to another person. Something that frightens you, or delights you. Study how other stories, novels and essays begin. Or take a good poem, rewrite it as prose, changing the poet's words & images. Read the work of fiction writers and poets aloud, or read aloud the dialogue of a favourite play - Chekhov's The Three Sisters. Here is the opening of Jessie Kesson's novel Glitter of Mica, set in Aberdeenshire Scotland, published in 1963. *The parish of Caldwell lies to the east of our shire. It has moved neither poet to song nor tourist to praise ... * Then after a third and longer sentence, the second paragraph gets more interesting. *On Soutar Hill, to the north of Caldwell, you can see, on a fine clear day, the figure of a horse carved out in stone from Pictish times ... * A Passage To India (EM Forster) Out of Africa (Isak Dinesen) The Good Companions (JB Priestley) and In Cold Blood (Truman Capote) all begin with a prsopect of the landscape in which the story is set, in all cases as if seen from a distance, like a plane or helicopter zooming in. Personally I would advise a new writer to get one of the main characters into the story immediately: the conflict hinted at from the start.
The best advise on writing from the best channel on writing. My own personal solution to writers block is to do *crazy writing* . Just write a nonsense story completely off the rails; this is very therapeutic. Its like being drunk on words, and it also gives profound insight on your own mind and thoughts. Bad fanfiction is a good example of off the rails writing. Try writing something like it, and then read it to yourself later for laughs.
I like to write poetry and Songs, it kick starts my whole writing thought process for my Book which I sometimes lose. So I find writing something else helps me back into that mode.
I've been stuck in a writing slump for a year and some months now, I feel like I'll never write again, the feeling sucks, I' ve tried everything, but the novel just won't go on. I mean don't get me wrong this channel is great it's just that it seems like I am not a real writer after all. I am not even sure why I'm writing this comment lol Btw Shaellin you are amazing keep it up you rock girl
Most important thing is just to write...most first drafts are garbage, so you;re not going to knock it out of the park in a first draft...i don't try to be neat when i write,i just get something down...i'll lay it aside for a week or two, sometimes a month, and then i'll go back and rewrite...i dont try to be neat. i'm just getting down a story, then i go back and rewrite it...
Taking a break - doing something, anything, other than writing - for a while has sometimes worked for me. (Though it's seductively easy to never actually get back to work.)
Suddenly all the weight is lifted off my shoulders : Painters would go into a room with north light and cleat their mind of all images. *You must have a room or a certain hour of the day or so, where you do not know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody or what they owe you - but a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be ... * Advice from Joseph Campbell Page 311 David Whyte's *The Heart Aroused - Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America* 1994.
My typo: I meant to write that painters CLEAR their mind of all images. 19th C French painters had small black mirrors to rest their eyes. CLEAT is a T-shaped piece of metal on a boat to which ropes are attached or projections on the sole of a shoe to prevent loss of footing. My paternal grandfather who died before I was born repaired his own boots: I have the black iron shoemaker's awl with which he worked.
Correction: My grandfather's heirloom is an antique cobbler's shoe last. As irregularly shaped as a Henry Moore sculpture. An awl or bradawal is a tool rather like a screwdriver but with a sharp point to puncture the leather. (Lasts & awls - photos internet.) *Worn Again - French shoe makers.* RUclips. Monocle Films 2015. *France - oldest shoemaker.* RUclips. AP Archive 2015.
Something that helps me a lot is watching craft videos like these. Even ones with topics I feel good about. They almost always give me an idea about something that can be tweaked with my project and that tweak sparks more ideas and then well I'm out of the slump. I highly recommend switching from scrolling socials with your morning coffee and watching authortubers 😁
My advice to anyone with a writing slump is to know your characters better. You can have entire interviews with them and this way they can direct the flow of the story rather than being bound by the plot.
these tips are useful. i hate having to just write through it but its like "get something down now and when you think of something better, write then,"
Great advice. That external deadline is so very effective. Internal or personal deadlines are great but don't even have remotely the same power.
thank you shaelin 💙💙💙
The problem is, when I force myself to write, I feel awful about what I've written and that makes it even harder to write.
Turn your internal editor and heckler off and just write. Don't worry about spelling, grammar, or anything else. Just get the words down and don't look back until you are finished.
Begin by writing short declarative sentences, no cliches or second-hand emotions. Write quickly, you can polish it later.
