Writers block was first defined as an explanation for stuck writers relatively recently, less than 100 years ago.
What did writers blame for their lack of production before that, hmm?
Writer's Block
Writer's block has been defined as the temporary loss of ability to continue writing, commonly due to a lack of inspiration or creativity. However, the concept of writer block has grown to include a number of ideas.
Included under "writer's block" are any delay in the "process" of writing, a lack of inspiration, and/or a lack of motivation. Since almost all writers go through stages and or encounters with these elements, it's been argued that all writers have suffered from writer's block.
Most writers who would describe themselves as blocked are working quite hard — reading, researching, writing plans and outlines, rewriting and editing… all the "right" things of writing. Their problem is that they are doing the right things at the wrong times or in the wrong amounts.
They have adopted a repetitive pattern of behavior that leads to being blocked and unproductive.
Writer block also has a peculiarity. It seldom applies to all writing.
A blocked writer can still write notes, letters, shopping lists or other types of writing different from where they are blocked. It also tends to occur at specific places in the writing process – someone may have written many pages of material and then get stuck moving to the next step in the process.
Contrary to common preconception, a certain personality type or disposition do not have any direct relationship to who gets blocked or how they get blocked.
The phrase "writer's block", offers insight as to how this is experienced. When describing their not being able to write, writers mention being immobilized, stranded, stuck, frozen, numb and paralyzed. The block is felt and that is certainly true for most who experience writer block. People describe it as a near physical block.
Writing requires both extensive visualization, thought and physical action (penmanship and typing) to transcribe the thought imagery into a book, story or argument. Writing is also best a multi-sensory activity. When viewed in that light, the descriptive physical activity language makes more sense.
What I find fascinating is that almost all authors struggle with the same doubts and yet so many can be productive in spite of those doubts. Doubts about their own worth, the value of their contribution, etc. But not comfortable, never comfortable – the cliche is that writing is one of the most uncomfortable, painful, gut wrenching things a person can do!
Yay! Are we masochists or what?
With blocks that happen at certain steps in the writing process, it's straight forward to understand how to bust the block. Change that pattern, and the block is gone.
If the writer is stuck in always having to take a break after writing a page and then just never gets back to writing again… the block-buster answer is clear. No breaks! If you write a paragraph and then have to research more, it's time to get clear on which you are doing. If it's writing time – then write. If it's researching time – then research! Not both.
If you must always research more in order to feel just a bit more comfortable with your output… the answer is in both lowering the standard of excellence required at the draft stage, and in using a research strategy that is fruitful and feels complete enough for what you are producing.
Recognizing and accurately setting a standard of excellence that matches your target audience is key! The standard of research needed for a book is different than the standard of research for a college paper.
Switching your writing process around and adjusting your standards of excellence based on what stage of the writing process you are in, are core steps to ending writer's block.
Also you may find that having access to brilliant imagery, that is unique, varied, useful and full of insight will both increase your output and increase the quality of that output.
Filed under Writer's Block by 
I've been doing a lot of business writing and editing over the last few months. It's been interesting because the key to business communication is to be succinct, and get to the point while still building the relationship.
I was thinking about how that applies to all writing. Succinct is good. Getting to the point directly, powerfully is what separates great prose from turgid pap.
Most writing and mass communication nowadays is purposely aimed at a grade seven level. You are coached to communicate at that level. That is the level at which people will spend some of their precious attention to see if they like what you are saying. If they like it, then they will read further to see if there's value for them in your words.
Ideally – it's said – you must entertain. People are conditioned to be entertained. It's a TV society. People are conditioned to soundbites. The 30 second commercial. They scan and grab relevant information off of the webpage or article.
Where's the line between succinct and bland? Between detailed and dry? Between original – deep and a simplified rehash of the same old, same old?
Keeping things at a simple level works as far as drinking from the firehose of info we are all faced with every day – that bombardment of data that our world has become.
The world's knowledge is increasing at an incredible pace… is it something lke we double the data every couple years now? Where is this going though?
Anything new and breakthru is based on complex and detailed information. To become excellent, we need to drink deep from the lake, not sip from the firehose. Yet offer things of substance and you'll starve. No one has time to dig deep. When they see something complicated and valuable, they run!
