On Writers Block

I sat down to write and completely blanked. Nothing. No ideas, no inspiration, can’t even remember what happened five minutes ago. This has been a problem for the past 3 weeks. 

                There are a lot of folks out there who try to help this sort thing. Ideas to overcome“writers block”  or lists of writing prompts to get you going. Stuff like that. I even found a list of blog post ideas recently. You’re supposed to use them when you don’t know what to blog about.

                And you know what? Sometimes you just have to write.

It can be horrible writing. It can make you depressed that you are actually trying to write about that topic and no one would ever enjoy reading it because you don't even like writing it. BUT you are writing. You have to slog through the slow times, the terrible writing, and the staring at the blank Word document for extended periods of time in order to get around to the good stuff.

You have to be able to write poorly in order to write excellently. Get the bad out, so there is room for the good to develop.

Get out there and JUST WRITE!

 (You may be wondering how I keep publishing while I can't seem to write. I write in bursts, three or four posts at a time, then schedule them. I'm often at least a month ahead on posts, and have a file of potential post ideas, outlines, and quick writes,  just in case this sort of thing happens.)

I was concerned about my reading...

This summer as I've been reading and recording the books I've been reading, I became slightly concerned with the amount of books I was reading. You see, I love reading and I read a lot. But according to my calculations, I am behind for the year.

Yes, I have not read as much this year as I have in years past. And it worries me. Odd, yes, but reading is something I love to do and if I allow myself to stop doing things I love, I become a very different, not so great, person.

Then a lightbulb went off in my head. I have been reading a lot more than is showing up on my books page.

As of this month, I have edited (which means I read them entirely) 34 books and papers on fivver. While some of them were 2 or three page papers, some of them were unpublished novels of over 100 pages.

So, while I feel like I'm behind with my reading, I think I really am not. I haven't kept track of page numbers on fiverr, but it should be near 1,000 pages in Word. The next step for me is to keep going, so I can build an awesome portfolio. Maybe one day I will read for a living!