“Writer’s Block Does Not Exist.”
Disclaimer: Let me start out by saying that this blog post is going to come across as braggadocious, and maybe it is. You MUST brag on yourself, especially if nobody else will.
Now, there are a lot of people out there, me included, who enjoy finding out how other writers tick. Writers are all very unique individuals, so no two are alike. Everyone has their own process and cadence when it comes to morphing one random idea into a full-fledged story.
Last week, I cheesed while watching bestselling romance author L.J. Shen’s Facebook Live in her reader group. She talked about not struggling writer’s block and encouraged writers to just sit down and write. She admitted to having days where she’d write four thousand words only to delete them all the next day and start over again from scratch. Her point was: just because you write it doesn’t mean you’ll keep it. Just write.
For as long as I can remember, I never had issues with writer’s block. I was one of those kids who had an extremely active imagination. I had names and made-up songs for everything. I’d even make movies with my dolls in my dollhouse. Yes, I used to make them hump each other. 😆
When I started writing papers for school, it was easy. One professor in graduate school said to me, “You really have a gift when it comes to writing papers, when most people have no idea what to say.” Someone can give me a prompt, and I’ll go on for days.
Starting out in the world of fan fiction, it would be nothing for me to have fifteen thousand-word days. In the publishing realm, I will have five books out by the time my one year anniversary hits.
(By the way, Bernadette comes out this Friday!)
Not counting the three books in 2020 that I’ll have out by mid-June, I have ten more stories, all with synopses written out, that are planned through 2022. All four remaining books this years have titles. I LOVE giving titles. I don’t necessarily enjoy writing blurbs, but I do them. I love writing 2k-4k word summaries and putting them on the shelf to pick up a year later. It’s always a treat to see what I was thinking a year ago. Matter of fact, all the books I have planned were in the making a long time ago, so I’m not trying to ride some waive of popularity when I put out a book. I only write what’s my heart, and hopefully it resonates with readers.
So yeah, writer’s block has never been an issue for me. What IS my problem is distraction and procrastination. I am clinically ADD, which means I take medication for it. So when I have things like Facebook and friends/family texting me in the palm of my hand every two seconds, it messes me up big time. Not to mention YouTube and podcasts. And don’t even get me started on ebooks and audiobooks! 🤦🏾♀️
Distraction and procrastination is something I really need to work on. In fact, I drafted up this very blog when I should have been writing the last two chapters of my book to give to my betas the next day! 🤬
I will never run out of things to write about. It’s just a matter of actually sitting my ass down and writing. This year, I’ve moved editing and formatting appointments around twice because I didn’t stay on my game. And when I move things around, it puts everyone else, including my betas, in a bad position.
As writers, we all have our shortcomings. But hopefully as we put out each book, we learn and improve.
If you love writing, what are some of your strengths, and what are some of the things that you can improve on?
In the meantime, I’ll definitely be working on kicking procrastination in the ass. I hope you overcome that one thing that’s really been bothering you, too, be it procrastination, lack of confidence, or writer’s block.
At the end of the day, we need to just sit down and write, because someone out there is hungry for our story. ❤️
All the best,
TK 🍒