Something like 40% of all digital products sold actually get listened to or watched. Marketing has become the consumption of the useless…
If we are always communicating at a level lower than our intellect, simplifying complex ideas down to pablum, are we participating in the dumbing down of society?
Filed under Articles, Developing Writing Skills by
Writing and Feelings
Has there ever been a time when you were held back in your writing by how you felt? Your feelings have a great affect on your ability to write.
I remember numerous times in my life when I have "had to" write and been blocked from doing so because of how I felt. Many of those times it's been money worries that have gotten in the way.
When I went back to school at 39 with a wife and two young kids, I had a lot riding on both how I did in school and in getting money in. The main source of money for me at that time was freelance writing, and the stress of school and worries about money made it really hard to settle down and concentrate on writing.
To get myself going I used a little ritual that you might find of some use.
At night, when I sat down to write, and after a set of balance exercises to clear my mind, I would think about all the things that I had to be thankful for in my life. I'd sit in my chair with my eyes closed and go through a list of many things, for at least 10 minutes.
What I found that really made it effective was how real I made the exercise in terms of how I felt. If I just brushed over things in a detached manner, without amping up the emotion attached to the great things in my life that I had to be thanful for, well my emotional state didn't change much.
If I really paid attention and transported myself back to the event I was thankful for, or dug into the reasons why I was thankful for this or that person being in my life… my emotional state changed powerfully.
I discovered that what amped things up was a number of unique factors in my imagining. I noticed that if the memory was in color, that the feelings attached grew more intense. If the picture was in a particular area in front of me and a particular size, with amplification of the sounds associated with the memory, I'd experience feelings just as strong as the original event.
I concocted a set of imaginary dials to adjust things in both the pictires and the sounds. I could control my feelings just by manipulating the dials and changing aspects of my pictures and sounds.
Being in a state of thanks or gratitude makes writing simple for me. My experience is that, from that emotional state, my writing is better.
I recommend you try it out.
Filed under Overcome Writer's Block, Writer's Block by
Focus For Productivity
Focus is a tool. Focus is also a skill. Interestingly, it also has three distinct, useful results. I'm going to describe and go into some detail on these results and then offer some proven effective exercises and tips.
Focus is a skill that separates the distracting (or unimportant) from what's important. But focus also allows all those unrelated, free floating ideas that are just lying around in your mind, to suddenly connect and make interconnected leaps to genius.
Probably the least consciously used result of this skill is "What you focus on, expands." If you focus consistently on what you want, what you don't want will inevitably fade away.
Focus is a survival skill that has allowed mankind to adapt and overcome. It is the heart of purposeful action. Acting on a task always requires a certain focus and the more focussed you are, the more "in flow" and effective you are during that action.
Consider it the action step of gaining clarity — centering your attention on a particular subject or field of view. Focus is a necessary component of effective action. Focus is inexorably combined with concentration, which is that ability to see only one thing; focus is clarity of purpose, and it automatically brings what's next – in the moment, in the minute, in the day.
The Elimination of Distraction and Mental Fogginess
"I don't know what to do next… I wonder what's on TV? Did I get any email? Let's just check the news this morning before I get started…" says that voice in your head … Ending these thoughts is the most common and most important effect of focus. It is the action of bringing something into focus and concentrating.
Concentration is the action of one pointing – of narrowing your field of attention. This creates a zooming in, a zeroing in aspect of awareness where outside considerations, distractions and influences are discarded. This is intimately tied to focus where you center your attention on a particular interest or activity. Concentration is like a microscope fine focus knob. You use it after you use the coarse focus control.
Getting focused is also the ability to slow your minds bouncing quickness down so that it fully gives priority to — like Curly said — "Just one thing." There will still be many thoughts about that one thing. It's powerful to examine one thing from all the angles and all the "what ifs," but that emphasis brings the full power of everything that your unconscious mind knows or can extrapolate about that thing, to attention. And that is formidable!
Focus enables your subconscious mind to really bring all it's resources to bear on a single item. When you focus on one subject for an extended time, the normal, simple, easy to reach conclusions and insights appear fairly quickly. By then allowing that focus to continue, you let your subconscious mind begin to reach and interconnect seeming disparate ideas and concepts. Therein lies magic!
Focus (and the seemingly unrelated concept of mind play) creates permission for your mind to access dimly connected ideas in new ways that can and do supersede what's already obvious, decided or what has been developed.
