Louis L’Amour, best-selling author of more than 100 books, had a
\nsimple method for overcoming Writer’s Block.<\/p>\n
I use it too and find it work well.<\/p>\n
He said, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow
\nuntil the faucet is turned on.<\/p>\n
“You can sit and look at a page for a long time and nothing will
\nhappen. Start writing and it will.”<\/p>\n
If you look around, many of the most successful and productive
\nauthors essentially used the same method to keep the juices and
\nwords flowing.<\/p>\n
Georges Simenon, author of over 500 books, said he used a small
\nvocabulary so he wouldn\u2019t have to get up from his desk to consult
\na dictionary. His goal was to keep his butt in the chair in front
\nof his typewriter and not be distracted by anything.<\/p>\n
My personal writing hero, Isaac Asimov, also wrote more than 500
\nbooks. His secret? Asimov wrote 7 days a week, usually for 8 to
\n10 hours a day or more.<\/p>\n
I remember Stephen King in an interview once saying he wrote
\nevery day except Christmas and his birthday.<\/p>\n
A common excuse for not writing is that the writer says he does
\nnot feel inspired; the muse has not struck. To me this is the
\nheight of absurdity.<\/p>\n
In his book “On Writing Well,” William Zinsser said: “The
\nprofessional writer who waits for inspiration is fooling himself.
\nHe is also going broke.”<\/p>\n
Another writer — I think it was Joe Haldeman — put it this way
\n(and I am paraphrasing):<\/p>\n
“The idea of not writing because you don’t feel like it is
\nridiculous. If I work in the chicken plant, and I don’t feel like
\ngoing to the chicken plant, do I not go to the chicken plant? Of
\ncourse I go.”<\/p>\n
You may not have the muse at your side, but write anyway.
\nRemember this old Caribbean saying: “Every day is not a catching
\nday, but every day is a fishing day.”<\/p>\n
I also use another technique for never having Writer’s Block,
\nwhich Isaac Asimov advocated.<\/p>\n
He said (and again, I am paraphrasing): “Always have multiple
\nprojects. That way, when you get stuck on Project A, instead of
\nnot being able to write, simply put it aside and move to Project
\nB, which keeps you fresh and energized.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Louis L’Amour, best-selling author of more than 100 books, had a simple method for overcoming Writer’s Block. I use it too and find it work well. He said, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. “You can sit and look at a page for a long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1565"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1570,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions\/1570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}