Filed under: Humor, Society, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Communion of Dreams, Facebook, humor, jim downey, promotion, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writer's block, writing
A friend posted this little aphorism to my profile on Facebook:
Writer’s block: when your imaginary friends refuse to talk to you.
My response:
Hmm. Pithy, but not sure I agree.
For me, being blocked isn’t about the technical stuff – dialog, description, understanding motivations. That’s all pretty straight-forward.
Rather, it tends to happen when I am trying to see the whole arc, and how a particular scene will fit into the developing narrative. There’s always a balance between knowing that you want to get from point A to point B on the ‘map’ of your story, and then working on the scene-by-scene movement. It’s been described as being like driving at night: you may know your destination a 100 miles away, but your headlights only illuminate the quarter-mile of the road ahead at a time. Being blocked is like having your headlights fail.
Jim Downey
Oh, and if you’re not at least following me or the Communion of Dreams page on Facebook … well, you should. I’m obviously brilliant and share a lot of interesting links and observations about the world there. Just think of what you’re missing! 😉
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