What You Focus On Expands
What you focus on has no inherent value judgement attached to it. Focus on laziness and it shall be so. Focus on "what's the next logical step?" and thats what you get. You can pay particular attention to the negative or to the positive.
You will receive whatever you focus on. This is playing with the sharpest of swords, that cuts both ways. If you see the lack … or the abundance in everything – that's what you will get.
We can get confused by the fact that our viewpoints are usually pretty large and not that zeroed in. As an example; someone can complain and moan about things and still have a ruthless focus on money… so they are rich and miserable! It's a delicate and intimate balance that each of us can only understand for ourselves.
In this light, focus and what you focus on becomes a survival skill of the highest order. And an enjoyment of life skill that is critical.
Focus Exercises
Focusing mental tools are intention, will power, desire and even meditation. Below is an exercise that has proven to train and refine the ability to focus. It's been found that steady practice of slowing your mind down can really help to bring a sharpening of consciousness, a clarity that supercharges your focus and brings many benefits.
This exercise is a template that with a couple weeks daily practice, will enhance and boost your natural ability to center and instantly focus on what's next. Pick a subject that you want to focus on. Useful candidates are aspects that you might feel are lacking in your life — love, abundance, joy, creativity, peace, etc. Take a comfortable position, either sitting with your back straight or laying down. Let yourself relax and allow all tension to just flow out of your body. Pay attention to your breathing and take deep breaths to aid you in relaxing.
If you find that listening to peaceful music or a particular relaxation recording helps you to drop away from your hustlebustle pinball mind, please use those. Some find that imagining a large trunk that you put all your cares and concerns into for the duration of the exercise works well.
Set your intention by stating, "I'm going to focus my mind exclusively on (your chosen subject) for the next 2 minutes."
As guidelines to direct your thoughts as you focus on this one subject, examine:- How would your life change if you were to have more of this in your life?- Imagine ways that you might experience it in your life?- What would you do differently?- What would you feel?
Hold the thoughts and images that come to your mind for as long as you require to feel like you understand and get that idea. You will find that other ideas and thoughts pop in – if they are new angles on the subject – explore them. If they are on different subjects, let them go and bring your attention back to your chosen subject.
Start with a two minute time frame. Once you find that easy, move on to a five minute focus exercise. Practice daily for two weeks and you will begin to notice how much more effective you are. You can experiment with practicing for longer times, or more often during the day.After the two weeks, find a maintenance dose of using this exercise to keep your focus powers honed and sharp.
Productivity Tips
Steps that can help your ability to focus are shutting email and IM off, or if you are writing – shutting your screen off. One idea that is very effective is to measure your day in terms of productive (or money making) time.
How much could you accomplish if you added just 5 hours a week of stringently focused, effective work time? How about 20 hours?
Say as a start, you want to maximize 1 hour every day where you are focused exclusively on writing that next chapter or article. Pick your most productive time and block it out. Get agreement from the people around you that this is (except for emergencies) an uninterruptible time.
Shut all your browsers off, IM and email off. No news, TV, phone, conversation.Make your screen blank or expand the window and show only the document you are working on. Or if you write by hand, then move to that notebook, clearing all the other clutter off your desk.Set a countdown timer ( like an egg timer) and Go! I find that I work most effectively on the stuff that's not my most favorite… but that has to get done, in five to seven minute stints. I'll set a software timer on the computer to ring at five minutes and then bash away, not allowing any distractions or other actions to interrupt me during that time.
At the end of the time, depending on my state of flow, I'll either immediately reset and go again, or get up, stretch, do some balance practice or 10 pushups. Then I reset and go again! Keep it up until the hour is done.
You can gently expand your "money time" as you get more skilled at maintaining focus.
Focus is worth exploring in terms of it's personal meaning to you – it will yield immense results for you.
Filed under Developing Writing Skills, Writing Creativity by
One of the "Deep Secrets" of Greatness and Genius
Confession time – this has been a hard article for me to write. It frankly is one I've hesitated on… Why?
The research behind this "puts the boots" to all the statements you might have heard about someone's "potential" or they're "naturally gifted" or she's "a born singer…" or whatever. Research by Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee gets to the core of genius, achievement and excellence in a way that is irrefutable, and ultimately… inspiring. And a bit hard to take in my case!
