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    How to Kick Your Writer's Block To The Curb
    How to Kick Your Writer's Block To The Curb
    How to Kick Your Writer's Block To The Curb
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    How to Kick Your Writer's Block To The Curb

    By Christina Hamlett

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    About this ebook

    Who told your muse she could go on vacation? While one could say that hard-working muses are just as entitled as the rest of us to relax, refresh and recharge, why does their absence always seem to coincide with publishing deadlines and the inability to squeeze forth a single clever thought, turn of phrase or imaginative plot twist. Writing is--and always will be--a solitary craft but never so lonely as when you realize you've been staring at a blank page or blinking cursor for two hours and worrying that your creative wellspring has suddenly run dry. Fear not! Within these chapters are tips and tricks for unclogging your mental logjam and getting your ideas and words to once more flow.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristina Hamlett
    Release dateJan 3, 2018
    ISBN9781386130956
    How to Kick Your Writer's Block To The Curb
    Author

    Christina Hamlett

    Former actress and theatre director Christina Hamlett is the author of 42 books, 174 stage plays, 5 optioned feature films, and squillions of articles and interviews that appear online and in trade publications worldwide. She is also a script consultant for stage and screen as well as a professional ghostwriter. For further information, visit her website at www.authorhamlett.com

    Read more from Christina Hamlett

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      Book preview

      How to Kick Your Writer's Block To The Curb - Christina Hamlett

      Cover Design

      by Christina Hamlett

      Cover Image

      By Lorelyn Medina (123rf.com)

      DEDICATION

      To one of my dearest and most prolific writer friends, Peter S. Fischer (Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, Ellery Queen and squillions of other television shows I couldn’t get enough of.) Even after he left Hollywood, his fertile imagination had no intention of retiring. Every time he writes a new book for The Hollywood Murder Mystery Series (and there have been many so far!), yours truly is honored to give each manuscript its first read and to tell him what I think.

      Peter also gifted me with something that is as treasured as his friendship—his 50+ year old manual typewriter on which he typed all of the original Columbo and Murder, She Wrote scripts.

      I only hope with the passage of time that I will do it justice.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Chapter 1

      Snappy One-Liners

      The Fortune Cookie

      Who Said It

      Call Me Ishmael

      Closing Statements

      TV Teasers

      # Twitterpated

      Truth or Tabloid?

      Classified Intel

      Chapter 2

      The Blog! The Blog!

      If Inspector Javert Blogged

      Twenty Questions

      Poetic License

      Lyrically Yours

      A Storied Past

      Coming to Closure

      Imaginary Friends

      Room for Improvement

      Chapter 3

      He Said, She Said

      Into the Woods

      What Would Ashley Say?

      Rehearsing on Paper

      Getting Emotional

      Getting to Know You

      The Color of the Sky

      Casting Call

      To Fib Or Not To Fib

      Chapter 4

      Room With A View

      Where You Hang Your Hat

      Who Lives Here

      The Unexpected Visitor

      The Roomies

      The Boxes

      Home Again

      Changing the Locks

      Possessions

      Chapter 5

      Me, Myself and I

      Tell Me About Yourself

      It’s All Relative

      Coulda/Woulda/Shoulda

      Keeping Resolutions

      Letter to Myself

      Decisions, Decisions

      Bad Fit Fads

      A Matter of Faith

      Chapter 6

      1 Picture=1,000 Words

      Fine Dining

      Having Our Say

      They’ve Got a Secret

      Roadside Curiosities

      I’m Thinking, I’m Thinking

      Gone But Not Forgotten

      Now Arriving at the Gate

      Wish You Were Here

      Chapter 7

      Here There Be Monsters

      Spare Parts

      Hideous Hybrids

      Jane Eyre’s Twilight

      Captain Ahab, Alien Chaser

      The Mummy’s Great Expectations

      Home Alone

      Skin-Deep Beauty

      Defrosted

      Chapter 8

      Lawyering Up

      Before I Thee Wed

      A Shoddy Environment

      When Z’s Add Up

      Identity Theft

      What’s Mine Is Mine

      A Bard By Any Other Name

      Pretty Liar

      Bearly Plausible

      Chapter 9

      Schenectady Idea Service 

      The Story-Starters

      One Size Fits Everyone

      Finding The 25th Hour

      Epilogue: Become the Block-Buster

      You Were Meant To Be

      About the Author

      INTRODUCTION

      You fail only if you stop writing.

      -Ray Bradbury

      Whether or not you have ever aspired to be a published author, the mental paralysis known as writer’s block can likely trace its origins to elementary school.

      The first day back from summer vacation, how many of you had teachers who gave the not-so-original assignment to write an essay about how you spent your time during that three-month break? Although you remembered every detail and may have even talked about it incessantly with all your friends, the problem was channeling those memories into something that would actually look good on paper and get you an A.

      Compounding the problem was the angst that your summer experience—even if it was well written—might not stack up in the coolness equation against your classmates. They went on a family vacation to Machu Picchu. They learned how to play Lacrosse. They started a community garden for a homeless shelter.

      You watched movies, walked the dog and collected Pokémon cards.

      When you stood up to read your essay, were you nervous it would be to the deafening sound of crickets?

      How can you even motivate yourself to get started when you’re already dreading how the finished product will be received? The fear of the blank page—or the blank computer screen—looms larger with each tick of the clock and it doesn’t get any easier into adulthood.

      Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you could just come up with the perfect first sentence.

      Except that there isn’t one. Further, the longer you keep waiting for the perfect first sentence to materialize, the longer it will take to ever write the second sentence. And the third. And so forth.

      Writer’s block is defined as being (1) unable to think of what to write, and (2) unable to think of how to proceed if you do have something to write. Inherent in both of these conditions is the twofold issue of commitment and consequence.

      Some people work better under the pressure of deadlines that have been imposed by others. If, for instance, they have two weeks to prepare a written report for their boss, they’ll be burning the midnight oil on Sunday because they know they can’t show up empty-handed on Monday morning. Their next job appraisal, in fact, may depend on how well they manage time-sensitive assignments.

      Others freak out and suffer from performance anxiety that, no matter what they do, it won’t be their best effort. Unlike the person who does absolutely nothing for two weeks and then races to the finish line, there are those who will spend every waking moment of those same two weeks stressing about each word and each sentence and making it more agonizing than a root canal. Sound familiar?

      When the stakes are high and the timeline for completion has been set by an external force—a boss, a teacher, a publisher—it’s critical to commit to the task or suffer a real (or perceived) consequence. While in most cases the worst that can happen is simply being asked to do it over and fix any problem verbiage and/or structure, one’s sense of worry can be blown out of proportion if it courts any possible stigma of personal rejection.

      But what about the scenario of an individual who has always talked about writing a novel or a screenplay someday ... and yet has a boatload of excuses as to why s/he hasn’t started it? The difference is that if there’s no outside pressure, no deadline and no expectation of a deliverable, there’s also no risk, no incentive to move a project forward, and no danger of being excluded or ostracized.  Even if the first tentative steps have been taken to get an idea out of one’s head and into printed words, writer’s block is still likely to manifest in the following ways:

      Self-doubt. It seemed like such a blockbuster idea when I began but now it just feels stupid.

      Boredom. I’m getting tired of my characters. I wish they could just finish this book by themselves.

      Mental Cul de Sac. I’ve led my plot into a dead end and have no idea how to get out of it.

      Distractions. "Oooooh, cat videos! I think I’ll watch these for a while so

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