I was looking at the blog entry that Isabella made a while back (yes, I'm kind of behind) and decided to share my own thoughts on the writer's block monster, but I figured I might as well do it here since there's a fair chance Isabella's resolved her issue by now.

This is a recurring problem for me, like it is for almost everyone in this hobby. For me in particular, a big issue is that I'm a slow writer - even if I'm just trying to hammer out the post without turning it into a work of art, it still takes an unsually long time, I think. If I'm trying to make it a really nice post, it can easily take two hours. That's not to say I don't enjoy it - usually I do, or I wouldn't be here - but I envy some peoples' ability to just toss out posts like it's nothing.

Anyway, I'm currently trying to bounce back from an episode, as may be obvious by my recent posting record. It's not easy, and I tend to see two basically different approaches to overcoming it: the go-away-and-get-inspiration approach, and the just-buckle-down-and-post approach. I think the best tactic to take depends on what you're calling writer's block. There's more than one kind of boogeyman!

If what you're lacking is inspiration, and you just don't know what to write, then going out and searching for it might be a good idea. For some reason, I sometimes get good ideas from reading National Geographic (or, more accurately, find things from the real world to rip off), or listening to some music that I can really focus on and get into sometimes gets the creative juices flowing. Just sitting there and thinkthinkthinkthinking about it, though, rarely helps. You can't force your muse, just give her a nudge, and that doesn't always work either.

I don't have that problem too often, though. More often, it's not that I don't have any ideas, I just... don't feel like writing. For whatever reason - maybe I just don't enjoy a particular thread, or I'm just starting to feel burnt out - I lose the creative energy, I lose my momentum, and suddenly writing seems like a horrible chore. This might lead to procrastination, which just makes the problem worse - posting is slowly built up in my mind into something unpleasant to be avoided, and it gets hard to bail your way out of that mental trap once you're in that mindset.

If you can really get away from it all for a few days, or even a week or two, and not think about writing, or Adylheim, or anything at all along those lines, during that time then that's peachy, and it will probably help enormously. But for me, that's not really an option unless I'm physically on vacation or otherwise am experiencing a major change of scenery. Otherwise, when I find myself idle (which I do fairly regularly) before I know it habits have kicked in and I'm thinking about something to write. Or sitting there feeling guilty about not working on something that I should be, or just sitting there trying not to think about it, which is stupid. None of that helps.

So, like Grim suggested in Isabella's blog, I'm finding the best thing to do is sit down and force yourself to write. Psych yourself up a little bit if you want with music or a book or something else, but it basically comes down to just buckling down and making yourself do it. Most of the time for me, putting it off just builds the writer's block into a bigger adversary in my mind, which makes things that much tougher. Sitting down and starting to write again is the really hard part - after that, things start flowing easier again, and after a while (hopefully) the beast is slain and you find yourself enjoying it again.

This actually applies to more than writing, as was pointed out to me a little while back. With almost anything that requires mental effort, starting is always the toughest part, and once you're going, you only need to exert the willpower needed to keep going - this is significantly less than the amount needed to start. In effect, procrastination and mental effort have momentum. I'm kind of amazed that applying physical laws to abstract concepts actually works out as a valid metaphor in this case.

Anyway, I'm rambling and it's 3:30am. And I've said what I wanted to say. Down with writer's block. :<