See I was one of those people with a lot of "potential". This will sound seriously conceited ( don't judge too quick – a major beat down is coming ) but, I've always been smart – smarter than most people I meet.
In the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" editor Ericcson reveals how certain abilities that people call "natural", or born genius, actually come from a mix of genetics, a supportive environment with good instruction, and a ton of work. Excellence does not solely come from being born with savant like talent or smarts!
Potential … shmotential !
As Thomas Edison claimed, genius is 99% perspiration. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice."
There's the root of my (ego) problem. I suddenly have no big "knockout punch" (fantasy) to fall back on… You know, that somehow someday, all my unrealized potential will just rear up and save the day and I'll — out of the blue — produce something of real genius.
Ahhhh, nope. "Just don't work like that cupcake."
The research shows that a high IQ is not a reliable predictor of later achievement. If I'm not willing to work and practice diligently, the research shows that I'll probably not amount to anything special. Crap!
But, therein also lies the inspiration. The one common factor amongst almost all persons who have achieved "greatness" no matter what the area, is dedicated and focused work. Whether researchers studied athletes, scientists, entertainers, or politicians, etc., the best predictor of future success was diligent, smart practice.
In other words, as a writer, the more days you string together of technique practice and diligently cranking out those 1000 words (or whatever), the more inevitable it is that you will begin to open up to your own genius. Then success will follow right behind!
So are you willing to bust through constraints and bang out some writing every day? Or even more important, once you're on a roll – to keep it going until the flow slows? Courage my friends, courage! Strap on your sword and gird your loins.
Being able to stand writing crap until it gets better, is your (my) secret weapon. My apologies for this… I'm practicing ok?
My special inspiration is my 17 year old daughter, Raven.
After seeing me struggle to write and flail about for so many years, she (silly fool – but I warned her) has steadfastly committed herself to writing and being a writer for the last 4 years. She now has a worldwide following.
Chick lit.
But you know what? She bangs out 5000 words every day. The girl is a machine! And she is getting good. Really good.
So, I have anecdotal evidence that practice, support and huge talent are the ingredients for excellence. And maybe there's some hope fer me, yet!
Filed under Developing Writing Skills by
Balance, Your Brain and Creativity
Balance is an interesting and fun skill that has been proven to activate large and widely varied parts of the brain. As covered previously, anything that activates more parts of your brain always allows you to access more of your innate creativity. All those interconnections, nudges, hints and messy entanglements that happen from connecting your knowledge around and throughout your brain will always lead to greater creativity and fresh insights.
Here's how balance works to activate more of your brain:
Balance comes from feedback that comes from the eyes, the muscles and joints, and the vestibular organs in the inner ears. These sources send information in the form of nerve impulses to your brain.
(Note that some brain experts are "extending" the brain to include your eyes, nose, tongue and hands… since the number of connections into your brain from these body parts are extensive.)
Feedback from the eyes - Specialized sensory receptors in the retina called rods and cones are sensitive to light. When photons strike them, visual data impulses are sent to the brain to guide balance. For example, when you are laying in bed or standing in the street, your eyes constantly communicate visual references for vertical and horizontal.
Feedback from the muscles and joints - Specialized sensory receptors that are sensitive to stretch or pressure in tissue deliver feedback to the brain from the muscles and joints. This sensing of position and movement of the body is called proprioception. When your legs, arms, etc. change position, sensory receptors feedback the shortening and stretching of the opposing muscles to your brain.Impulses from your neck, shoulders and head show the relative position of your head, while impulses from your lower leg, feet and ankles indicate the body's movement and position relative to gravity and the earth or floor.
Feedback from the inner ear (vestibular organs) - The inner ear is a complex series of structures and fluids within the skull. Each inner ear has hearing (auditory) parts and balance (vestibular) parts which are the vestibular organs. The sensory receptors within this complex series of structures sends feedback to the brain, orienting our balance.
Feedback to the Cerebellum - All this information is sent to the cerebellum. It's in charge of balance, posture and coordination. The cerebellum is about 10 percent of the brain, yet it contains nearly 50% of all neurons in the brain! The cerebellum sends the information to the rest of the brain and spinal cord which distribute instructions to the body. The cerebellum allows us to walk, maintain balance, and turn around without effort.
