hidama asked: How do you get over Writer's Block?
I suffer with it all the time. The only way to get over it is to work anyway. For me, the thing that’s causing the writer’s block in the first place is a fear that whatever is circulating through my head is too stupid to put down or incorrect somehow so I just go on not writing and looking for something “better” and that winds up creating this awful creative bottleneck that I get stuck in. I think the absolute BEST cure for writers block is to never take oneself too seriously. If you’re comfortable looking like an idiot, you fear nothing and ideas come a lot more freely that way. Also, writing every day helps… writing begets more writing and not writing does produces lack of writing. A body in motion tends to remain in motion and a body at rest tends to remain at rest, so to speak. Consider this: http://misterpeace.com/post/2142172725 and also click on the link in the quotation for the full interview. Nick Cave is always brilliant and he’s right about the notion of “good writing” and “bad writing”. You could be hung up forever trying to do something “good”. It’s useless because good and bad in art are just subjective terms, relative to the experience and taste of the reader. Knowing that all brilliant writers are considered garbage by some and all “crap” writers are considered meaningful to SOMEBODY somewhere was a minor revelation to me, in terms of creativity. I still find that concept very freeing because it lets you shake off the “Am I good?” questioning you put yourself through, which you shouldn’t because it’s nonsense anyway, and just dive right in without apprehension. People aren’t going to like your stuff and you’re not going to write a masterwork, so who cares? I just write what I feel like writing. I can always tell when I’m being too nervous and thinking too hard when my output dwindles to a trickle (like it has in the past few months) versus when I’m cranking it out on a daily basis. The trick is just trusting yourself and making the words come out whether you particularly like them or not. Dave Barry once said that if he only wrote when he had a brilliant idea, he would write two columns a year and that pretty much says it all. I just have to tell myself: go ahead and “suck”… it’s all relative anyway so just like the work in spite of itself. That it exists and you’re sharing it is the best part.
