#getting unstuck

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Notice. Pause. Identify. Work Toward.

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Notice: Scrolling and cycling between apps, getting my brain all anxious about all the bad things happening in the world, while struggling to get myself to start my day? Unproductive. But it happens. A lot. And there are other unproductive and actively harmful loops I can get stuck in.

So, when I notice that I'm getting locked in an unproductive loop, I try to pause.

(Rest is productful, though. I'm not against mindless scrolling when it's actually useful for me, such as for decompression.)

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Pause: I used to try to get myself to 'go do the thing' while I was still stuck in a loop, and that rarely worked. Asking myself to pause—usually entailing a looking up, a deep breath, a small stretch, and/or focusing my eyes on something at a different distance from me than the thing I'm stuck on—creates almost no demand and requires no preparation.

There's no commitment. It's just a breaking of concentration when I'm not happy with concentrating on the thing I'm stuck on.

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Identify: Once I've paused, I can think a little more clearly about the loops I'm stuck in and what things I may want/need to work toward to that require not being stuck in those loops. That's when I identify something to work toward (or a less stressful way to occupy idle time).

The currently identified thing is 'get out of the bedroom'. No specific plans after that, just generally start my day.

Sometimes it's a bigger thing, a project that I want to work on, but even then I try to identify the thing to work toward as the getting myself in the general proximity of the tools required. It allows me to regularly check in with myself and see what my capabilities at the moment are.

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Work Toward: Once I've identified something to work toward, I can start taking steps in that direction. Currently, I'm working toward leaving the bedroom by tidying up the bed that I've been sitting on. Which included putting away the laptop, with a minor tangent of writing this post.

Sometimes it means gathering supplies. Sometimes it means putting everything away. Sometimes it means going somewhere and pacing around and looking at things and thinking.

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One way to spark a writer's enthusiasm about a WIP is the promise of accompanying fan art. Not only is it exciting to see your story brought to life, but to paraphrase @Morganastorm24, even a small shift in perspective can inspire you to take a wildly different approach. Today, she'll share some of her inspirations along with advice on how to get started or unstuck.

Tell us a little about yourself. How long have you been creating fan art? What were some of your first subjects and what ships/characters in the SG universe have you illustrated?

I mentioned in my writing answers that I've been doing it for as long as I can remember, and the same applies with art. I'm generally a very creative person - writing, drawing, crafting - you name it, I'll happily do it. 

I inherited my creativity from my grandparents, or so I'm told. My grandfather used to drive buses back in the 50s and 60s and on his breaks he'd park up somewhere and sit and sketch his surroundings. For no reason other than he wanted to and liked doing it. He also enjoyed woodwork and crafting miniature models of things out of wood. He built me my very first dolls house and I helped him to decorate it and furnish it with miniature furniture.

My grandmother was a seamstress for the theatre and made all the costumes for various productions. She'd sketch the designs out first, and then sew all the costumes by hand. She was also a writer, though she kept her stuff very private, because it was a hobby for her but not one that she felt comfortable enough to share. Sometimes, I can understand why, because I feel the same. Growing up, I loved spending time with both of them because they shared their skills with me. 

What are your favorite mediums to work with?

Photoshop is a big favourite of mine, because you can do pretty much anything, so long as you can find the right images to merge together. I also love using pro-markers and other comic book markers.  What kinds of scenes do you enjoy illustrating? Do you have any favorite tropes or themes? Imagery that you like to work with?

I love to do anything, as long as I have a clear vision of it in my mind (when using photoshop), or I have an image I can use as a reference (when I'm drawing by hand). The only thing I can successfully draw freehand without any reference is a horse (my lifelong love of the animals showing through there). When I worked in a children's nursery, we often drew large images for the kids to decorate which would then be displayed on the walls. I was always the one who ended up drawing said images, and to be honest I loved it. When I left that job to start my current one, I was gifted two of the last things I'd drawn - the rose from Beauty and the Beast, and the Coca Cola Christmas Truck. I've kept them to this day, and they're in a protective folder in storage. 

Any advice for aspiring fan artists?

One thing I learned in art lessons when I was at school (and it has stuck with me to this day), is that if you're struggling to draw something, change the perspective. My art teacher told us the following story about a disabled man, and I've tried and tested this method myself. It really does work!

A young man in a wheelchair was asked to draw his wheelchair. He hated the thing, saw it as a hindrance that cut him off from everything that he'd been able to do before he was confined to it. It was a reminder of his past life and everything he had lost, so when he tried to draw it, he was full of anger and resentment, and eventually threw his pencil down in frustration, declaring that he couldn't do it.

