Hi all - First of all, because it's half term next week, there won't be a class. The next class will be the 9th of June.
This week's assignment is to do an exercise to defeat writer's block called 'freewriting'. All that you need to do is to take exactly two minutes to write about something - it could be about how your novel is going or it could be a stream of consciousness in the head of one of your characters. Take some time to prepare for it mentally, and then, when the second hand reaches the twelve, go for it.
What I want you to aim for though is to write as much as possible in two minutes. A prize will be awarded to the writer who manages the most (obviously this is all done on the honour system). You can write it by hand and then transcribe it onto the blog, but don't cheat - no editing allowed afterwards.
So just write - how you feel about your novel, something about the characters, whatever comes into your head: It might end up something like this:
I've got three characters so far and only one of them seems to have come alive perhaps I need to make the others more important but then they're boring so do i really need them maybe I should introduce someone else an antagonist maybe is that how you spell it no matter I mean something more interesting - a new scene? what about the one I've got at the moment in the Forest of Arden, that's really working for me...
OK - below is a precis of what we covered last time:
Defeat writer’s block
It may be that no amount of time or space, no amount of research, no knowledge of one’s subject, plot outline or theme, no help from teachers or self-help guides, and no reading of other novels makes any difference: you simply can’t write.
This is writer’s block, and it may have many causes. One of the most common is psychological. It often affects beginners. Beginning writers often feel that whatever they write isn’t good enough. They feel inadequate. The fact is though that nearly all writers feel inadequate. Philip Roth said: ‘What you develop is… patience with your own crap, really.’ Writers, even those with several novels behind them, often feel doubtful that they can produce another one, and even wonder vaguely how they wrote the others.
But the trick, as Roth implies, is just to write: write whatever comes into your head, no matter how ‘crap’. After a while there will be something there to build on. Eventually something will lead you off in an exciting direction. Writing is the exercise of a muscle that gets more supple the more it is used.
Bearing this in mind – that writing begets writing – another method of defeating writer’s block is to write something that isn’t your novel. Try, for example, alternating non-fiction and fiction writing. Or, if you don’t have any non-fiction projects to hand, try writing a diary, or a blog, or a letter to a friend. These may well suggest something that will have you running back to the novel.
Another method for defeating writer’s block is to do something entirely unrelated. You can play a sport, or do some gardening, or do anything physical. This allows the conscious mind to rest and the subconscious to take over. When you return to your desk you may find that the problems you were experiencing seem less intractable.
Or, if you’re already some way through your novel and it has a stalled feel to it, try changing some fundamental aspect of it. Change your main character’s name, for example, or their sex, or their location.
Or try writing your book non-chronologically. If you’re stuck at a particular place, zip forwards to the next scene that really interests you. In fact, there’s no need to write those intervening scenes if they’re not interesting. Just leave them out. What was it Elmore Leonard said? ‘Leave out that parts that readers tend to skip.’
See you on the 9th,
Gary
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