Overcoming Writer's Clog in Five Not-So-Easy/Not-So-Difficult Steps

I've basically done nothing as a writer for two months. Today that stops.

Oh, I've tried, contrary to the teachings of Yoda. But distractions and gloomy emotions keep winning out.

Because I let them.

Such things only possess what power I allow them to have.

So here we are, once again slaying the dragon that is writer's clog. Certainly not writer's "block." I never get that. I see writer's block as sitting down, staring at a blank page, and nothing at all comes to mind. There is no story, no feeling, no character urging you on, demanding to be brought forth into the world. That simply is not my problem.

Writer's clog, on the other hand ...

That's my own term for what happens when I freeze up and do nothing for two months. It isn't that there is no story, feeling, or cast of characters urging me on, it's that there are too many all at once demanding my immediate attention. I try to clear my mind, and there they all are! Werewolves, gnomes, heroes, villains, a bionic unicorn, a creepy little Texas town full of vampires and plot twists! And those are just the loudest voices vying for my attention. So I imagine them all pouring into my mind from the ether through a funnel, and, of course, it gets clogged, and not a one of them gets through the jam when this happens.

So I had to ask myself, "What am I doing wrong? I have written and published so much over the years, why has it stopped working? What have I forgotten how to do?"

The simple answer is self discipline. I never finished a book or short story without being very strict with myself, with my time, daily word or page counts, deadlines that I fought like mad to meet. This is something I've let go of.

I've been in a strange place lately, having to put a lot of energy and time into taking my mother to myriad doctor's appointments since she got sick, trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life, trying to get help with managing this new, ongoing disaster to little avail, worrying, worrying, and more worrying! I don't have a set writing time. My circadian rhythm is shot. I'm an absolute mess in a constant crisis of energy. So when I do find time to sit down and write, I feel like every single story that lives in my head is the one I should be focusing on.

So, how to solve this?

I did some research into authors I admire. Authors who get things done. I was pleasantly surprised to find their daily requirements from their own hand were the same as my own, as far as word/page count and hours spent on the page. I imagine literary heroes like Stephen King to write a brilliant novel-or-three effortlessly in a month's time. In my mind, everyone else is a serious writer and I am a total hack. Imagine my shock when I learned that Stephen King shoots for 2,000 words a day! Me too! So what, then, am I doing wrong these days? Why am I not producing the same volume of work each year as Stephen King when I have at least as many books in my head as he does?

The answer was unavoidable as I continued to study the writing habits of everyone from Charles Dickens to Ernest Hemmingway. They all had more than just a minimum amount of work as their goal, they also did their writing at the same time every single day, come hell or high water. They had an immovable routine that they held utterly sacred.

I, on the other hand, allow my writing schedule to be knocked around like a ping-pong ball all day, every day, only managing to find a point where I have both time and energy to write on rare occasions. What to do?

I found hope (and slapped myself for being an idiot) when I found another pattern I have in common with these other writers I so admire. Most of them woke up obscenely early and got their writing knocked out first thing. Some rising and getting to work as early as 4:30 in the morning. I almost always wake up this early and, rather than using it to my advantage, I think, "I should be asleep! What a terrible day I'll have if I don't get another two or three hours of sleep right now!" And I hate myself for being awake. I feel like a disaster for it, when all along I might have been using this time to my advantage.

So there is STEP ONE. Not just to set up a discipline for a particular project, but to establish a routine for all time, a personal writing schedule to hold sacrosanct against all else! So, this morning when I woke up at 4:30 as usual, after more than a week of procrastinating on the idea, I got up, made some fake coffee, and got to work.

I returned to the blog I've neglected for over a year now first, because I thought it would be a good way to warm up. To see if I still know where all the keys on the keyboard are. Seems I do!

I can get lost on the Internet too. So this brings us to STEP TWO; no e-mail, no YouTube, no social media, until I've done my daily work. I can't fall down a rabbit hole if I don't go off exploring the woods. Put all that stuff strictly aside until later in the day. It's not going anywhere.

STEP THREE is to be ritualistic. I don't have many rituals that get me into writing, but I do have a Chewbacca cup full of decaf coffee to trick me into feeling like I've got a jump start each morning. That will do for now. The Chewbacca mug full of fake coffee will begin to say to my subconscious and conscious minds alike, "It's time to write."

STEP FOUR is to pay heed to the greatest writing advice I have ever encountered. One of my all time favorite authors, Richard Bach, has long advised taping a note to the computer screen that says simply, "Have fun. Don't think. Don't care." In other words, don't think or care about the quality of your first draft, about spelling or grammar or punctuation, about plot holes or the intricate minutiae of series continuity that you may have forgotten. These things are to

be fixed in the next draft, so in the meantime just let go and have fun! This and other gems can be found in Richard Bach's Writer Ferrets, Chasing the Muse, which was also collected, along with the rest of his Ferret Chronicles, in a later book called Curious Lives. Since I'm stealing his words of wisdom here, I'm absolutely going to plug his books. I used to write with a Post-It note on my monitor reminding me of these three key ingredients to getting things done. I don't know why I stopped. Today, I dug out a new Post-It and reclaimed the lesson.

And, finally, STEP FIVE, the hardest of them all when one has writer's clog: Stay focused! Write one thing at a time, finish it, then move on to the next. If there is time, you will get to everything. If there isn't time, there is nothing you can do to change that. So write what you can while you can. Morbid, yeah, but true. I get hung up on life math too often.
I think about the literal hundreds of books and stories that are floating around in my head all at once, I weigh them against the average life span of a modern human, and I freak out, want them all to be written now already, get clogged, and ironically write nothing as a result. This is pointless. So, to repeat, we have as much time as we have, use it well; don't get into a race against the inevitable, because you don't really know how much time you've got. Better to focus on one thing at a time and give it your all. To this end I had an actual out-loud conversation with the books that live in my head, and I told them I was putting all but one of them in the "cloud" of my imagination, but not to worry, because I would be calling them each down in turn as the time came, and I wasn't forgetting them. In fact, I told them, by the time I called them down I would have much more life experience to give them, so the one who is called last will benefit the most. I then told them which book I was calling down first, and they all accepted it most amicably.

Is it crazy to talk to your unwritten books aloud? See Step Four and don't care. In fact, one of the key ingredients to being a writer, or any sort of artist at all, is to allow yourself to be crazy. To let go of all of the stifling "have-tos" and "supposed-tos" that the world will try to drown you in. Art comes from a place that doesn't always mesh with social expectations, or the limited common definition of sanity. To repress your so-called-crazy is to repress your truth. So, while these five steps may be what work for me, they may not work for anyone else on earth, and that's okay. I say use these steps to get unclogged, or take them as food for thought and find your own solution, then embrace the muse and get to work.

Now to give Chewbacca a refill and follow some brilliantly simple advice ...