Forget the Puppeteer

For about a year, I've been struggling with writer's block and getting depressed about not writing. I've tried a few things to kick start my muse, but alas she was being rather stubborn. One of the things I thought would help tremendously was a move to the country. And indeed I think it's helping but again, things just don't happen over night. It's taken a month of living her to find "relax mode" where I'm not stressing. So let's talk writer's block.

I attribute a lot of factors to writer's block. Lack of time comes to mind first. I have one of those personalities that has a hard time saying no to folks. I think the only cure for lack of time is learning to say no. Being in the country will help with that as I'm no longer around for people to find me and ask of me those tasks that require time and effort. Yay for the country!!

Stress is a huge factor. Some of the things on my plate require me to be the lead person, the one in charge making decisions. So -- I've actually found a replacement for one of these jobs and that will relieve a lot of stress. Yay for being in the country where doing this particular job was going to be very hard to accomplish.

But - there's another leading contributor to writer's block and this is one I think others will relate to. When your characters flat stop talking to you. I was getting so mad at my characters for their total lace of cooperation. Why would you do that to moi? I'm your mother after all. I created you. Dang it, but they were all being recalcitrant teenagers. I was spending so much time blaming them that I failed to ask a vital question. "Why were they not talking?"

And then I had an epiphany. They weren't talking because I was treating them like puppets. I needed to forget being the puppeteer for a change and go back to basics. I needed to start digging into their character development, they psychological make-up. Who were they and how would they react based on their backgrounds. The minute I did that with one of my more stubborn heroines, she literally broke down. She cried a few tears and then began talking to me. She began reacting correctly to the stimuli around her and those reactions gave way to a whole new direction for the scene. I'd been stuck on this one scene for almost six months. I'm feeling relief, gratitude and a serious creative need to write. Whoo hoo!!!!

The story I'm currently diving into is a sequel to Julia's Golden Eagle. Will Stanton begged for a story of his own and he's finally getting one. Might take me a year to finish but at least it's on track again.