Conquering the All Mighty Brain Drain

Writing is work. Hard work.

What did you say?

Writing should be fun, not work. We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. Lord knows we aren’t writing just for the money. LOL. Well…not yet…anyway. Maybe someday we will be but for now we write for the joy of writing.

Still there are times when the words just won’t flow onto the paper. Fortunately it’s not for the lack of a story. We always have stories in our head…er heads…it’s just sometimes the words won’t work like we want them to do.

Here are a few tips we use when we hit a wall or write ourselves into a corner. We refer to this as brain drain. Generally one of these suggestions will do the trick and get us moving again.

1. Return to the beginning of our manuscript and edit.

a. Search for missing visual detail, or too much detail.

b. Search and eliminate unnecessary adverbs, speech tags, etcs

2 Work on creating a blurb for the book.

a. Use The Double-barreled Attack

Situation, Character, Objective, Opponent, Disaster.

b. Use Defining The Plot Question

Character, Opposition, Conflict, Consequence of failure

3. Do some extra detailed research work on our story.

a. Go over some of our research material to re-familiarize ourselves with specific detail we are unclear about.

b. *If you haven't already, establish a file for all your research material in case you need to recheck sources at a later date.

4. Pick up a book and spend an hour or so reading. Let your mind refill with words.

5. Go take a walk or sit outside and enjoy the sunshine for awhile.

6. Write, write, write.

Occasionally we just put down words and pay no attention to what we write.

Sometimes it's just a matter of jump starting our brains again.