Tuesday writing tips: Writer's block.

We've all faced it at one point or another, right?  Here are some tactics I use to get through it.

Take a small notebook everywhere you go.
When something pops into your head about your WIP, write it down.  It may help move things along later.


Do something that give you clarity.
Mine is taking a walk.  I always end up writing something in my head while walking and it almost always offers me some clarity.

Write a different section of your WIP.
I've done this-moved on to a section where I know what's going to happen, then go back to where I was blocked and see what happens.

Outline (or kind of outline).
I'm not really an outliner, but when I get stuck, I will take a notepad, at the top I write the beginning of the story, at the bottom I write the end, then in the middle I write things I know I want to happen.  Then I have some points to work with and I find ways to get from point A to point B.

Take a break.
Do something else for a little bit, chores, gardening, watch TV, anything to rest your brain and eyes for a few.

Do something that inspires.
Music often inspires my writing, so sometimes when I'm stuck, I listen to music.  Mostly indie.  That always gets me going.

What do you do when you get writer's block?

Thought Provoking Thursday: Music

A drawing I made of my muse a while back.

As writer, our muses come in so many forms sometimes they're hard to keep up with (except for those times they take the extended smoke break and you have to go outside and around the corner of the house with arms crossed over your chest, glare at them, and kick their ass back in the house so you can get some writing done)

I draw inspiration from many placed, nature, my own life experienced, and many times, my muse comes to me in the form of music.  When I wrote Never Eighteen, I was listening to a lot of indie (not when I wrote, I have to have complete silence when I write as my multi-tasking abilities suck when it comes to writing).  Iin fact, originally I had song lyrics at the beginning of each section of my novel.  Death Cab, Badly Drawn Boy, Tiger Army, The Airborne Toxic Event started the four sections of my book.  I also had more Death Cab lyrics in the novel, as well as the song Weighty Ghost by Wintersleep.  Unfortunately, unless you're Stephenie Meyer or have music connections, it's near impossible to get permissions to use lyrics in your novel.  So they got cut.

I love evocative music for writing.  So much of what I listen to when I need inspiration is indie.  Or songs that make you want to pull a Plath.  This is  because I truly believe I write better when my emotions are raging to the point that I'm almost in tears.  I know this sounds completely and utterly insane, but it's true.  In fact, I actually write certain scenes with a soundtrack.  For instance, there was this scene in my Superhero novel, when the protagonist and the love interest kiss for the first time, and all I could think of was Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.

I bring up this topic because yesterday I decided my protag in my WIP (work in progress for you lay people) was going to be a song writer and musician, and thus, I had to write a song for my novel.  This isn't new to  me.  I was telling my Facebook peeps yesterday that I used to write angsty rock songs in a spiral notebook back in my teens and early twenties.  I have a feeling that poetry and music are going to play parts in probably every novel I write, if not in the novel, than an inspiration to write.

I guess what I'm saying, is music is a big part of my life and always has been.  And it's a constant source of inspiration for me when I hit a brick wall while writing.

So what inspires you?  What gets you past those difficult moments, be it writing, or just in life?  In what form does your muse manifest itself to you?

Catch you on the flip side,

~Megan