Sunday 5th February

I reported a few blogs ago that I was suffering from writers block, and boy, was I.  It seemed as if whatever I was writing was going nowhere, maybe it was me but everything I touched seemed to turn to, well what exactly is the opposite of gold – mould?  Or rusty pig-iron, maybe.  In any case for the last few weeks, ever since Christmas really, I have been in the doldrums as far as writing is concerned.  I had started a second novel about a year ago, and had written what was in effect a long short story; too long for a short story, but far too short to stand on its own.  I had tried fleshing it out, but that just felt like unnecessary padding, so I tried to think about what would happen to the story further on down the line, after the crisis had been reached.  I tried at least three scenarios, but in each the writing seemed flat and forced, because of course, the story really had nowhere else to go.

So, I shelved that, even though I did think that some of the writing was quite good.  Just after new year I started another venture, and a different genre altogether.  It went quite well for a few days until I realised that I was writing absolute drivel, and was way out of my depth.  So, I stopped, put it away and actually stopped writing for a few days, except for this blog.  How could I let you my little audience down.

Then at writing class, last week it suddenly came to me, how to proceed with the long short story I had written for most of last year.  And that was to have the same story told by the four characters in the family.  Not a totally original idea I will admit, but maybe one which would work in this case, because of course, as what I had written was already a first person narrative, and what was now glaringly obvious was that whereas we knew exactly what Jane, my heroine, was thinking, we didn’t have a clue as to either the thoughts or the motivation of the others.

So, with new resolve I have spent a few days going over in my mind the different ideas, and ways of writing it, and then yesterday I put pen to paper.  And after a hesitant start it seemed to work, I could see how the thing would shape up; and good or crap as the writing might eventually turn out to be, I was actually writing again, and even better enjoying it.  So writers block is removed not by driving straight into it, or even by driving around it, but my going back and looking at it from a different angle.