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This week: Writer's Block? Challenge Yourself! Edited by: NaNoKit  
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Many writers go through it at one point or another - the dreaded writer's block. What to do? Challenge yourself!
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter is all about rediscovering your voice.
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Writer’s block. Have you ever experienced it? I know that I have. Sometimes for a short while, sometimes for a longer time. At its longest, it stayed with me for years. I can tell you now that that was very frustrating.
As writers, it’s not just a case of wanting to express ourselves through the written word. It’s a need. It’s our minds, our thoughts, our feelings, our passion, and pen and paper, or keyboard and screen. It’s the way we share with others. Inspire smiles, tears, and further self-expression throughout the world. When that is taken away from us for any reason, we are not who we are supposed to be. A part of us is lost, and we need to rediscover it.
There is all sorts of advice out there on how to overcome the dreaded block. That is because what works for one person may not work for another. In this newsletter, I’ll share what worked for me, and what didn’t work, and why. Hopefully it will be of some assistance.
I have tried various methods. The first of which was to simply accept that I was unable to write – to give it a break and see what happened. Sometimes we do need a little break to refresh our minds. Sometimes we simply don’t have the necessary drive and inspiration to create a piece. Which is fine, but when that break grows lengthier and lengthier, something isn’t right. And when you do feel inspired and nothing happens, it’s time to try a different method.
Another piece of advice I followed is to just write anything, without caring about whether or not it’s perfect. You can always fine-tune it later. Or it might form the basis for another piece at some point in the future. Whilst it is true that hey, writing’s writing, this method left me feeling frustrated. I have pieces of paper with rambling poems, and snippets of stories, and they didn’t do anything for me then and they sure don’t do anything for me now. They left me feeling that whatever creativity I had had well and truly abandoned me, which was not the desired result.
A change of scenery is all well and good if you are able to go for it. A walk in nature is nice – it does make me feel more peaceful. Observing others, reading the works of others, reviewing pieces on Writing.Com, checking out contests with various prompts to see if they spark an idea... all of those are good ideas and worth a try.
In the end, though, what worked was to throw myself into a challenge. I’d returned to Writing.Com after a pretty lengthy absence – I felt out of place being on a writing website when I couldn’t write – and I’d returned to my blog because that’s as low-pressure as you can get. But creative writing still wasn’t happening. So I signed up for "Game of Thrones" [13+], which as events go is rather full on. I have no idea what got into me. Whatever it was, I am grateful that it did.
One of the first challenges was to write a Western and that made me want to hide in a corner. I don’t do Westerns. Don’t watch them, don’t read them, don’t like them. How on Earth was I going to write one, then? Well, I had to, didn’t I? I’d signed up for the challenge and I had to produce something and it had to be decent in order to count. I also had to write a romantic poem and I didn’t do romance, either. The result was... interesting. My Western wouldn’t win any awards, but it was an acceptable piece. My romantic poem ended up as romantic comedy and placed First in its category for that week.
I had all sorts of prompts and genres thrown at me, some way out of my comfort zone, and I kept on writing. Item by item I learned that I could still do it, I did still have a hidden creative flow. I was still a writer. When I look back at the pieces I have created this year, I am surprised with and pleased about what I have done. They are not all masterpieces – far from it – but I have done pretty well.
Now, I am not saying you should wait for a big event like Game of Thrones to help you overcome a writer’s block. There are plenty of challenges out there. For example, I also entered "I Write in August-September-October" [ASR]. But you don’t need to sign up for anything in order to challenge yourself. You could pick an entirely different genre to write in. You could try out a new poetry form, or if you usually write longer pieces you can have a go at flash fiction. I have done both of these in 2016 and found the challenge to be an enjoyable one.
There are times when I still feel rusty. Yet I also have pieces where I wonder how I ever managed to write those, in a good way, because they show a progress from what I have created before.
It’s taught me that writer’s block can be overcome. It may not feel like it when you are stuck in the middle of it, but you will write again. All it takes is finding a method that works for you, and that may take several attempts, but eventually you will find the one that unleashes your creativity. Even when you are not writing, you’re still a writer. So don’t give up on your inner voice.
Good luck!
NaNoKit
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Action/Adventure: December 14, 2016 Issue [#8028]
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