Any Other Authors on Here? I Desperately Need Advice!!!!
 

I'm an aspiring author. Currently, I'm writing a short story collection with one of my favorite authors/friend. I've hit the proverbial writer's block wall, and was wondering if there were any other authors on here that could possibly give me some advice on how to overcome it. I have 7 months to write 6 short stories in order to meet our publication date in December! I'm desperate and am cramming for time. Any advice would be appreciated!!!

Re: Any Other Authors on Here? I Desperately Need Advice!!!!
 

what i typically do when i hit a block is just write 1 page. can be about the story you're currently working on, or something completely different. can be complete garbage. just write anything, then take a break and come back after a couple hours.

idk if that works for other people, but it helps me to un-jumble the mess going on in my head that's causing the block.

edit: if that doesn't work i leave it alone for the day and let tomorrow me deal with it LOL

Re: Any Other Authors on Here? I Desperately Need Advice!!!!
 

Intentionally write characters that you don't like.
Write things your characters definitely would not do.

Re: Any Other Authors on Here? I Desperately Need Advice!!!!
 

Leave time and writing out of it, get out of comfort and seek new life experiences, trespass yourself a bit (enter that one shop you have no interest in, hunt frogs on a rainy day idk). Point is you'll get back with something without knowing it.

Also would be best to know where exactly the hang-up happens. I prefer beginnings, you might prefer endings. Maybe start there. Just get creative with the story shape; start wherever, lead wherever. Truth is, some just call a hundred page worth of midpoint character exploration a "short story", so you might want to loosen the notion of the format itself.

Not an author, but I do author.

Re: Any Other Authors on Here? I Desperately Need Advice!!!!
 

That's a great advice actually!

Re: Any Other Authors on Here? I Desperately Need Advice!!!!
 

I second this too.

"Motivation" does not exist, but there are ways to help yourself get out of a rut. There is evidence in neuroscience literature that suggests that clearing your mind and letting it wander (stimulating your Default Mode Network), or otherwise disengaging from writing and taking a break to do something else, are great ways to boost creativity and reignite your desire to express yourself.

Creativity comes from the blending and reconfiguring of mental schema. Unique experiences give you opportunities to reinterpret, reroute, and reappropriate information in the context of the larger cognitive system. Doing something novel or weird allows you to weave another thread through the tapestry of your mind, resulting in the construction of new mental associations. This is called "insight."

Insight is often an exciting feeling and can help get you back to the keyboard in a good mood.

EDIT: This is the basis of "shower thoughts", if you've ever heard of that. I often come up with my best ideas when I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep :)

Re: Any Other Authors on Here? I Desperately Need Advice!!!!
 

you can intentionally set aside a responsible block of time in which you don't do any writing at all, so that you don't have to feel dread at the deadline because you know you'll have enough time when you come back to it

or you can force yourself to write through the writer's block, either by powering on or writing something completely unrelated and then sort of transitioning back towards your main goal

depends on the kind of person you are what's gonna work best for you

PS get inspired by your environment

Re: Any Other Authors on Here? I Desperately Need Advice!!!!
 

Now, are you pantsing or plotting?

Pantsing (what I do) is where you write it on the fly, where in you literally use the phrase "I fly by the seat of my pants". In one instance, I used an AI chatbot that acted as an TTRPG game to plot a light novel (with a draft of it done already).

For my writing, I use LibreOffice Writer as my software (VibreOffice for Vim keybinds), if you were wondering.

If you do pants, get some inspiration from whatever it is that you do. What are you thinking at that time? Now, write it in the eyes of your character doing the exact same thing. What is said character thinking at the time. That's what I do, since I tend to do First Person POV instead of third person (with exception to a fanfic I wrote similar to one by GrandLeviathan, a well known fanfic writer for the Hololive community on AO3 and Fanfiction).