Instead of giving up on him, his teacher took the wheelchair, turned it upside down and told him to try again, but don't draw it as a whole. See the individual shapes and draw those. Focus on one shape at a time. So the young man did. He drew what he could see - circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, cylinders - and when the teacher took his piece of paper and turned it round, he had drawn a wheelchair.  All because changing the perspective of the subject and breaking it down into basic shapes had made his brain approach the task differently.  So if you're ever stuck on something and you don't know how to move forward, or do what needs to be done, try looking at it from a different angle. It could be literal, like turning the chair upside down, or it could be figurative, like seeing a circle instead of a wheel, a tube instead of a handle, that sort of thing. Change the perspective and you might just surprise yourself.

Thanks for sharing with us, Morgana--and for making us continue to swoon over Alex!

And Maggie!

And Lena!

On writer’s block:

“Walk away. That might not be everyone’s tactic but when I get really stuck, sometimes you gotta just walk away.”

-Dan Levy to Iowa Universities, April 2021

Photo: I *think* this is from Fashion Magazine

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I tend to find that the best recipe for this is to a) keep writing anyway or b) move onto a new project (for the moment!). Words are bound to feel clunky some days, and sometimes it might be for days, weeks, or even months on end. Revision always exists, and rewrites exist, too, and for good reason! It helps a touch if you sit back and reread your work on another day, too, because you may find things aren’t as bad as you remember, or you can identify what isn’t working. Lots of things can make your writing feel clunky, including:

-Sentence structure (Your sentences may be too long, too short, abrupt, etc)

-Lacking certain details (Maybe you’re neglecting emotion, movement, imagery)

-Diction/word choice

If possible, I always recommend reading your sentences aloud, because that tends to be the easiest way to hear what’s wrong with a sentence, which can also help you identify it!

Hmm. I don't use plot generators because I think I have been randomly picking tropes to move me forward. Oh and I am DEFINITELY using tropes when I ghostwrite. I'm just like, what will happen here? And maybe the client gives me some tropes and maybe I just throw in my own.

Let me put a search into pinterest. I didn't find any in my own pins but there's this from Reedsy:

This one kept popping up. A lot of people seem to like it.

This one has whole bunches of plot generators from characters to worldbuilding to genre specific that you can choose from. Although the one I looked at didn't work. That might just be my internet though.

I actually love using prompts. Because there is no limit to what can happen in a novel, and that can be overwhelming. So to take the challenge of a prompt no longer means that you are struggling to know what to DO, but instead, working to figure out how to fit that prompt into your story.

BUT the reason why I don't use prompt generators for my own work generally is that I want my plot to be guided by my characters needs and goals and flaws and strengths. And while I can often figure out how to do that with generators, it can also take me off track and get me distracted by fun tropes and, like, side quests which don't directly relate to what I'm trying to write.

So how to get the main plot you need?

FIRST you need to figure out what your character's GOAL is. There might be an external goal-- to save the kingdom or get the shipment to the other side of the galaxy without the empire finding out, or to get your crush to fall in love with you, or to solve the murder or escape the murderer or WHATEVER. But there should also be an INTERNAL GOAL. What motivates your main character/s? Is it to find belonging in a family? Is it to make peace with a tragic past? Is it to learn how to love themself? Is it to become strong so no one can hurt you again?

The KEY is to entwine that external goal into the internal goal. The external goal COULD be the antithesis of the internal goal, that would cause a lot of tension. Or it could work with the internal goal. Maybe the heroine's goal of becoming a rock star is going to destroy her inner goal of finding love and acceptance. Or maybe the heroine's goal of learning to become a powerful magic user supports her interior goal of no longer feeling like the weak, powerless orphan. Or not, maybe she thinks it is but really what she needs is to protect others? WHO KNOWS?! That's the fun part actually. Trying to figure out what the characters NEED in order to fulfill the promise of all their struggles.

I guess that's why I don't use prompt generators. Because I want the goals to fulfill the character promises. And yeah I can click a generator enough times to find a prompt that could work. Yeah. That would work. OH, I remember when I was writing fanfic, I would ask people for prompts, and then I would make a list of all the prompts and would CHOOSE the ones that would best fit the story I wanted to tell. SO it wasn't totally random.

