How I Get Out of the Rut!
I’m working on a book right now: The Monster of Vienna. It’s a great book-to-be with a huge character arc (two of them), boatloads of suspense and an intriguing cat-and-mouse chase. I’m in the chair every day, working on it. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes find myself stuck in a rut. Sometimes the rut is just slow, sloth-like progress. Other times it’s something like a dense brain fog in which all of my ideas scatter like vapor in the mist. I can’t seem to grasp onto any of them. So what do I do? Well, it depends, but there are several methods that work for me when I need to know how to fix writer’s block!
Place
A Change of Scenery
If you’re like me, you sit in the same, or very nearly the same, place every time you write. I sit at my big table in my office. It’s a great space with lots of room to spread out my notebooks and a mug of coffee or tea and a gazillion sticky notes, etc. But sometimes it feels just a little staid. A little too predictable, especially in the conceptual and brainstorming phases of my work.
That’s when getting out to a library or coffee shop can really help. Sometimes a new setting goes hand-in-hand with the free flow of new ideas. Worst case: you get a great cup of coffee or a new book to go.
Into AutoPilot
Have you ever been on a plane or train or in a car and you found that your creative ideas seemed to pour out of you? I have on multiple occasions. There’s actually science behind why this works. It has a lot to do with the same reason some artists drink a lot or use drugs (I don’t recommend either). When we’re doing something active but relatively mindless our “left brain” (the logical, executive portion of our mind) is occupied. That frees up our creative mind to explore.
Dr Shelley Carson, researcher and lecturer at Harvard University, and author of Your Creative Brain, explains that getting into the car and driving can be just the thing to unlock your creativity. Ideally you want quiet roads without lots of traffic or stop lights— things that require your constant focus.
What definitely helps is holding all the information you need in your brain before you reach for the keys. ‘You want to prime what I call your inner repository of your brain with all the information that you might need,’ says Dr Carson. ‘Say you’re writing a book and you’re blocked. Go over as much about your problem as you can, then take a break from it for a while before you go on your ride.
Your brain will start automatically putting things together in what I call the research and development parts of your brain. Then you’re just waiting for the opportunity to bring that into consciousness, which is what the drive is going to provide for you.’
Ganatra, Shilpa. For outside the box ideas, get inside the car. Why driving makes you more creative.
A Change in Schedule
For me, one of the best times for novel ideas and problem-solving is at night. Like really, really late. This is essentially the same concept as the idea above about putting the more logical, executive function of the brain to sleep. As this can happen in a monotonous setting like driving a car on a long, quiet road, it can also happen when we’re really tired.
I usually write during the day. I keep a relatively normal work schedule albeit I might start and end my work day a little later to allow for morning chores. But when I’m in a rut, forcing myself to switch my schedule can be invaluable. This is especially true in a more creative stage of the process such as when I’m trying to decide where the plot should go, or how a character should get out of a given situation.
Inspiration
Warm-Ups
Writers are (or should be) like athletes. I ran cross-country and track in high school and I can tell you that we never went for a run or even did short sprints without first stretching and walking briskly. The human body doesn’t transition well from inertia to full exertion. Ligaments tear, muscles cramp and then you’re out of the game.
In writing, the consequences of not doing some form of warm-up may not be quite so severe, but it can mean never getting off the block. Sitting there for hours in a brain fog. And frankly, that leaves you out of the game too.
What constitutes a warm-up will vary from writer to writer. You’ll have to give different things a try and find what works for you. And if one thing ceases to be effective, try again and find a new way of exercising your writing muscles. Here are some tried and true options:
- Doodling – literally drawing shapes
- Free-form writing – pick a subject either about something in your book, a character or scene you’re working on, or something from your life and just write for 30 minutes or so
- Rereading/ editing the prior section – some authors read over the prior chapter that they wrote, sometimes making minor edits to get their head in the right space. (Avoid major edits or you’ll never move on and will find yourself in the same place the next time you sit down to write.)
- Writing prompts – Follow people who put out writing prompts (or make your own) and allot a specific amount of time to work on it before diving into your regular writing.
The 5 Senses
Many authors swear by a certain playlist for each novel. They’ll create a virtual soundtrack that fits the mood of their work and gets them into the story. Others love to have a certain candle lit or a mug of their favorite tea so that the fragrance and the warmth relaxes them and helps them to focus. If you feel most in tune with your writing by having a character or storyboard that you’ve created and hung on the wall, do so.
Other writers like to spend some time working out before writing. Not only does this relax them, it also helps them to de-stress and to get some perspective about other things that tend to occupy our minds when we need to be working.
Sensitive to External Stimuli
On the flip side of the coin, some writers are particularly sensitive to external stimuli. I’m one such writer. I can handle (and enjoy) a candle flickering next to me, but I usually need to put on noise canceling headphones with some form of white noise: the sound of rain, a box fan, a river running over the rocks. Anything very monotonous that helps me to close out the world.
For the same reason, I would choose the dark corner of a library over a coffee shop any day. A closet is even better. I tend to close the curtains around my office when I’m working. There’s nothing like really closing off the external world to help me focus. The key here is to find what works for you.
Method
If you ever listen to very established writers talk about their methods, some say that they can only brainstorm and plot their story on paper. Others can only write the first draft on paper. Still others do everything in a computer. But some might use a writing software like Scrivener to both brainstorm and write. In contrast, some writers need to see their plotting (if they do that) in a format like Word or Excel before they can write the book.
I’ve found that my brain flies when I brainstorm on paper. That includes the initial ideas about the book and the scene plans. I then transfer these to Scrivener, clean everything up so that the story fits into a solid framework. After that, I write my first draft (and subsequent ones) in Scrivener.
But what about when I run into a problem?
If I find that a character idea isn’t working out as well as I had initially envisioned or I need to strengthen a portion of the story during the rewriting process, I often have to return to paper. The reason for this is that, for whatever reason, I feel constrained by the computer when I’m brainstorming. It feels final, as if I can’t put anything down until I have the finished idea.
I have no idea why I would think this since I always do quite a few extensive rewrites before the book is final. But it is what it is. Knowing that means that instead of trying to fix the problem and wasting hours accomplishing nothing, I immediately pull out my notebook. I’m learning how my mind works best and how to flip back and forth between the methods that get me the best results.
The Conclusion: You + Flexibility
Which leads me to the last comment I’ve learned: flexibility is essential. What works for another writer may or may not work for you and I. What works for one process or problem doesn’t always work for another. The song or environment that inspires me the most for one story or scene, may not do so for any other. I’ve learned that I have to be more flexible than I would naturally be. I have to try various things until something garners the best results.
However, as I move forward, I’ve discovered enough about myself to know what’s more likely to help. That means that I’m able to find the solution more quickly and am able to get myself out of the rut that I’m in so that I don’t suffer from writer’s block!
Let me know what works for you and what you’ve learned about yourself on your writer journey.
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