What Writer's Block Really Means

If you haven’t finished the first draft of your manuscript…

If you haven’t worked on it in over a month…

If you don’t know where to take the story and have to keep scrapping chapters…

If you keep reworking the old chapters hoping something will come to you…

Yes.  If you answered yes to any of these questions, then the answer is yes.  You are suffering from writer’s block.

The reason for writer’s block, from my experience, is that you have chosen a project that interests you instead of chosen to tell a story that is already inside you.  It is possible to tell a story that isn’t yours, but that way is less authentic.  No matter how much effort you’ve put into it, it will taste like frozen pizza instead of Italy.  When you are writing a novel, the experience should almost always feel like a slip and slide.  That what you want to write is so natural, it’s only a matter of getting it down on paper.

Obviously, a lot of writers do not enjoy this reality.  It means they’re exposed, vulnerable, and the feeling ranges from slightly embarrassed to downright ashamed.  If you refuse to put yourself in your writing, you are losing out on the opportunity to offer the audience something they can’t get anywhere else… you.  You are honestly different from everyone else, as well as a little the same as everyone else.  It’s truly beautiful when it’s done right, which is what makes people want to become writers in the first place.

I have written 21 books, but I have no idea how many manuscripts I have begun with the hope of it turning into a complete novel only to realize that I only had a premise, not a full adventure.  I’ve had to abandon things for all kinds of reasons, but boiled down, it was the same problem over and over.  I admired something, wanted to make something similar, couldn’t and had to be the writer I was born to be instead of the writer I imagined myself to be.

I’ve only been able to continue a blocked manuscript twice.

The first time, I was blocked because I had something framed in my mind as something that should not happen in my book.  Whatever happened, THIS ONE THING was not going to happen.  I got to the part where I was supposed to put in my plot twist and if the manuscript was a bread bag with a twist tie on it, the bread bag would not have stayed closed.  I thought about it and slowly I realized that if I did not do THE ONE THING I didn’t want to do, then I was finished with the book.  The book was about the thing I didn’t like.  I buckled down and wrote about THE ONE THING I didn’t want to write about.

The book is a complete triumph.  I’m very pleased with it.  Sorry, I can’t be more specific.  The book is not quite ready yet.  Still needs some edits.

The second time, I opted for collaboration.  I didn’t have what the story wanted inside me, so I found someone who had that type of story inside them and got them to advise me.  That situation has its own troubles, because the best person to get is someone who doesn’t write and has no ambition to ever write.  It means they can’t help you with a lot, only a general direction.  It’s really slow going compared to when I have the story inside me already.

Anyway, in order to celebrate the blocked writer and their creations that are never seen, because there wasn’t quite enough to push it through, I’ve prepared something special for all of you.  A bit of a blocked book that will probably never be much more than I’ve included here.

If He Wraps it Around a Tree

“I think we should break up,” Lindsay said to Oliver in the darkness.  Her voice was little more than a cracked whisper that spoke more of her pain than what her words actually meant.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, his hand reaching for hers, though he couldn’t see her well from around his inflated airbag.

“I told you you’d drunk too much to drive,” she replied, refusing to answer his question.  “And yes, I’m hurt.  My airbag didn’t inflate.  I hit my head.  I’m bleeding and my legs are pinned between the seat and the dashboard!”

“Okay,” he said, collecting his wits.  “Can you reach the lever that pulls the seat backwards?”

She reached down and found it.  Tugging on it, it moved the seat and she felt blood flow into her legs again.  

“It worked?” he questioned, still unable to see her.

“Yes.  It worked.”

“Can you open your door?”

Lindsay pulled the lever on the door, but it didn’t move.  “No.”

“What about the window?  Can you open that to get out?”

“I am not opening the window,” she objected immediately.  “It is freezing outside, raining, and if I open it I might not be able to close it again afterwards.  We might be stuck here for hours waiting for a tow truck.”

“Can you reach your phone?”

“It doesn’t matter if I can or can’t.  It’s out of power.  I told you that before we left.  I shouldn’t have let you drive.”

“I’d only had two,” he said, stiffly defending himself.

“Yeah.  Two too many.”

Oliver stuttered some sort of apology, but Lindsay couldn’t hear it and even if she could, all she could think about was the string of men who had disappointed her before that moment and how she should have expected Oliver to do the same.  When actually, she knew why she hadn’t pegged him for the same pig from a different litter as all the other men she knew.  It was because something about Oliver always made her feel like she had come home.  He was like the brother she’d never had, the cousin who found her in a crowded room and introduced her to everyone like she was a star.  

The plan for her to come work at his family’s hotel during the winter had been in motion since before she had agreed to be his girlfriend, and being his official girlfriend had seemed like a good choice, until he wrapped his car around a tree.  At the moment of impact, her first thought had been wondering if they would die.  

When she saw that they hadn’t died, her next thought was that she needed to break up with him.  Lindsay had never been one to postpone difficult jobs.  

Now, she had to do the thing victims sadly needed to do sometimes.  She turned to Oliver and asked him the question that to forgo would make her inhuman.  “Are you hurt?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.  His legs were not squashed between the wheel and the seat.  He was very tall and therefore had the seat as far back as it could go.  He’d hurt his wrist and his neck, he admitted in wheezy half breaths.  

