Writer's Round Table: Pros Give Advice on Writer's Block III

Writer Bobbie Bolig writes poignantly about what it's like to be blocked. I asked some pro writer friends for words of encouragement.

"Overcoming Writer's Block"

By Barb Caffrey

When writer and editor Deborah J. Ross asked me about how I'd overcome writer's block for an upcoming column series at her blog, I wasn't sure what I'd write—though I did tell her that of course I'd write something. Because, you see, I've had to overcome writer's block several times over the years, with the first time being due to my husband's unexpected death fourteen years ago. I know that tragedy, illness, family health problems, work-related issues, and other things can creep into your subconscious, and make it nearly impossible to write anything at all.

And yet, we're creative people, we writers. We need our creativity, or we don't function very well. We expect to be able to write, even when we feel terrible; even when our husband just died; even when our mother just broke her leg in three places; even when our workload is so high, we can barely turn around from doing the work and falling into bed, repeating ad nauseum.

Is this fair to expect this of ourselves? No, of course not. But as I said, we expect to be able to write no matter what.

There are reasons for this, of course. There are folks out there who put up such a good front in the professional writing community that you'd think nothing fazes them. (Granted, they may not have ever run into the situations I have, you have, or someone else you know as a writer who's dealing with tragedy, long-term illness of their own or in their family, or some other deep and frustrating concern.) They'll tell you that the death of their mother didn't stop them, so why can't you write? They'll tell you that they once worked seventy-five-hour weeks, came home and took care of young children, and woke up at four a.m. every day to write for an hour or two before they had to start breakfast for the kids and get off to work.

I believe that is possible, that sometimes people can—for a short time—overcome such difficulties and write. And it certainly is possible even with high-hour weeks to schedule in your writing time; I've done it, most writers I know have done it, and while it doesn't always feel great because you want to do more and can only manage a few hours here and there, it's a lot better than nothing.

But those outliers who actually can do such superhuman things and then pass them off as normal are detrimental to the rest of us. We aren't superhuman. We're people. We're fallible. We're mortal. And we only have so many hours in the day, with a sharply limited and finite energy supply to give.

What can we, the fallible, mortal writers who aren't outliers, do to keep writing under such difficult situations?

For me, what has helped the most over time is to try not to be so hyper-critical of myself. I get to the point, after being tired, sick, stressed, bereaved, Goddess-knows-what, that I am afraid to write because I'm afraid I'll make no sense at all. (And yes, I'll admit to my fears in this matter, because if I don't, I will never get anything done.) If I write something, anything, I'm going to call that a win.

The second thing I've learned, and have counseled other people about also, is this: What we think, as tired, stressed, sick, bereaved, Goddess-knows-what individuals, about our writing may not be accurate. For example, a good friend of mine last night told me he had thrown out 2500 words because he felt they were terrible in the moment, and he didn't want to wait until tomorrow or the next day to look at 'em again and decide whether he could keep them, whether they were better than he thought, whether there was anything to what he'd written that was salvageable.

I told him, trying not to be stern as I think about him as a younger brother, that he needed to try to reinstate that file. He had to get it back, if possible. Those words were almost certainly not as bad as he thought, and were not a waste of time by any means! I also told him about writer Anne Lamott's struggles with her own award-winning writing, related in BIRD BY BIRD. While my paraphrase won't be as good as Ms. Lamott's own words, here it is: you write the first draft, knowing it will be execrable. Then you take whatever you can from that, and keep going, polishing, adding, and refining, until you get to the golden nuggets of story within that you need.

I think if someone as distinguished as Anne Lamott can admit that her own first efforts are terrible, we all should realize that we can't start with a perfect product every time. (Not that writing is a product, but that is a blog item for another time, perhaps.)

I like to think of it this way: We have to think about what we're going to say, yes, but we also have to trust that we can say it. What we need to do is to have faith in ourselves that our writing—no matter how halting it's become, no matter how stressful it's become to get any words on the page, no matter how frustrating it can be to overcome all these different problems to do what we're born to do—still matters.

If we can admit that it still matters to us, and if we can tell ourselves that no matter how long it's been since we last were able to make any sense on the page, we can keep writing.

So, my best advice is this: Be good to yourself. Don't beat yourself up. Heed the words of Anne Lamott. And keep trying, no matter how long it takes…don't let anyone stop you from writing, even if sometimes you have to set it aside due to major life crises. You can and will get back to it just as soon as possible, and all the crises you've had will make you a better, deeper, and more informed writer with better stories to tell.

I firmly believe this. And I hope you will, too.

Barb Caffrey has written three novels, An Elfy On The Loose (2014), A Little Elfy in Big Trouble (2015), and Changing Faces (forthcoming), and is the co-writer of the Adventures of Joey Maverick series (with late husband Michael B. Caffrey) Previous stories and poems have appeared in Stars Of Darkover, First Contact Café, How Beer Saved The World, Bearing North, And Bedlam's Edge (with Michael B. Caffrey).

If you'd like to contribute to the discussion, email me at mail@deborahjross dot com.