The cerebellum is involved in a lot more than that though. It is activated during many other thinking activities.
Recent research has shown through PET (Positron Emmision Tomography) scans, how much brain activity is stimulated by simple balance. In fact, the amount of neuronal activity and the total area of the brain activated, soars when you do something as simple as maintaining balance on one leg.
Here's how to make it work to your benefit:
Any sort of exercise where you are required to maintain static or dynamic balance will stimulate this dramatic increase in brain activity. Tai chi (and any other upright and moving martial art) works well. So does walking on a treadmill, using a cross country ski machine, skiing or skating of any kind, skateboarding, surfing, dancing, mountain biking; or any other activity that "grooves with gravity" is valuable in this type of brain activation. Any action that offers the opportunity to coordinate your movements so that your center of mass remains aligned with your center of gravity, stimulates large and varied parts of your brain.
Specific exercises to stimulate this increase in neuronal activity have been proposed as effective brain stimuli that will result in increases in our ability to learn and integrate knowledge. This can have profound effects on your writing. Here are some recommended exercises :
1. Single Leg Stance:
Raise one foot up without touching it to the standing leg. Try to bring your thigh to a parallel position with the lower leg hanging down. Practice on each side for 30 seconds, twice a day or to at the end of a learning session.Then, with your gaze fixed straight ahead, close your eyes and maintain balance for up to 30 seconds. The goal is to stand unaided on one leg with your eyes closed for 30 seconds… no foot touching the support leg, no hopping, the raised foot doesn't touch the floor, and the arms do not touch something for support. Count the longest time you can maintain with your eyes closed.
2. Leg Extension Balance drill
Front Leg Extension:Turn your standing legs' foot outside to a comfortable angle with the knee slightly bent. Extend your other leg forward, carefully extending your knee by pushing through your heel and pulling your toes back upwards to the sky. Bend the standing leg (towards a sitting position) as much as is comfortable (and possible) without leaning. Breathe, maintain your balance and grip the ground with your toes. Keep your eyes on the horizon.
Move to Side Leg Extension: From the Front Leg Extension rotate your extended leg, leading with the little toe so that your raised leg rotates to the side with your foot turned outward 45 degrees. Crouch down on the standing leg and keep your leg extended to the side (like a side kick). Breathe and grip the ground with your toes.
Move to Rear Leg Extension:Leading with your heel, bring your leg in and then extend your leg backwards until your leg extends behind you. Slowly extend your leg out behind you as you lean your upper body forward. Breathe and maintain your balance.
Swing back to Front Leg Extension: Bend your raised knee and slowly swing your leg under you and carefully extend your leg to the front. Begin the set again with a Front Leg Extension. Repeat for 4 sets on each leg.
3. Leg Extension Balance Drill with toes pointed:
Do the same set of leg extensions with your toes pointed. Move through the same three position set, 4 times on each leg.
4. Swinging the Extended Leg:
Standing tall and balancing on one leg, raise the other leg and pull your toes upward while pushing through your heel. Gently swing your raised leg back and forth for 20 seconds. Then switch and swing the other leg.
5. Balance Board Sessions:
Extreme Balance Board 
Indo Board 
Vew Do Board
Practice balancing for 5 – 10 minutes, in order to help integrate the ideas you are coming up with, or to break up a long writing or researching session.
Dr. Richard Restak in his book "Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot" also suggests a set of dynamic one legged balance exercises to achieve brain activation.
Balance training has been used to recover from ankle sprains; with children for vestibular (inner ear) problems; to strengthen chronic knee injuries; with elderly individuals with frequent falls; and even to solve lower back pain.
Balance training has been shown to be more efficient than strength training and surprisingly, it gives rapid results.
Most of all – it's a lot of fun. Try it out!
Filed under Writing Creativity by
Gaining The Skills Of Your Favorite Writer… Fast!
Modeling is a way to "represent" a real thing in a more convenient or smaller or different way. When modeling your favorite author, the idea is to imagine yourself being as much like them as possible, in order to borrow their skills and creativity.
Many people over the years have used this sort of imagery – including our ancestors who would put on the skin of a bear, a wolf, a lion, etc. in order to experience the strengths of those creatures. The effectiveness of this sort of modeling has a huge body of anecdotal proof.
