*Another line from a My Chemical Romance song
So I've been sitting at my desk since about 10 a.m. It's now twenty minutes to 4 p.m. As much as I would like to say I spent the bulk of those hours typing away on -any- story, that was not the case.
My writer friend suggested, as I searched for some answer as to how I could break the writer's block, that I take a break. I responded that I felt like I was being lazy, because I finished the first draft of Book B three or four weeks ago. I should be editing or writing something new, if not both. But beyond jotting down some notes from months ago on a critique he did for me of the first three chapters of Book B, I've done nothing of the kind today. Yesterday, I achieved 600 words. Part of me was satisfied with that, the other part is greatly irked that I didn't write more.
My brain just doesn't want to think about pirates (Book C has pirates, they aren't central, but at the moment they seem to be important and I have to deal with them to finish off chapter 2). Seeing as it needs to think about pirates to get through the next handful of pages, at least to tie off this chapter, I am stuck. I don't like being stuck.
I have the urge to sew something, or maybe draw. But then again, I have the urge to write. I just don't know what -to- write. For half this time, I've had a blank document open. That advice to just write somthing, anything, even if it drek. I want to, I really do. But I put fingers to keyboard and...nothing happens. That sounds like a whiny cop-out to my ears, but I don't mean it to be. I just honestly have no idea what to say. Sometimes, saying I'll write longhand and then doing it, works. Sometimes I say it and then never do it.
Does it make sense to say that I want to write, but can't?
I haven't used the phrase 'writer's block' in a long time, until this post, of course. It has the ring of a great stone tablet that someone's laid on your back, so you're bent over like an old man, and the weight is so great, you can barely think about lifting you arms enough for fingers to reach the keyboard or pen and paper. But it's really, for me, something internal. Like I'm trapped in string (here I picture the manga-style ninja-like woman who uses thread to ensnare your enemy, a la Inu Yasha) and I'm mobile, but only to a point. I can reach th keyboard and then one invisible string stops me right before I start typing. Both descriptions are mental blocks (and perhaps a tad over described? heh), but the former also sounds like I'm trying to blame an external force, whereas the thread is in my head, tugging back the thoughts, the strands of dialogue, if you don't mind me running with the metaphor.
That's all specific to me, though, and to this particular bout of 'stuckness.'
So I'll come online for a while, but I'm going to try and not worry about edits or new pages for a week or so. See if that gives me a fresh perspective when I return to it. Maybe some reading or drawing (related or unrelated to the current stories I'm working on) might help too, but I won't push it.
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