writers block

In Which We Prompt

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In an effort to get myself back into writing, and to oil my writing gears, I will be attempting the Author’s Publish Magazine’s 2018 book of writing prompts.

Every day I will attempt one of the prompts and publish it as a blogpost for accountability.

Here is prompt 1: Three Minute Warm Up (daily writing exercise). Write a title, set a timer for three minutes, and write! Write anything, doesn’t have to match up to the title. It’s a good warm up exercise!

Title: Summer Afternoons

There could be a great many things you can do with a stack of beads. You could polish them expertly using your hands or a machine. They have machines for those now, and you would have a brightly coloured pile of beads to use. Thread them together to make a pretty necklace or take them to the beach and sprinkle them among the stones and shells for curious little hands to pick up and curious little minds to wonder over.

Exuberance.

I wonder where there ever could be something wonderful to play with, at the beach or at home. I watch the sun setting over the ocean nearly everyday, when the clouds don’t join me to mar the experience. I marvel at the colours and the way the sky is different from one day to the next. Sunsets are like fingerprints. Never the same. Always telling a different story. Sometimes I am there with my loved ones and sometimes alone, nothing but a cup of coffee to keep me company. Sitting on a hidden bench watching the swimmers who brave the winter seas and then have the freedom …

That, folks, is as far as I got.

My writing gears really do need oiling. Lol!

Writing Purples

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I am supposed to be writing for myself this month but there are six days (about) left and I only have ten thousand words of the fifty thousand minimum limit. I shall give up without much of a fuss this month And hope for the best in the next month I set aside for some writing.

With cheer I say, I do believe I have once again stumbled upon the Writing Blues! Everything seems to come to a juddering halt before the brick wall of discouragement. None of my characters will adhere to my commands. They have wilful souls of their own, and oddly, all seem to be biased towards the defiant, sullen demeanor. This will not do at all, because they can’t all monopolise the brooding inclination. They can’t all have the same damn personality!

These aren’t blues, though, so much as purples. This is not the muffled thump of me falling into a pit of writing misery. This is the tremulous hanging in the airless space between inspiration and avolition. Between red and blue. In purple.

Finding Inspiration

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I have my timetable from work, finally. I am swamped. With no breaks. Busy busy. Every minute. Which is awesome yay.

But also means I do not have any time to think. Or any inspiration. So I am still uninspired. Which bodes terribly for the novel I am currently writing. With a deadline in December. I just don’t know how this is going to go down.

I know a girl from college who is a freelancing graphic designer. She designs so beautifully and uniquely. And I really desperately want her to design my book cover. But since I have made zero progress in the last two weeks, I might have no content to present to her for her to design anything!

I really must buck up, if I am to produce anything. And if I am to produce anything close to what I see in my mind.

Lately I have been watching the film ‘Coraline’ on repeat. The making of that film was extremely complex because it was all done by hand, everything, down to miniature knitters and a number of puppets with replacement limbs and different faces with an assortment of facial expressions! Can you imagine the laborious effort it took to create such a detailed movie all by hand? That is so inspirational to me. I watch it and I sometimes slow it down to see movements clearly because it fascinates me how they could pack so much fun detail into a two hour stop motion film. It stands out because it is so unusual, and the story behind the making of it is incredible too. You can read more here if you are interested.

Didn’t they get tired of it, or fed up? I know I would. Their dedication in the end produced something so beautiful to watch and re-watch multiple times.

So whenever I watch Coraline, I let the artwork seep its dainty tendrils into the folds of my brain and maybe spark something there. It almost always produces an idea or two.

So, this is what this uninspired girl has resorted to. Where do you go to find inspiration, when it evades you?

Coraline.jpg

Two Cold Uncles Knitting to the Beat

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Hello everybody!

I was sitting in the library today, trying so hard to conjure up an idea for a short story. I have a hand in on the 17th of March; I have nothing to write about!

Anyway so something inspired me to get on to google and type in ‘story idea’. A website called ‘Plot Generator‘ came up and I thought, holy moly, have I just stumbled upon a goldmine?!

Turns out I did. A hilarious gold mine. I filled in some boxes with keywords and names, and it generated a little story for me. It had me laughing so much I had to get up and take a breather.

Have a look, if you’re interested!

 

Two Cold Uncles Knitting to the Beat

Twig Blackadder was thinking about Emilia Blake again. Emilia was a kind angel with handsome hair and slim lips.

Twig  walked over to the window and reflected on his pretty surroundings. He had always hated peaceful Lancing with its slobbering, strong seaside. It was a place that encouraged his tendency to feel sad.

Then he saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the a kind figure of Emilia Blake.

Twig gulped. He glanced at his own reflection. He was a stubborn, wilful, coffee drinker with built hair and brunette lips. His friends saw him as a modern, magnificent monster. Once, he had even made a cup of tea for a villainous grandma.

But not even a stubborn person who had once made a cup of tea for a villainous grandma, was prepared for what Emilia had in store today.

The rain hammered like thinking parrot, making Twig bittersweet. Twig  grabbed an ethereal key that had been strewn nearby; he massaged it with his fingers.

As Twig stepped outside and Emilia came closer, he could see the slobbering glint in her eye.

Emilia gazed with the affection of 4480 selfish amused ant. She said, in hushed tones, “I love you and I want closure.”

