Sigh. At least I have this.
Hey, I have a sure, 100% cure for writer's block, if you're seriously interested. Works every time. Might not work if you have no internal monologue, I haven't talked to anybody about that yet, but it works for me and for everyone I've shown it to
okay I'll bite!!
Ok. It's pretty simple. This generalizes to other forms of artistic expression as well, like graphic art, sketching or painting, for example. I've seen it work there.
If you're a writer, you know you have to consider your audience. You are writing to someone, even if it's you. So you have to adjust some settings in your brain in order to do this, because it's a totally different kind of writing from what you're used to. You're not considering the audience here. This might take a little getting used to but that's fine.
I have a metaphor, to help clarify it, too. If you have a pull start lawn mower, you know it can really wear out your arm, especially if you got a little water in the fuel and there's some in the carb etc. So there's this trick you can do with a lot of pull start lawn mowers where you take the cover off the pull starter and use a cordless electric drill to spin the thing until it starts so that your arm doesn't get really tired. We're going to (kind of) do that for your brain.
Okay. This is an assignment. Here are the instructions.
Get cheap materials. If you're used to writing with a fountain pen or something, go to the dollar store and buy a kid's composition book and some cheap shitty ass pens. If you write like I do, into a document in your phone, this step is kind of irrelevant; all you have to do is start a separate document for this purpose that isn't part of your standard creative output.
So you do whatever you have to do to write, put yourself in that environment, maybe it's a coffee shop or a quiet spot in your house or a certain writing desk, get your materials ready to go.
Now. Your job is not to produce anything of value. Get that? Very important. The assignment does not include an end product which is a document which you will carefully edit and present. This assignment is to essentially create garbage. This isn't about the final product, it's about exercising your brain. So the output isn't actually important, the operation of writing is what's important.
Go ahead and start writing and just write whatever the hell is in your head. You're not waiting for an idea to come, you're writing down your internal monologue. It is extremely reasonable to start with "This is stupid, it's not going to work" if that's the thing that pops into your head. Everybody with an internal monologue can do this all the time. You just write down whatever it is you are thinking, all the time. There are only a couple of rules here for the output: you don't go back and change or edit anything, and you keep writing.
This will be a really weird looking document. It has nothing to do with real writing. Again, this is an exercise for your brain. You just write down whatever comes into your head. If that's "Oh, I forgot to capitalize that K", so be it. What you don't do is go back and capitalize the K. If you misspell something, write down that you misspelled it, because you noticed it and are therefore thinking it, but don't go back and correct the spelling.
And just keep doing this. If you're working on a work of fiction, bits of that work of fiction will creep into your writing while you think about it. You might do an entire page about how you hate your refrigerator, and then at the end there's a little analogy with some character that you've been trying to figure out. All the crap about the refrigerator is garbage, but you can come back later and look at that little analogy and maybe use it in your "real" writing.
Anyway, just burn through the paper as fast as you can. Write write write. There's no need to be embarrassed or to worry about formatting or anything else, there's no need to be self-conscious or think about what you write before you write it; just let it flow and write down everything you think, everything. Everything everything, as fast as you can go.
Then when you get tired you can take a break and drink some tea or something. While you're chilling out you can go back through and read what you wrote (WHATEVER YOU DO DO NOT DISPARAGE OR MAKE FUN OF IT; THE ASSIGNMENT IS TO WRITE GARBAGE, SO IF IT'S GARBAGE, YOU GET AN A+), and every once in awhile you will find a gem, some little idea that you can incorporate into whatever serious thing you're working on.
And don't forget, you can always just switch over. This is a completely voluntary thing, so if you suddenly get inspired and you want to get that next chapter of your novel down as fast as you can, just either change documents or put a symbol or something that says "[my work] chapter 15 rough draft" and go ahead and write it. You never know where inspiration will come from, and the muse does not return, so write it down as fast as you can.
If you don't have an internal monologue, I'm not really sure what to tell you, although I guess one thing you could do is this meditative technique that I learned where instead of writing down your internal monologue you just describe everything that you sense, like everything you can see in the room, all the little noises you can hear, all your sensory impressions, as carefully and in as detailed a fashion as possible. Make up little stories about the dirty laundry you haven't picked up yet meeting the table lamp you keep putting off changing the bulb in. Just nonsense.
You're not writing for other people, you're not writing a specific format that you're used to, this is a completely different kind of document. You know how writing a handwritten receipt for something is just a different concept and has different rules than writing a novel, which is a completely different concept from writing a Tumblr post, which is different from writing a check which is different from writing a contract which is different from writing a complaint letter? This is a different, extra format that most people have never used. Margins: unimportant. Spelling: unimportant. Grammar, punctuation, formatting, font, clarity, sentence length variation, use of repetitive words; you're not worried about any of that. It's all irrelevant. Just vomit up everything that pops into your head as fast as you can for as long as you can until you get inspired. "Damn it I'm not writing fast enough" write it down, perfectly acceptable. "None of this makes any sense and it's all garbage" write it down, perfectly acceptable. "This isn't going to work for me, I'm cursed" wrong but also perfectly acceptable to write down.
You are a miracle of creation, and I'm saying you this as an atheist. If you choose to, you can write symphonies or the Great American novel.
So. Choose to
[ @eggtwerp ... don't worry about it, you don't owe me anything, it's nice to hear from you, and I hope you're doing well. I hope this works for you. Keep writing!]
