Writer's block

   Funny that John should talk about writer's block at the same time as I am experiencing it. Or maybe it is not such an odd coincidence. Writer's block is not something with which I struggle only rarely.
   There are times when the words seem to tumble out of my fingers unbidden, and other times when I sit and stare at the computer screen blankly, engulfed in feelings of helplessness and frustration. Recently, I have been opening any one of those unfinished pieces I told you about, reading over it, pausing momentarily, and closing it unaltered.
   So much of writing seems to involve momentum. Someone on the AOL journals message board expressed a similar sentiment yesterday. Regularly, I will be in the middle of an essay, words flowing like water, and I will be interrupted. The phone will ring, or the dog will need to be let outside. It will only take a moment or two to deal with the interruption, but when I sit back down at the keyboard, the momentum will be lost. I will reread what I have set down so far, and be completely unable to pick up the thread of my thoughts.
   Some have said that the solution is to just muscle through. Keep typing. Even if the words you type have no relevance to the piece as it started, keep going. You can always go back and edit. If you stop, there will be nothing to edit.

   You see, I stopped. Now I'm a bit lost. I don't know where to take this next. But I'm still typing words. The idea, is to get over the hump, and gain the momentum back.
   Another commonly espoused strategy to overcome writer's block is to do an end run around it. The idea is to have several writing projects on the go at once. If you get stuck on one, you can simply slide sideways to the next, and keep going. As has been discussed, that does not seem to work for me. When I am blocked, I am completely blocked. Your mileage may vary.
   A third common suggestion is one that John mentioned in his piece yesterday: a writer's prompt. A writer's prompt is a suggestion from elsewhere that can act as a beginning. John's weekend assignment is one. Promiseluv has begun a group project using something called a journal jar, in which there are 365 questions written on slips of paper. One question is removed each day, and you write an answer to it. In a year, you will have a very full, and probably very personal journal; and 365 days of writing practice under your belt. In a less personal vein, Writer's Digest.com offers a weekly writer's prompt on their website.
   A contributing factor to writer's block, one of which I am guilty, is beginning a writing project without a plan. If you do not know exactly where you want to go with a piece, how can you expect to finish it without getting lost along the way. It is a good practice to begin by making as point form list of where you want to start, where you want to conclude, and specific points you want to touch on as you go.
   As you can see, muscling through has worked for me in this case. I should go back and edit out the clumsy sentences in the middle of the piece, but I think I will leave them in as an illustration. Now, let's see if I can sustain this momentum into something else...