Go as deeply as you can, things you might not say aloud to another person. Something that frightens you, or delights you.
Study how other stories, novels and essays begin. Or take a good poem, rewrite it as prose, changing the poet's words & images.
Read the work of fiction writers and poets aloud, or read aloud the dialogue of a favourite play - Chekhov's The Three Sisters.
Here is the opening of Jessie Kesson's novel Glitter of Mica, set in Aberdeenshire Scotland, published in 1963.
*The parish of Caldwell lies to the east of our shire. It has moved neither poet to song nor tourist to praise ... *
Then after a third and longer sentence, the second paragraph gets more interesting.
*On Soutar Hill, to the north of Caldwell, you can see, on a fine clear day, the figure of a horse carved out in stone from Pictish times ... *
A Passage To India (EM Forster) Out of Africa (Isak Dinesen) The Good Companions (JB Priestley) and In Cold Blood (Truman Capote) all begin with a prsopect of the landscape in which the story is set, in all cases as if seen from a distance, like a plane or helicopter zooming in.
Personally I would advise a new writer to get one of the main characters into the story immediately: the conflict hinted at from the start.
Thank you very much for these videos. They are a great help for us beginners.
I should have you ad my.teacher when it comes to writing and storytelling
Thank you!
The best advise on writing from the best channel on writing. My own personal solution to writers block is to do *crazy writing* . Just write a nonsense story completely off the rails; this is very therapeutic. Its like being drunk on words, and it also gives profound insight on your own mind and thoughts.
Bad fanfiction is a good example of off the rails writing. Try writing something like it, and then read it to yourself later for laughs.
I like to write poetry and Songs, it kick starts my whole writing thought process for my Book which I sometimes lose. So I find writing something else helps me back into that mode.
I'm not having a problem with writing for a change. Day 4 of NaNoWriMo and I've passed the 11k mark. Your videos have been super helpful. Thanks.
I've been stuck in a writing slump for a year and some months now, I feel like I'll never write again, the feeling sucks, I' ve tried everything, but the novel just won't go on. I mean don't get me wrong this channel is great it's just that it seems like I am not a real writer after all. I am not even sure why I'm writing this comment lol
Btw Shaellin you are amazing keep it up you rock girl
Most important thing is just to write...most first drafts are garbage, so you;re not going to knock it out of the park in a first draft...i don't try to be neat when i write,i just get something down...i'll lay it aside for a week or two, sometimes a month, and then i'll go back and rewrite...i dont try to be neat. i'm just getting down a story, then i go back and rewrite it...
Instrumental music helps me to write ✍️(: I always have a timer set on my phone for writing time.
Omg thank u so much ! These are all super helpful especially for nano ! 💖
Writing through it--Jerry Jenkins recommends the same thing for those times.
Taking a break - doing something, anything, other than writing - for a while has sometimes worked for me. (Though it's seductively easy to never actually get back to work.)
The best writing advice a friend gave me was "just write the s%@t". Because the first draft is just that...the "first".
It's honestly hard to just write through it when procrastination keeps whispering sweet nothings in my ear.
Any great differences between writing slump---(first time hearing it), and writers block?---(still can't say for sure what it really is.)
Suddenly all the weight is lifted off my shoulders : Painters would go into a room with north light and cleat their mind of all images.
*You must have a room or a certain hour of the day or so, where you do not know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody or what they owe you - but a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be ... *
Advice from Joseph Campbell Page 311 David Whyte's *The Heart Aroused - Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America* 1994.
My typo: I meant to write that painters CLEAR their mind of all images. 19th C French painters had small black mirrors to rest their eyes.
CLEAT is a T-shaped piece of metal on a boat to which ropes are attached or projections on the sole of a shoe to prevent loss of footing.
My paternal grandfather who died before I was born repaired his own boots: I have the black iron shoemaker's awl with which he worked.
Correction: My grandfather's heirloom is an antique cobbler's shoe last. As irregularly shaped as a Henry Moore sculpture.
An awl or bradawal is a tool rather like a screwdriver but with a sharp point to puncture the leather. (Lasts & awls - photos internet.)
*Worn Again - French shoe makers.* RUclips. Monocle Films 2015.
*France - oldest shoemaker.* RUclips. AP Archive 2015.
Hope you don't find this offensive but I think you look better with long hair
❤❤❤
Shelly, Shelly, Shelly.
You are telling me the same thing all over again. Its the same.