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    Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block?: QuitBooks for Writers, #4
    Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block?: QuitBooks for Writers, #4
    Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block?: QuitBooks for Writers, #4
    Ebook120 pages2 hours

    Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block?: QuitBooks for Writers, #4

    By Becca Syme

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    About this ebook

    Writer's block.

     

    Not the world's sexiest topic, right? In fact, I have no doubt this book will go largely unnoticed, because let's face it, no one wants to talk about this. Some people don't even believe it exists. (Those people are wrong, by the way…) But that's also why it's so important to understand.

     

    Writer's block is basically the whispered sin in the halls of authordom.

     

    But is it?

     

    I'm an author and a coach of authors, and I hope you'll join me, if you think this book is for you. If you struggle with writer's block, or think you do, then at least take a look inside and see if this book is for you.

     

    I think it might be.

     

    - Becca

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHummingbird Books
    Release dateMay 19, 2020
    ISBN9781393168041
    Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block?: QuitBooks for Writers, #4

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      Book preview

      Dear Writer, Are You In Writer's Block? - Becca Syme

      ONE

      The Good News

      I live in the fastest growing micropolois in the country, according to the US Census Bureau. Thirty years ago, my neighborhood didn’t exist, and my house was in the middle of a wagon trail.

      You can still see the trail, on the other side of the neighborhood, where there will soon be houses instead of fields.

      Of course, living in a growing city has its upsides. Not many towns of our size have a big international airport with direct flights to most major cities or a major medical center or a Costco. There’s a reason they call us Bozeangeles.

      But there are downsides, too. Like the constant road construction. My side of town has had every major intersection under some form of construction for more than a year.

      Many of the locals are unhappy with the growing pains. They might not mind the Costco, but they hate the traffic and the little annoyances. They put passive aggressive bumper stickers on their dirty vehicles that say things like, Did You Move Here To Be In A Hurry?

      To which I want to say… um, what if the answer is yes, Roger? Because it might be.

      That gut-check of why did you move here only works if the real answer is, you’re right, Roger, I should slow down. Otherwise it does nothing.

      Why matters.

      For my part, I’ll gladly leave ten minutes early for appointments if it means we might get a Trader Joe’s someday.

      That’s how I see it in my head. The road construction is worth it. The why is the payoff.

      But for me, even as a writing coach, the why is always the payoff. I’m fairly obsessed with why.

      I’ve been coaching in some form for more than fourteen years, and specifically in my job as a coach-of-writers, I’ve coached thousands of writers, individually (one-on-one). I call myself a success coach because I am specifically interested in studying the alignment of what makes people successful. That’s the why. I’m just as interested in my never-written-a-book clients as I am in my seven-figure-author clients because everyone has a why. Not the motivation that makes them do what they do. More like a reason why. A cause-and-effect why. Their particular path to success. That’s what interests me the most. Studying what successful paths have in common. I’ve done it at the Master’s level, and on the individual level. This whole topic of success is my obsession, because there is nowhere that the reason / why / cause matters more than in determining how success happens.

      In the introduction to my YouTube channel, I say, anyone can tell you what worked for them, and they can say it might not work for you, but they can’t tell you why. I can tell you why.

      And I don’t take it lightly to say that.

      There is a why behind everything. And not just in a big-picture-what-motivates-you kind of way (although that is often the case, as well). In a cause-effect way, as well, and that’s what I deal with the most. Why did something happen, and how can we use that why to fix the problem.

      There was a writer named Carla ¹ who had been referred to me because she’d been struggling in the middle of her book for weeks and I could practically see the writer’s block on her face. She looked stoppered, like a bottle of corked champagne.

      But when I mentioned the phrase writer’s block, she got frustrated. It’s not writer’s block, she said. My writing coach says there’s no such thing.

      Knowing that sometimes, saying Voldemort puts people on edge, I tried a different tactic.

      What does it feel like inside your brain when you try to write the words? I asked.

      I feel… she paused, I don’t know. It’s not a feeling. It’s like I can’t see my way forward. I just don’t know what happens.

      Having been in that exact place myself and made peace with this phrase we seem to hate, I couldn’t help myself asking, And why isn’t that writer’s block?

      Because writer’s block doesn’t exist. My writing coach says it’s just something writers invent to blame when they don’t want to do eat the frog.

      Having heard that phrase before, I knew what she was referring to. The idea that writers who didn’t continue writing were basically allowing their fear of the manuscript (fear of failure/success) to stop them writing, and all they needed to do was just sit down and force themselves to write the words.

      Of course, knowing what I know about the human brain, I have a pretty major problem with that logic, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Back to Carla.

      And have you tried sitting down and making yourself write the words?

      Every day for weeks.

      And what happens when you do? 

      I struggle with every word.

      I paused and reflected some of the language she’d used about not being able to see what happened next. I ended with, What would you normally do, during this time period, if you weren’t trying to force yourself to get words on the page?

      Her face crumpled, and I thought she might cry. But having seen this happen before, I knew… it wasn’t sadness. It was relief. She hadn’t even spoken the words out loud yet, but just the thought of being able to stop all this painful writing and go think about what she wanted to write next brought so much emotion into her eyes, it was visible. Just. The. Thought.

      She said, I’d just go think about it until I figured out what was wrong.

      Then do that, I said.

      So she did. I got an email from her a week later and she had finished the book.

      After weeks of trying to force herself to write when she couldn’t, a little bit of thinking, and she was well on her way.

      If she’d just acknowledged she was blocked and faced it, she would have been on her way to writing weeks before she saw me. But the refusal of another writer to admit (even in the face of evidence to the contrary) that something was legitimately blocking her, even though she clearly wanted to write, had her more blocked than she needed to be.

      I can’t even be frustrated with the attitude, though, because I get why it exists. We’re all very different inside our brains, and in a vacuum, we expect others to be like us.

      The coach who told her, there’s no such thing as writer’s block was like the person who puts the passive-aggressive bumper sticker on their bumper. They never even considered that the inside of someone else’s brain might be different than theirs. What happens if the answer is yes? What if they did move here to be in a hurry? What if writer’s block does exist?

      Those of us who have struggled with writer’s block before know… when the block is genuine (no matter where it comes from), it is impossible to will yourself past it.

      Now, to be fair, there absolutely are mindset attitudes that can keep a writer from writing, and not all non-forward-motion moments in a writer’s life are genuine writer’s block.

      But it’s so important to know the difference.

      So that’s what we’re going to cover in this book. The difference between writer’s block and not. The signs and the sources, the myths. The strategies to overcome.

      This is not primarily a mindset book. I’m not going to be cheerleading you (or guilting you or ordering you) to just sit down and write. There are plenty of other people who do that already.

      But when all the positive thinking in the world won’t get you past your creative block, what do you do?

      That’s what I want to cover here.

      If you’ve read any of my other books, you know I usually start with the bad news. This time, I felt like I needed to flip that script.

      Most of us already know the bad news, which is that writer’s block exists. The good news is, it’s not the guillotine we all fear. It’s just road construction.

      It may not be what we’ve chosen for ourselves, and it’s definitely not the most fun or efficient way to get across town. But in the end, it’s just road construction.

      Anyone can get around road construction. With the right path, the right vehicle, and the right attitude.

      To me, that’s the best

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