Pushing Through Writers Block

I am blessed and fortunate enough to be a writer.  I am able to, for the first time in my life, be self-sufficient as support my family without the help of a partner, significant other or spouse. That’s not to say it’s easy, and it’s not to say that there are months that are exceptionally rough. After all, selling books is a form of sales and sales are not always consistent or predictable.

 One of the biggest questions people ask me, is how I find time to write. But, when all you do is write for a living you better find time to write. LOL. However there are times, when life, family, commitments get in the way. Not as much as a full-time 9-to-5 job

 I strive daily to write 5000 words. Or 18 pages. To me that is a good excellent writing day. I will settle and be satisfied with 3000 words

But there are times, even I need to get motivated.

So many writers, including myself at times, are ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ writers. Let the story tell itself. But when you are unmotivated or blocked, that just doesn’t work. Structure is best. It will help motivate you to have a plan.

The Deer Method

Go to Google and search the word Buck. The first buck that shows up in your image search count the points on the antlers. That is your target. That is how many points of your story you will get across for the day. You may not hit them all or you may. But let’s say you find a six point deer. That’s six points of your story. For example

Let’s say I hit a wall at the 10,000 word mark in Silent Victor. By the way there are several times in a novel a writer can hit a wall) This is what I would have picked for my six points.

• Joe sees Peter and knows he has the virus
• Joe sees the national guard
• Joe panic shops
• Frank finds out his leave is canceled
• Joe tells Kelly about the virus
• Ellen’s son is sick

Sometimes that is all you need. But if not here are two tricks that I always use.

Words Sprints

These are exactly what they sound like. Ready, set, go. Say you have a lot to do. And you could only write 15 minutes at a time. Take set a timer. Take five minutes and reflect about what do you want to write, then for 10 minutes you write. Whether it’s a sentence or a page. You write and don’t stop writing until the 10 minutes is over with. When the next hour comes about, you do the same thing. On average if you write 15 minutes every hour for three hours you should have 1000 words. Remember six weeks of doing that you have a novel

Writing Rewards

Truman Capote used to reward himself with a double martini after he completed 1000 words. If I did that I would be hammered. But he chose to focus for something he wanted. And that’s what I do. Especially when I feel like I want to slack.

Remember, if you want to earn a living as a writer, you need to earn what you want by writing.

Whether you want a snack, a nap, I drive, or to watch that show you have been binging on, earn it through writing. Here’s how it works:

If you want to nap, binge watch a show, or movie, or anything that is done in increments of time, you will write 10 words for every minute. For example if you want to watch an episode of Schitt’s Creek, at 24 minutes an episode you need to write 240 words in order to watch that. If you want to watch Avengers Endgame, that’s 1820 words.

Say you want a snack, or milkshake or something like that. Write five words for every calorie for which the food is. Before you decide you can go here see what the calorie count is for your favorite food and multiply that by five. For example if you want a hoho, you need to write 1000 words.

These are my helpful tips for the day feel free to leave any questions in the comments