As for getting stuck... getting stuck is part of writing. That doesn't mean you need to abandon your story, but it DOES probably mean that there's something you need to address that's not working. The tricky part is figuring out WHAT'S not working. It might very well be something in the story, and if that's the case, you need to go back in your story and figure out WHERE you went off track. If you kept pushing, it might be sentences, paragraphs or even CHAPTERS back. If you are sensitive to that "something's wrong here" feeling, you can start catching it much sooner.

Sometimes you're not stuck because of the story. Sometimes you're stuck because of fear or self esteem or exhaustion or you're disorganized and confused or who knows? Figuring out why you're stuck is one of the challenges of writing.

What’s on Your Stuck List?

I recently came across a very simple, brilliant idea thanks to Becca Syme’s writing podcast. It’s called the Stuck List. What is a stuck list? It’s a list you keep somewhere in your writing space, where you’ll definitely see it next time you get stuck in a story. What goes on the Stuck List? Why, all the things that have, in the past, helped you get unstuck. That could include anything from knitting to journaling to talking it out with that one friend who always listens and gives you good ideas, writing exercises, research,  music... you get the idea. Think about when you’ve gotten stuck in the past, and what has helped!

My list includes the following:

Watch a documentary

Read nonfiction

Read fiction

Watch a movie

Listen to a podcast

Read a writing how-to book

Take a bath

Take a shower

Go for a walk

Go for a drive

Run an errand

Do some housecleaning

Cook or bake

Journal about what's bothering me about the story

Talk it out with someone who listens and asks good questions

Listen to music

Sleep on it

Write for 20 minutes using random prompts

Switch to a different WIP

Start planning a future project

Start over

Lower the stakes.

However you can. Take a prompt and write that. Set yourself to shorter stories. Set a timer for 15 minutes so that’s all you have to write. Do fanfic not original fic. Write something you won’t EVER show anyone. Write something ridiculous. 

Set a time limit

Pomodoro method this is called, but I just always called it setting a timer. Sit down to write for 15 minutes, or 20... not much more, because you can commit yourself to 15 minutes of writing when an hour would feel too overwhelming. Set that time and then KEEP WRITING. Do not stop. Keep writing. Don’t search for a word, leave a blank, don’t delete, just write. Don’t stop to think just keep your fingers moving. The goal here is to access your subconscious writer while shutting up your really loud internal editor who keeps telling you you’re doing it wrong. Just write. When the alarm rings you can stop. Or keep going. I often keep going.

Make a writing appointment

Work with someone, I don’t care who, and set a date to write together. Word sprints we call them. Have a writer’s group (in person or on the internet) where everyone gets some work done and then reports back with their success. Call a friend on a regular basis to talk about how far you’ve gotten. Or heck, make a writing date WITH YOURSELF. Set the time aside, get your work space all set up, but get to that writing date. Prioritize it. Celebrate it. Get someone to be accountable to. 

COMMIT

Sorry babela. This is the hard part, finishing. Well it’s all the hard part, but getting from a casual writer to someone who is committed to finishing big projects takes some serious commitment on your part. When I was 25 I’d never finished a novel, and I committed to it. I wrote at least an hour a day. I kept track of my progress in a log book. A year later, I had a finished first draft. Now it takes me much less time to finish a book, but I needed to know I COULD finish. Keeping track of my progress helped me feel my movement on what was a long, slow project.

Mix It Up

If you’re a pantser, plot your next book fully. If you’re a plotter, go running with an idea by the seat of your pants. If you write on the computer, try by hand. If you write in quiet room, try a cafe. If you write inside, try outside. If you write science fiction, try romance. If you’re stuck doing what you usually do, try something new. 

here’s a rough one.

Stop Writing

Sometimes you stop writing for a REASON. Maybe you need to take care of your health or your home or your kids or your school. Maybe you need to rest. Maybe you’re blocked because there’s something off with your story and you were forcing yourself to write and went way off track. Maybe you have an idea bubbling in you and it’s not ready to come out yet and you have to dream about it more. So this advice is to STOP writing and examine why you aren’t writing, if it’s physical or mental or a narrative problem or something else is not working. If you listen to yourself, the part of you that’s telling you not to write, you can find out what the problem and fix it, and then move forward again.

for instance: If that project was too big for you? Maybe what’s needed is to go back to it and break it down into smaller parts so you can tackle it. Maybe you can’t write now because you broke your heart giving up on it. Just because something is too big doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It might just mean it needs to be reduced, drop a character, break it into multiple projects, shrink your story to only one aspect, kill your darlings ie: get rid of the parts of the story you loved but weren’t working as a whole.