One more recent famous example is experiments done in Bulgaria in the 70's. In those experiments, people were able to quickly learn how to paint or play musical instruments by modeling famous artists and musicians, using a similar technique to what's outlined below. This is the most effective method I've ever come across to boost your writing and get to breakthroughs in creativity…
There's a set of instructions to follow here – give them a quick read through and then go ahead and move through the steps without having to go back and forth from reading to visualizing/modeling.
First let's set the ground rules. If you begin to feel uncomfortable at any time – stop. You will be doing a gentle, internal process that involves your imagination. You are and will remain in total control of your internal processes… on to the steps.
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Get yourself into a comfortable position and relax. Take a few deep breaths and Relax… let the stress and tension flow out of your body right now and… slow down for a couple minutes… Imagine yourself in front of the writer who you admire the most – see them right there in front of you.
Now, brighten the image – like it's a sunny day or the room lights grew brighter. Make your image of them larger and clearer and keep going until it gets to feel more "real".
Ask the author's permission to model them, so you can both improve your writing and get some creative ideas. Then ask them to turn around. Imagine yourself getting airy, wispy like fog and – just like slipping on a suit, imagine yourself walking into their body and put them on!
Move around and experience through all their senses. Make it up! Go into as much detail as you are comfortable with. I like to make sure my eyes are aligned through their eyes, that I am hearing through their ears, and feeling with their hands.
Start Writing As Them!
Write down what you are imagining-experiencing in some detail as to how things look, sound and feel. Then smoothly move into writing about your subject while you still imagine you are writing from inside their body. Let this inspire you to receive absolutely new information.
As always, write as fast as you can and no editing! A tip is to focus on keeping conscious track of 3-5 things while you are writing. For instance, if you can keep track of how your fingers feel on the keyboard, and the taste in your mouth and the sounds in the room (all at once and as continuously as possible) while you are writing, it really helps to overwhelm your internal editor.
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** If all this seems like it's just not possible, just go ahead and fake it.
Imagine it as best you can and you will get the benefit of the experience. Also, going deeper into a relaxed state and closing your eyes will help your visualizations become clearer.
It helps having Mozart or Vivaldi playing as well…
** If you are not getting a clear picture – it's normal. There's always going to be a significant difference in the qualities of an image that you visualize compared to what you see out of your eyeballs. It's a built in way for you to tell imagination from reality!
That distinction is important to both our ancestors survival and our social contract with society. It's a key in keeping the fellows in the white coats from taking you away for electric shock treatments! Enough on that…
As another and really exciting way to deepen your connection to your story, you can write exactly from your characters "point of view". Put them on and then let them write their thoughts and dialogue… Many authors talk of how they just suddenly were transcribing the characters story – they just had to copy it down.
Have fun with this and let me know how it goes!
Filed under Developing Writing Skills, Writing Creativity by
Information is the basis of all writing.
Information that you have researched, learned, sorted and organized into your own unique way of looking at it is a reason to express what you know. Research is a necessary step whether for a novel, college thesis or self help book. Here's the process I recommend to conduct internet based research in a time effective way.
Pick a subject or target. Come up with 3 or so words that "make sense" as words that describe, define or frame the subject or market.
Use some of these below resources to begin in-depth research in your subject:
1. Keyword Map – Put your words in here and generate more related words to build more ideas and possible research vectors. Note and even copy all the words you get. Look at the websites that are listed for your words.
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For extra bonus points those words can go into: ~ Google Keyword Tool – You will have to sign up for an Adwords account – it's free!
(Then you can use all the cool stuff they got's at the google… weeeee!)
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2. Now go to Amazon.com and put those same keywords into a search for books, etc. Dig into the subject in as thorough a fashion as you need. There probably are books, audio and video and maybe even magazines, articles, studies and reports.
3. Are the books listed in Google Books?
4. Is it a hot subject? Google trends is a powerful research tool.
4.a What blogs are there on the subject? Search Technorati For more on this go to the Research article
Filed under Developing Writing Skills by
Talking is at least 3 times faster than typing
Have you ever heard of a talking, speaking, blathering block?
Seriously, other than stuttering and fear of public speaking, everyone can talk – endlessly and without trepidation.
