AUTHOR’S GAB, READER TALK.
A LETTER TO YOU, THE READER, SO THAT YOU CAN FINALLY FIGURE OUT WHAT I’M THINKING.
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THIS MONTH: Dealing with Writers Block, featuring Nick Seluk, The Awkward Yeti
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Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson), speaking to her husband on the phone: “So, now we need to come up with a word that works for everyone.”
Denis Thatcher (Stephen Boxer): “Well, good luck with that.”
Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson): “Thank you, DT.”
— Dialogue from Netflix’s The Crown, Episode: “48:1”
“What we need here is not useless politicians (sorry Sonny), but a writer. Where might we find one?”
— Olivia Coleman, playing Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown, Episode: “48:1”
Dear Reader,
Recently, I went on a trip to Toledo, OH with my sister for the day, so we could actually go and sit down in a coffee shop. Restaurants in Michigan, where we live, are currently not allowing indoor seating per Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s coronavirus order. Basically, this means maybe nothing will be truly open until spring, I think. And, it meant that the only place my sister and I could get a table without presenting a passport to get into Canada was Ohio. Consequentially, we went road-tripping. My sister had this idea that we were going to find a coffee shop, sit down and get lots of work done, because who wants to sit at home anymore, right? My idea was to talk, have girl time and then maybe get some work done.
Actually, I had half a mind to get some writing done, a major to-do item for my Christmas break I had in mind. I had been procrastinating and was thinking, sans conversation, I was going to get a lot done. I brought my noise-canceling headphones and my laptop. I even laid out my entire writing agenda on the way down to Ohio to my sister in the car of all the stuff I wanted to accomplish while we were there — or, at least, the grand plan of what I was thinking of doing.
When we got there and I had finally hit a point where I was temporarily finished talking, I put on my headphones, switched on a podcast on Spotify and cracked open my laptop. I was about to crack my knuckles, when I saw what was onscreen: a project I had been working on in Photoshop for my trivia team (when the restaurants are open, I play on Tuesdays with friends), unrelated to writing. I had been working on it the prior day when my cat had rudely interrupted me and I wasn’t able to finish. Midnight is her name; and, that day, as I was trying to work at home, she was being a spaz and an attention hog. Because her energy level was so high that day, I had spent most of the day waving around the fluffy, interactive feather chaser, trying to entertain her while I sighed and watched YouTube videos. I had gotten a second of peace to work on this project, when she interrupted me, as if to say, “No, Mom, you can’t work. Actually, it’s all about me today.” And, so it was.
The project, however, was still waiting on my laptop to be finished the following day, even after I had closed the screen and put aside my work. So, when I opened the screen in Ohio, there it was. “Oh, I was working on that, wasn’t I,” I thought, and picked up where I left off.
This is how you all know how ADD I am; because, somewhere between being out of my element with my sister in Ohio, the noise of the coffee shop, presences I was still aware of despite my noise-canceling headphones and my desire to socialize with my sister, I couldn’t concentrate. It was like there was a wall in my brain and nothing was coming. So, I kept working on my previous project and listening to my podcast, maybe just a little unwilling to admit to myself that my mind was distracted and completely blank for ideas on all that writing I wanted to accomplish on this trip, due to my circumstances.
The fact is, we’ve all been there.
Maybe, like me, we can’t find our Zen in a coffee shop and end up working on something else. Or, we make excuses as to why we can’t sit down for a couple minutes and scratch out a few words in between breakfast and work, our minds busy with the day. Or, we sit there, staring blankly at a pounding cursor on Microsoft Word, Notes, Pages or any other composition software we use, cursing as to why in the heck we can’t produce at least one word. The page in our notebook stays blank. Pens drop. And, we walk away, frustrated.
That, my friends, is the common cold of writing: writer’s block. It absolutely, 100 percent, happens and will happen to everybody. It happens so frequently that it’s almost an overplayed song in the writing world, with constant refrains written about the subject. I myself have even dabbled at one point or another on how to deal with writer’s block; and, I’m still full of suggestions.
Walk away and come back. Sleep on it. Do a 15 minute freewrite. Read a little. Think about a recent experience and write about that. Sit at a local bar or coffee house and describe what’s going on there. Do the dirty thing and write about your current relationship or ex or what’s going on in the news. Heck, even write about what your mom told you not to write about. Maybe don’t publish it, but it might get you started on something.
Lately, however, I have been fortunate enough to witness some of my favorite authors and creators publish their own writing tips. In September, I introduced you to Christopher Paolini’s YouTube channel, where he has been busy uploading “ChrisP Writing Tips”, the latest of which, #6, is on self care in writing. I encourage you to watch and will leave the link down below.
