talkmagic.co.uk

Tomo wrote:If you can't think of anything to write about, write about that. Keep the momentum going because once you know what you're going to write, the real secret to finishing it is to keep bashing the keys.

That's the lesson I've taken from NaNoWriMo. A lot of writers' block stems from a terror of producing less-than-perfect material.

Get the quantity out there onto the paper and don't worry about making it perfect to start with. You can always refine it later. But it's got to exist in the first place before you can refine it.

Ah - must do NaNoWriMo again this year. I want my third stutificate!

Robbie wrote:A lot of writers' block stems from a terror of producing less-than-perfect material.

So that's why Tomo's never had writer's block!

Ted wrote:

Robbie wrote:A lot of writers' block stems from a terror of producing less-than-perfect material.

So that's why Tomo's never had writer's block!

Ha ha! Oooh, you rotter! I'm rumbled!

Your Honour, if it please the court, I'd like several hundred other cases to be taken into consideration

Tomo, i do agree with that explanation.

To be honest the reason im having trouble finishing my plan is because i am aiming to attain such a high level of originality in my work and therefore i strive to come up with things that are not so common.

I think that i have lost motivation lately because i have not been coming up with ideas that i would like to be coming up with, and in a vicious circle way, have ended up backing myself into a corner with the opinion that i have no way out.

But it still remains evident that there is a huge gap between churning out foundational content for factual and fictional writing. When i was at college, i found it easy to churn out a substantial essay at short notice, and yet when it comes to creating fictional content, i find that to keep everything in sync and relative to the subject matter, you have to be a lot more picky and decisive as to what you include. It also depends on your style of writing, you may choose to focus on character studies a lot more as opposed to the actual plot, i know Raymond Chandler focused on both, but did not worry so much about the locations being satisfactory so much so as the situations and people being satisfactory.

Robbie, that was a very helpful little summary, thankyou. I just want to gain a simple opinion of what mentalism is about and how it works at the moment and that was the kind of thing i was looking for.

Cheers,
Steve

why not use your writing skills to create what would be an original mentalist...methods and so on arent important...there's always a way...

being unique in your presentations is 75% of the way there...

I hope you don't mind me jumping in on the writing side, as an amateur writer

I always carry something around with me (notepad or iphone) and put something by my bed (notepad or iphone) so that whenever a thought comes to me, I can scribble it down. Even if it's just a list of bullet points, I find it a lot easier if I'm creative when creativity strikes me, rather than forcing creativity to come

I often find it strikes when I'm having a walk, in bed, or in the little girl's room... which is rather inconvenient. I've lost count the number of words I've written at two in the morning


Edit: For the mentalism thing, I'm gonna echo Iain's wise words just above me

Edit 2: My amateur writing currently consists of articles related to my industry, I try to write at least one thing a week (or enough to make a backlog so that one can be published a week)... plus perhaps the odd extra to submit to the more professional not-just-my-blog blogs in hope to make a bit more beer money. I found very quickly that this is accomplished easier by keeping a list of topics to write about. Some of them are pretty specific, but others are more general ("Backups"). Just saying how I do things

on the subject of writing, i write a lot...every day normally - got a couple of books, short stories all stored up...currently writing one now actually...

i dont think writers block exists either - but i do think creatively you'll get peaks and troughs...just as your mind is some days raring to go, and others just wants coffee and music...

i do what kolm kinda says, if ever i get a plot idea..or anything...i write a little text message to myself and save it in the drafts bit...

Like others have said, the only way to deal with a writer's block is to sit down and bash your head and keyfingers on the keyboard until you write something semi-readable. Which really isn't much. I always find that my first draft is pretty horrible, and when going through it afterwards I usually alter at least 30% of the stuff.

So again, if you want to break the block, just force yourself to sit down and write for two hours a day. It's going to be like going to the toilet when you have a stomach ache: you'll make hurting noises, it'll sting when it comes out, and it will smell like sh!t. But a second review and a good editor can usually transform that pile of steaming feces into pure gold.

Good luck!

if you write all day, and write 20 pages of nonsense, you may glean 5 sentences from those pages that you actually quite like...

and those five lines could lead you onto a thousand more angles and views and ways of expressing yourself...

i think sometimes, people confuse boredom for writer's block..then guilt creeps in....

bruce robinson has a note over his typewriter "write damn it! it might be all you're good for..."

The notepad thing is a good idea, and although i do not carry one, i can not count how many times ill have been out at work or with my friends and come home with my arm covered in notes and such, or on a receipt or some other random item.

The problem i am having is not actually with writing consistently, i have no problem churning out good quality paragraphs page after page. What i am having a problem with is the ideas for where my character is going to go or who he is going to meet. My plan is 80% or so complete, but there are certain areas where i need a string of chapters to fill out certain parts of my main characters journey, such as following a lead on a case. A better example would be that i know where my character gets his clue from, and i know where I want him to end up, but it is the stuff in between that i have no inspiration to create, especially as i am trying to adhere to a particular style (hard boiled) and i want all of the locations and situations to echo this style. I have completed the first chapter but will not permit myself to continue until the plan is finished, as i wrote an 87,000 word novel several years ago, but it sucked because i hadnt planned it at all and so i was just making up stuff that didnt fit.

What im getting at is that this plot has to be finished before i can continue writing, and it also has to be finished with finesse. My problem is that i have had absolutely no inspiration or ideas for these missing pieces in the last several weeks, when before that i was waking up at 2 in the morning to fill out several pages of hasty notes.

I really can't find an explanation for it, which is why i guess i blame it on the fiction 'writers block'.

Steve

argg.. earlier on I wrote a massive essay on here, as I do, which pretty much echoes Iain and kolm- that quality is born often out of quantity and so sometimes it is in fact quanitity not quality.. in sort of Thomas Edison way.. then my computer froze. I didn't even know computers still do this!!! Come on computer, we are in 2010 now, keep up!!

go and buy these films from amazon, wont cost much...

The Shout
Medusa Touch
Magic
Harlequin

if they dont stir you, nothing will...

IAIN wrote:go and buy these films from amazon, wont cost much...

The Shout
Medusa Touch
Magic
Harlequin

if they dont stir you, nothing will...

The Shout. I was just thinking of Alan Bates in that the other day.

Sk8r St3v3 wrote: A better example would be that i know where my character gets his clue from, and i know where I want him to end up, but it is the stuff in between that i have no inspiration to create

If you let it, the inspiration will hit you from nowhere.

Once you get an idea, get it written down as soon as possible (it doesn't matter where, as long as you get that stream of consciousness down somewhere. That fantastic idea will soon leave your head as quick as it came, and you might never get it again)

And get it into actual words as soon as possible after that, before the rush of excitement dies down and before you forget what your scribbles meant. Don't worry about style and things being in the right order, you can clean that up at a later date

And don't worry about it being c*** (not the best). When you visit it the next day and it's all a heap of junk, just throw it away and nobody will ever need to have the displeasure of having to read it