I Don't Believe in Writer's Block

I don't.... (in spite of my comment on Molly's post earlier this week claiming to have it... ;-)

Okay, I'm not saying that writers don't have bad days--very bad days. And I'm certainly not saying that Molly's Wile E. Coyote nightmare isn't valid (not to mention freakin' hilarious) or that similar things haven't happened to me--often.

I just think, if you want to be a successful fiction writer, you can't buy into the whole writers' block concept. I'd rather think of it as a bad day, 'cause everyone, in every walk of life, has bad days. Writers ain't so special in that regard.

What writers need are tools to prevent bad days or at least help us get past them. Tools like the myriad of plotting helpers such as outlines, file cards, white boards; like creative excercises; like the books by writers who've analyzed storytelling and distilled it down to hero's journeys, or goal/motivation/conflict or three act plotting. Tools like critique groups, support groups, on-line writers loops, friends. Drunk writer talk. Books on the craft of writing so great they can be visited again and again. Inspirational books on the writer's life, such as "Bird by Bird" or "On Writing".

Mike Myers referred to his craft books as the bridges spanning the gulfs between his creative-day islands. But he doesn't need to produce as much material, as often, as a working, publishing fiction writer needs to. We don't have the luxury of letting oceans, or even large ponds, create gaps between our islands.

To keep the water down, we need our tools. It's these tools, not some mysterious, uncontrollable idea of a muse, that helps us push past the bad days and enables us to start putting coherent-stories-told-well onto pages again. Not that it isn't nice to blame something nebulous like an absent muse, now and again... Maybe, used sparingly, blame transference is simply another tool?

By this time, those of you who know me well, are probably laughing or rolling your eyes. Lord knows I've been guilty of being an angsty writer and have had huge chunks of time when nothing was working, when I was sure I was a talentless hack, or when books dripped from me painfully slowly.

So, maintaining my assertion that writer's block is an illusion, let me tell you what I do believe in...

I believe in procrastination. I believe in self-doubt. I believe in rejection and disappointment and criticism and jealousy, among other self-doubt catalysts like the words of well-meaning friends and family whose ideas of writing and publishing come from the movies. I believe in days when my brain is just fuzzy. I believe in days when I don't feel like writing.

But I don't believe in labeling all those things with a word as solid and immovable as "block". Unless of course I can label my tools "sledgehammers"... Hmmm... Maybe I need to rethink this post.

What it boils down to? Don't wimp out or blame your problems on writer's block. Pick up your tools and smash down whatever's standing in your way. If I know Molly, she has already.