This month, Nick Seluck, who writes and creates the comic, “The Awkward Yeti” and “Heart and Brain”, began creating what he calls “Creator Chronicles” for his Patreon subscribers. It’s a collection of videos on what his workflow looks like, including his desk area, how he creates the comics and, most recently, his tips for getting around writer’s block. Seluck, like me, is a Detroit native, and completely understands the whole coronavirus in winter thing in Michigan, and gives his tips accordingly. (His videos are on Patreon, YouTube and Instagram, and I will link his Instagram video with his writing tips, where I originally found the post, below.)
“My routine — what it used to be — is that I would, when I have this problem, leave and go experience something new. So, I’d go to a museum, maybe I’d see some nature. But, now, it’s winter in Michigan. The pandemic kind of keeps things closed. I can’t go to the coffee shop. I can’t go to the bar. These used to be things that worked really well for me,” Seluck said in the video.
“Have a coffee. Have a beer. You know, something that would just kind of change up your mindset a little bit. Not too much! That can have an adverse effect. And then, once you have had kind of a new experience, something a little bit different, you come back and you do what I call burning off the bad ideas,” he said.
This kind of plays to the idea of what I said earlier to get around writer’s block. Sometimes, the best idea is to walk away and come back, burning off all your bad ideas for good ones. It gives you time to think about a piece and give the thumbs up or thumbs down on any project you’re working on. It has a refocusing and purging affect. No guarantees you won’t sit down with the same block and bad ideas, but it will allow the headspace to tackle those things.
I highly encourage you to watch his full series of videos on YouTube, as any of these could be helpful tips to you, which I’m linking below. Seluck is a creator I admire because he creates work that’s relatable and easy and always makes me laugh. I even had the opportunity to meet him once at a bar in Ann Arbor. And, he was overwhelmingly my favorite, because he signed my card “Nick Seluck” with his character “Bowels” when I asked him to draw his favorite character in the card. It’s still on my fridge to this day — after I officially moved in June and July 2020.
It’s almost 2021 around here, and people are busy humbugging 2020. The impression is that, somehow, 2021 will kibosh the pandemic, solve all our problems and world hunger in the meantime. But, I think that isn’t so, and I think Seluck thinks so, too, per his comic on the matter, which I just had to screenshot and use for my intro above. Instead, I think this next year is like starting out with a case of writer’s block. You’re stuck with a mess. You hope to get out of it, for success and good things, for the piece to gain a new identity. And, sometimes it does. But, most of the time, you get new ideas for the old thing you were originally working on and it becomes something new.
I’ll give you an example.
I have been hung up on the same sestina for months. My goal is to use 6 given words used in Poet’s Market describing a sestina to make a sestina of my own. But, I’m stumped. Maybe it’s because the words are hard, or because I can’t think of the proper topic. I walk away, come back, think again. And, it just never goes anywhere, like I want it to.
But, I tell you: other poems are coming out of my frustration and struggle with this one poem. These are poems I have only dreamed of writing until now. A sestina. A villanelle. Anything and everything besides this one poem.
In this case, one poem has assumed many new identities. Ultimately, though, once I clear my writer’s block on the issue, this poem will become something new. And, I will have my poem I have been working on.
I have recently been watching The Crown on Netflix, and I love how they talk about writing in the episode “48:1”. Margaret Thatcher sits down to draft just the right word to appease her colleagues on apartheid. Thatcher’s husband, during the process, because it is so tedious, remarks, “Good luck with that!” She eventually settles on “signals” instead of “sanctions”, after a back and forth with the Queen, who remarks that a writer is needed, not a politician, in the matter. Michael Shea, the Queen’s press secretary, becomes the unlikely hero in presenting the word, who, himself, is a writer.
“Shea is an unapologetically loyal member of Buckingham Palace staff. So loyal that when his literary agent suggests he try writing a political thriller, using his day job for reference, he winces at the thought of betraying his employers,” the Vulture wrote on the episode in November.
I think, sometimes when we get writer’s block in our heads, it’s like our brain says, “Ha! Good luck with that! You have to find the right word, but you probably won’t!” And, in these instances, instead of kertowing to that voice, we have to be Michael Shea, the writer who solves everything. We can’t be politicians with ourselves. We have to be the ingenious writers we know we are. And, whatever strategy we employ to get our brains running in that moment, that sees us through and saves the day. It just takes courage, concentration and determination, and a few new ideas.
Think about that. ~
Sincerely, Your Writer,
Jessica A. McLean
Happy 2021 to all my readers. Love you guys.
The Rose 