How to Write a Book Series - Overcoming Writer's Block
What can you do about writer's block? If the words are not flowing freely in your daily writing session, there are some things you can do to make the words come to you. They will come back to you and forgive you for having so little faith as to think they were gone to Antarctica for a period of extra long hibernation.
Writer's Block is like hibernation.
But words sometimes need periods of hibernation. They are mammals like us. In fact, the first words known to humankind were symbols of our friends, the animals and the elementals. Sometimes, as writers, we need to be forgiving and understanding of words instead of always thinking THEY OWE US SOMETHING!
If you are having a little word clumsiness in your writing life, and words are not cooperating like good children, and they are really getting to be a little unforthcoming and showing signs of haughtiness and unavailability, you have to be the parent. That's right, you are the adult here. You are the one who lives in the flesh and blood world, and you can make them, the words, behave and treat you with graciousness and civility, and you do it by showing the words extra respect!
It's just like the business world, after all! It's just like Customer Service! Only the words are the customers, and you are the helpful attendant-scribe, there to show them all the wonderful things that you can do for them, not the other way around.
Is this really crazy? Well, maybe just a little. But don't listen to me. Listen to the Dictionary. That's it: the big OED is the way to go. Get thee to the Oxford English Dictionary and start sopping up some words into your head.
This is one of the most healing and fascinating experiences any writer can ask for.
It will kick your butt right out of a slump in no time. You will be reaching for a notepad in seconds, because it won't take you long to find, as Emily Dickinson liked to say,
"A word you can lift your hat to!" or "A word that will take off the top of your head!"
You're feeling a little deranged and lackluster as a writer? Can't get past the third sentence and every syllable is like pulling wisdom teeth? Go to the source.
Be with the Force (inverted syntax in the present galaxy.) Words are the most powerful entities, and they will repay you if you honor them with offerings of admiration.
It just works like that. Words are like the parents who tell the child, "Because I said so."
Correcting a writing slump can involve more than an intellectual reading and learning exercise, too. You might actually have to do some physical exercise. Some writers have found that after three or four days of running a few miles each day, they are re-energized in their writing talent. I found it to be true for me with lap swimming. After a few days of swimming six to eight laps per day, I began to experience greater vitality and humor in my daily writing projects.
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