Queereaders discussion

Hey everyone, I am having a hell of a time. I am a terrifying number of words into an ongoing fanfic series, and I've just hit wall after wall after wall. I've been able to push through slowly, but at tremendous cost to my schedule (my hope is to release weekly, and I only have three weeks more of overhead before things catch up with me).

I've been trying to find a solution to the problem, and while I've gotten the advice to "just rest" several times, I'm... less that convinced of the efficacy. Resting, doing other things, hasn't helped the block any.

Do you guys have any advice? And, to be clear, if the answer really is to rest, jam it down my throat - but I really hope there's a solution that doesn't revolve around me sitting on my hands...

You have my sympathies. I know from my own experience that writer's block is a very vague term used for any loss of motivation, focus, ability to plan/organize, etc that may have its roots in a number of things: ADHD, anxiety, depression, stress, trauma, burn-out. So an one-size-fits-all solution may not work.

Rest is always good. Physical activity, if you are able (I have cancer, so I get it if you aren't), might help. Re-organizing your writing space/environment or re-evaluating your writing habits and also the demands/expectations you're placing on yourself. Getting into new sources of inspiration. Revisiting old sources of inspiration. Therapy. If you think it's ADHD, anxiety or depression-related, you might want to look into getting on medication.

I can't tell you for sure what will work for you, only offer you my support and best wishes that you find something that helps you out. <3

Oh gosh, yeah, I am pretty convinced given the symptoms that I have ADHD and I've never been medicated for it. I remember horrifying one of my friends when I told them that...

Expectations are my enemy. I know I am very hard on myself, and I've only gotten a little better at it over the years (thanks to a lot of care and therapy), but it certainly plays a role. As far as rearranging writing areas, I do my best to shuffle around, but sometimes it feels like nothing quite lines up...

Is it weird to say that sometimes I wish I could find a truly comfortable writing position lying down, just spread out and get cozy? I've had mixed results, but as it happens a wood-tile floor is too hard to lay on and a bed is too soft for writing on a notebook to really quite click...

Some random thoughts 😁

• Spitball ideas in a different document: write down random thoughts and see where they lead. If you're stuck on a plot point, spitball as many solutions as you can (doesn't matter if they're dumb!) and see if any of them jog other thoughts free. Keep coming back to this other document and adding to it / re-reading it. Ideas you had that seemed stupid last week may spark something useful this week.

• Walk / go out / move around (like CJ says, if you can). Take the issue you're dealing with away from your writing environment and see if that changes how you see it. Talk to yourself out loud: talk the issue through. Imagine a conversation with someone else about the issue. If you have a willing participant near at hand, have the conversation with them! But if not, talk to yourself, or "talk to" one of your characters about the problem you're having with them – and articulate their responses out loud. (You'll look deranged, but honestly, it can help...)

• If you're on a roll with any part of what you're writing but need to stop for the day (or for any reason), note down how you would have continued had you been able to. Four or five quick bullet-point notes of what's currently in your head, but not yet on the page, are all you need. These notes are the jump-start for your next day's writing: they get you back in the zone faster, remind you where you were and what you were doing.

• Invert something. If it's a character scene and you're struggling with it, invert one of the characters' moods (they're happy? Make one of them angry). If it's an entire character you're not sure about, change their gender / age / sexuality / background and see what that does to them. If it's a plot issue, change something – throw a spanner in the works. Add a difficulty in the way of your characters achieving their plot ambition. See if the difficulty spurs you to come up with a solution. (And you can always then backtrack if you decide you don't like the vibe here – but it may still have helped knock something loose.)

• Mini-breaks from the writing. Set a timer for 30 mins and every time it rings, get up, move out of the area, do something else for 3 mins. You may find this frustrating and it may interrupt the flow – but that can sometimes help, by making you eager to get back to it. I'm no expert on ADHD but I also wondered whether by deliberately incorporating some "licensed" distraction time, you might get some needed variation into the writing process with less associated guilt 😉

• You said expectations are your enemy; and you're also working to a self-imposed schedule – with deadlines! That's a lot to deal with. Remember they're your expectations and it's your schedule and you're absolutely allowed to change things. You can take a mini-hiatus, define it clearly, make it part of the plan. If you want to say "I'm taking the summer off to rest my head", you absolutely can. In the medium-to-long term it might really help.

Best of luck!

I have found that inspiration tends to strike me either when I'm in the bathroom (showers are apparently when the muses whisper in my ears) or when I'm not supposed to be writing! I've gotten in trouble more than a few times for scrawling on notebooks at work...

I'm going to keep in mind all of your advice, it's been very helpful to go through so far! I admit last night I was able to get a tremendous amount done after setting aside a huge block of time, taking 2.5mg of an edible, and just letting things flow. I think once I unshackled myself from my expectations and critical eye quite so much, I was able to be and feel a lot freer.

Needless to say, I don't know if that's something I can replicate often, but it was a good Proof of Concept that also pointed at what seemed to be a core, if not the core, reason for blockage...

(and yes the deadline is killer, it's not something I'd normally do but I've been feeling gradually more anxious to put things out quicker just to etch away at a project that, even at an accelerated pace, take years to finish!)

Jennifer wrote: "Hey everyone, I am having a hell of a time. I am a terrifying number of words into an ongoing fanfic series, and I've just hit wall after wall after wall. I've been able to push through slowly, but..."

Do literally anything else but write. Try to push thoughts away from writing and eventually the ideas will flow to you when they sense your trying to push them away.

I'm realizing now that I botched the spelling of "Writer's"

Oop.

I'm also in a writers block Its killing meeee.

Hi, Jennifer.
I just found your post and know I'm a bit late and really hope you've broken through your block. Guy had some terrific advice for you.

The only thing I can add is about your issue finding a comfortable writing position, that you find a position but it's not one that can support the actual writing. Have you tried recording your thoughts from a position you feel good in? It would be difficult, especially at first, to actually write something the way you want it, but you could start by recording your ideas and then writing them when your more in the mood to type. Once you got comfortable with recording you could dictate more detailed ideas.

Brianna, if you haven't checked out Guy's post above, it's worth reading.

Never really been a problem for me and I've been writing all my life