Therefore, talking your writing is a foolproof way to end any writer's block. You simply talk about what you consciously already know and then let that prime the pump for more information to come bubbling up from your unconscious mind. It helps to get prepared.
First is having a base idea of the topic or hero/ villain/ setting. Then research on what you don't already know…
Or you love birds and you want to write a book on the care and feeding of canaries – what's out there? What is the competition and their websites? (more detail on the in depth research process I use)
After you've completed your research comes organization. You can quickly do this in your head.
I would recommend using ImageStreaming at this point to build the interconnections in your knowledge, so that you will easily create new, useful and exciting ideas.
Another cool tool is Photoreading. Reading at 20,000+ words a minute with good comprehension is a serious advantage. It works.
Then express it by talking out the structure of what you see yourself producing. Allow the expressing of what you know to generate more and more detail and fresh ideas. I've found that it does take regular practice to generate a useful organized structure to the meanderings of the mind. However, changing your modality of expression to talking can be a seriously helpful endeavor. It just ain't immediately easy!
As long as you are prepared for that effort it can pay huge dividends.
The reality is that written productivity — once you are prepared and have all the research and background — is quite slow. You can talk faster than you can write or type. Skilled practitioners of "talking to write" can generate 60 pages per hour of rough content!
Wow!
Producing a lot of ideas and then editing down to the gems is a genius thinking strategy that flat out works.
So talking to write has a serious advantage in that regard. You must use different parts of your brain to talk out loud as compared to writing and that means you begin to access new and different ideas. That is another advantage.
When you talk out loud and begin to up the pace of what you are saying, you can easily outrun your internal squelcher. This is another advantage of "speaking your writing".
Like all writing, the quality of the finished product is determined during the editing stage. I'd suggest that you do a quick and dirty first couple edits and then hand final editing off to others!
It's important for all writers to remember that more ideas expressed equals better opportunity to produce quality.
The deep, dark secret of "talent" is being able to produce a lot of ideas. Quality comes from pruning those expressed ideas down to genius.
What the heck am I supposed to do with all this content now that I've generated it?
Tools that can really help: CopyTalk -~$60/month – limited time; or FantasticTranscripts – $150/audio hour… etc.
For do it yourself transcription, use transcription software (Express Scribe, Transcriber) to make it easier to control the playback for your typing.
Filed under Overcome Writer's Block, Writer's Block by
Do the Easy Stuff First!
Start writing with what you already know you want to say. Get that down and then keep going until you are done.Write what you already know and let the rest follow along after…
Your unconscious mind will organize and create more as you go.
Have you gotten stuck on the perfect start or ending? Avoid it completely and just start on what you know – in the middle, on a scene, on what you already know.
Once you've built some momentum and a bigger view of the context of your creation, the rest will write itself.
Slam the easy stuff onto the page for as long as you can. This is called get on a roll and stay on a roll, as long as possible. What you focus on expands.
Move fast while you are writing and if certain areas need more development… and the next section is yipping to get out on paper, just note "ADD DETAILS" or "EDIT THIS LATER" and move on.
Let the clamoring stuff out onto paper, as fast as possible. You get more of what you concentrate on – when you let out the clamoring bits, the next bits start to trust that they can jump out on the page. They can express without being immediately edited to death!
Also, stop when you're on a high point. This will create a remembered state of being on a roll.
It's easier the next day to begin writing because you will remember how easy and how well it was going when you stopped.
It's like pushing away from the table when you're "just" full so you can more fully enjoy eating the next time because you're guilt free and your hunger is back!
This is training your unconscious mind to continue to bring valuable information to the front of your mind whenever you have the time to write – not at "inconvenient" times.
However, a really useful intention is to always be alert to notice and capture surprise inspirational flashes. Write them down as soon as you can after they happen! Have a notepad or voice recorder with you at all times, or use CopyTalk (www.copytalk.com) to record with your cell phone and have a transcription sent back to you.
You will solve all the hard bits once you have some momentum. Funny how it all seems easy… when you're done.
Then tackle the scary stuff!
What are you MOST afraid of tackling? Time to go big or go home! Spend an hour on exploring all the angles of the hard, most difficult bits. Use all the techniques above and hit it from many angles.
Kick the Stuffing out of it! This is a frontal assault technique – be sure to pick a time when your energy is high and your attitude is great.
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