The Opposite of Writer's Block?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by dadioflex

If it doesn't hurt you're not doing it right.

Must be good then.

[mjhudston]

To be honest im seriously jelous now. I havenet touched any of my stories in years and years!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by mjhudston

To be honest im seriously jelous now. I havenet touched any of my stories in years and years!

WTH you waiting on????

[Lazybones]

I use NaNoWriMo as an opportunity to take a break from whatever novel/series I'm working on and play with whatever weird idea pops into my mind. I also have a journal where I jot down ideas for new novels; sometimes just working out some of the practical obstacles to a plot concept on paper helps take some of the seductive edge off those ideas that just pop into your brain when you're working on another project.

[Steven Lake]

To me the opposite of Writer's Block is Writer's Overload where you have too bloody much in your head and fingers too slow to write it all down before your brain explodes. lol.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

To me the opposite of Writer's Block is Writer's Overload where you have too bloody much in your head and fingers too slow to write it all down before your brain explodes. lol.

Zombie delight.

[Deidre Blue]

I could only DREAM of having this problem, lol! As it is, each project of mine takes so much time from conception to completion, just because I have to let ideas percolate for a really long time. Count yourself as one of the lucky ones. As someone else mentioned though, I would be careful of it becoming a situation where you're really great at starting stuff and not so great at finishing it. Other than that...ride the wave!

[Steven Lake]

Deidre, yeah, that's gotten to be my case now too. I used to have ideas exploding in my mind all the time. So many in fact that I had trouble getting them down fast enough. or in a coherent way. Now I have to go through a ritual of "checking in" to the world before I start my writing and blocking out all external distractions before I start writing. I remember a famous author once said that something like this would happen, and they were totally write. I don't remember their exact quote but it was something along the lines of "When you begin, the ideas and words will gush from you like a spring of water. But as you mature and the more you write, the longer and more in depthly you will have to live in the world before you can write about it."

I've somewhat reached that stage where I have to live in a world for a while before I can write anything about it. I think it involves how you "see" your world. I'm also fairly certain that writers block is simply failure by the writer to fully see their world. It's like writing about your family. The better you know them the better you're able to write about them.

[morriss003]

Originally Posted by Nancy Fulda

This is a very familiar scenario to me.

The new ideas are always shinier and easier to write because you haven't worked yourself far enough into the story to get mired in the plot.

I had to laugh at this. So true.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by HistoryWes

Aye, there's the rub. I jot down ideas, write out an outline, and sometimes even start writing until the new idea just runs out of steam. That way I can go back and concentrate on the story I was originally working on. More than once though, I just kept on writing until the new story was done.

How long did you take you from the original idea to completed story to write "His Robot Girlfriend" Wes? It and the sequel both seem to hang together quite well, and I can't help but think there was a lot of background work before hand to insure they run smoothly.

[crich70]

I've heard the OP's experience called "Worldbuilder's Disease" in one of my writing books. It's easy to get bogged down in background data and not get to the actual story very quickly. Which isn't to say that that stuff isn't important or can't suggest stories, but it can get out of hand in short order I understand.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Deidre, yeah, that's gotten to be my case now too. I used to have ideas exploding in my mind all the time. So many in fact that I had trouble getting them down fast enough. or in a coherent way. Now I have to go through a ritual of "checking in" to the world before I start my writing and blocking out all external distractions before I start writing. I remember a famous author once said that something like this would happen, and they were totally write. I don't remember their exact quote but it was something along the lines of "When you begin, the ideas and words will gush from you like a spring of water. But as you mature and the more you write, the longer and more in depthly you will have to live in the world before you can write about it."

I've somewhat reached that stage where I have to live in a world for a while before I can write anything about it. I think it involves how you "see" your world. I'm also fairly certain that writers block is simply failure by the writer to fully see their world. It's like writing about your family. The better you know them the better you're able to write about them.

Hemingway said it well too. An author needs a built in s**t detector. Perhaps it's the development of such that brings the flow of ideas into a controllable stream rather than being a gushing torrent. I mean I understand in the old days editors would get what came to be known as "Shaggy God stories" quite often. New writers would get what they thought was a new idea, but was really a shop worn or even cliche'd idea that had been run into the ground.