Twig  looked back, even more bittersweet and still fingering the ethereal key. “Emilia, I’ve always loved you,” he replied.

They looked at each other with nostalgic feelings, like two glorious, giant goldfish sobbing at a very considerate holiday, which had piano music playing in the background and two cold uncles knitting to the beat.

Twig  studied Emilia’s handsome hair and slim lips. Eventually, he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” began Twig in apologetic tones, “but I don’t feel the same way, and I never will. I just don’t love you Emilia.”

Emilia looked happy, her emotions raw like an old, open old shoes.

Twig could actually hear Emilia’s emotions shatter into 8876 pieces. Then the kind angel hurried away into the distance.

Not even a cup of coffee would calm Twig’s nerves tonight.

THE END

coverImage.php.jpg

They even generated a cover for me!

I had a notion

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To create something really remarkable. But then I realised that actually all I had were the faint echoes of a vocabulary that once packed the shelves of my brains. Now a few words lie peppered around, some discarded in cobwebbed corners, others seizing their bags and donning their hats, not giving me a second glance as they walk out the front door.

They say there are some skills you never forget; how to ride a bike, how to swim, how to canter on a horse. Unfortunately, words are very easily forgotten.

You might meet a word one day, delight in its absolute unique wonderment. You might use it tirelessly in all your sentences, rolling it over your tongue, tasting it sweet and sour and bitter and salty, in all the seasons and in every situation imaginable.

After a few weeks when the novelty of the word has died away and a new one has taken its place, it is stacked away neatly in one of the many word shelves in your brain, to be picked out at a moment’s notice, and inserted gracefully in conversation or writing. It would adorn your creativity, deck your work for conquest. It would be your crown of inventive acumen.

You would, in short, have so many words at your beck and call, to use when you desire. Your work would only require imagination to spur it on.

But if you leave those words lying around for too long, collecting dust, unused and uncared for, they will eventually seek use elsewhere. They will seek another creator’s work, and you will see them in the crisp new pages of somebody else’s book.

The same could be said for knowledge. Knowledge is something that inspires creativity. Thinking the same things everyday, doing the same things everyday, watching the same things everyday is not enough to expand your mind. You would need to read in depth, and explore many subjects, and cross the boundaries of topics, join them together, like golden threads running between, creating new things which are built of old.

Knowledge which is not refreshed becomes old and outdated. It disengages people and eventually disengages you from life and from motivation.

I reached for my words, I reached for my knowledge, and found nothing. I think it’s time to cross some new boundaries.

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A Block of Words

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writers block

 

Hello Internet. It’s that time of year again. Cold windy days, barren trees, grey afternoons and a night that descends so quickly. I embrace the lights, though. They make me happy, like shiny beacons of glitter and hope in the ever-growing blackness that is winter.

It is also the time of year that writers love. NaNoWrimo is in full swing, you can hear the tapping of keyboards and the scribbling of pens echoing across the plains of this virtual world and it is so heartening but again, two years in a row now, I am suffering from writer’s block.

I am stressed out with all the work I have to do. It involves a hearty amount of reading, analysing, creative writing, the application of literary devices and deep concentration, all of which I love immensely but when tripled with strict deadlines and weeks of mountainous literary terrain to navigate, I find myself quite lost. Confused. At a complete standstill.

Here is a small inconsequential fact:

IT DOES NOT DO TO HAVE WRITER’S BLOCK WHEN I NEED TO WRITE A COMPELLING SCREENPLAY BY THE END OF NOVEMBER AND I HAVE NOTHING, EXCEPT A DISGUSTINGLY POORLY WRITTEN SHORT STORY ABOUT A MURDER WITH NO INCENTIVE TO GO BY. AARRGH.

I have spots on my face and I never get spots. I ate all of Damian’s M&Ms today and I know he will be cross because:

  1. I am not supposed to be eating anything processed or artificially sweet because of my digestive system.
  2. He doesn’t like sharing his M&Ms.

So I am making him a small dish of apple crumble with oats and honey because:

  1. He loves apple crumble and if he sees the apple crumble he will totally forget about his precious M&Ms.
  2. It is a great way to use up all my cupboard ingredients before we move out in two weeks (or even less!).
  3. Once again, I am procrastinating!

So. I have writer’s block. How devastating. Will I ever write a book? Who knows. The literary future of one Lenora Sparrow is looking pretty bleak.

Frazzled Writing

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I am doing an Advanced Creative Writing module in my Open University course, and I am very apprehensive because it is a level 3 course, which, for any of you who did OU, is pretty tough. It’s like final year at University! (Which is is!) Also the majority of the people on there seem to be such good writers who are seasoned and who know plenty about it all!

They don’t procrastinate, they don’t leave their assignments to the last minute, they read all the things they are supposed to read and catch up on all the online tutorials and contribute beautifully! It has only been five days into the course and I am 200 messages behind. Oh I feel so inadequate. I have to share some of my work but there is nothing worth sharing with them so I have to work extra hard to produce something that could pass roughly as readable.

It is futile to hope that I might capture their interest or create something remotely potent. Aaaaargh!

So I am frazzled and worried and anxious about it all, and am hoping for the best. I will take it one step at a time and write write write and read everything my tutor posts for me and pore religiously over my module book.

I chose that module to learn more about writing, so learn more about writing I shall.

Until then, I bid you adieu!