“Do you know where your phone is?” Lindsay asked him.

“It’s in my back pocket.”

She let out a huff of annoyed air.  “And I’m supposed to put my hand down your pants to retrieve it?”

“Only if you want to call a tow truck or an ambulance,” he replied crossly.

Lindsay had never heard that tone out of his mouth before.  He was always so charming, so carefree.  

“I love it when you talk that way,” she said, unbuckling his seat belt and trying the back pocket closest to her. 

“What?” he sputtered.  “You never love anything.  You told me as much the other night when I asked you out.  You said you never fall in love.”

“I don’t.  Something always happens to spoil love before it can really grow in me, but you were always so puzzling when you smiled and played nice.  I didn’t even know your voice could do grouchy.  It’s reassuring.”  She felt behind him into his other pocket.  It was empty also.  “I thought you said it was in there.”

“I thought it was,” he said, peeking around the airbag.

“Charming,” she said drolly.  “If it’s not there, then where do you think it is?”

“It’s probably in the front pocket,” he said quietly.

“And why can’t you get it?” Lindsay asked, almost at the end of her patience.

“My wrist hurts, on that side and I can’t reach it with my left hand over the air bag,” he whined.

She patted his leg before diving into his pocket.  “It’s there,” she said, reaching in with two fingers to grab it.

When she turned the phone over to look at it, the screen was already lit up.  Someone was calling, but the ringer was turned off so they didn’t hear it.  

“You’re getting a call,” she said.  “Someone called Gavin.”

“It’s my brother.  Answer it, and hold it up to my ear.”

Lindsay answered the call.  “Hello, you’ve reached the phone of Oliver Grantford.  Please allow a moment for me to connect you,” she said, not having lost all of her spunk.   

She held it up to his ear while he spoke.  

“Yes, we were on our way up tonight.  The girl?  She’s my girlfriend.  I thought she could help with the renovations since it’s always hard to get people to come.  Yes… that may be… She’s a woman.  I’m sure we’ll be able to find something for her to do… You don’t need to be so tactless.  She might hear you… Yes, I was driving when you called.  No, we’ve stopped.  Just outside Victoria.  We just had a little accident.  We should be back on the road in no time.”  There was a long pause before Oliver finally got the chance to speak again.  “Fine.  You’re right.  We had a big accident.  I need to see a doctor and maybe she does too.  Fine!  Do that!”

The call abruptly ended and Oliver mushed his face into the airbag like he might suffocate himself.

“What’s going on?” Lindsay asked.

There were muffled sounds coming from the airbag and it was quite some time before Oliver could stand to pull his head away from the thing enough to take a fresh breath in and to admit to her that his brother, Gavin, had been in Victoria for the evening and was coming to get them.  “He says we can have the car towed in the morning.”

“Okay,” Lindsay said, opening the vanity mirror over her head to see what the damage was.  The cut on her head had bled, but that didn’t mean it had done much to spoil her good looks.  The car still had power and a light appeared to show her that she looked exactly like a zombie in a haunted house.  She knew exactly what the zombie in the haunted house looked like.  It had been her summer job two years in a row.

She hunted around for a tissue.  “Don’t you at least have an old Tim Horton’s bag with a few napkins in it?”

“I cleaned out the car for the drive,” he explained, his head still resting on the air bag.

“Shouldn’t that thing have deflated by now?”

“Probably,” he said sounding desolate.

“Should we pop it?”

“No.  I like it.  It’s homey.”

“Homey?” she repeated, thinking that was how she felt about him.  He got the same feeling from what was basically a safety balloon?  

“It’s a lot homier than Gavin is going to be when he gets here.”

“He’s going to be really mad?”

“Yup.”

Oliver didn’t offer anymore of an explanation than that, and Lindsay didn’t ask for one.  Instead, she sat with her head back and listened to the rain on the roof of the car.  After a minute of that, she turned to him and said, “Don’t sleep.  People with head injuries aren’t allowed to sleep.”

“And I was so looking forward to our first night sleeping together,” he said in a shallow monotone.

She laughed.  “Our first night together is obviously a success if no one is sleeping.”

He laughed too.  Then he turned and looked at her with the vanity light still on.  “You look like a zombie.”

“So do you.”

“Do you know any good necrophilia jokes?  That would be a good way to pass the time.”

Lindsay groaned.  “What do you call it when two necrophiliacs go on a date?”

“A group funeral?” Oliver offered.

“Your guess is as good as mine.  I asked without having a plan as to how to finish it.  I thought you’d nail it without me having to come up with a punch line.”

“I have a head injury, if that’s any excuse.”

“I’ll take it,” Lindsay said, using the sleeve of her shirt to blot at the blood on her face.  It didn’t improve anything and so she closed the mirror and turned out the light.

“What’s your favorite thing to do, Lindsay.  Your favorite thing in the whole world?” he suddenly asked quietly.

“Why?”

“I want to do that with you.  That’s part of the reason for being here.  I want to take you somewhere where we can do what you like.  The ocean here is great.  We can surf.  I love to surf, but I don’t think that’s your dream.  What is your dream?”

“Why aren’t you just taking it for granted that I want to be an actor?  We have been taking classes together in Vancouver for months,” she reminded him.

“I know, but I don’t think that’s what you really want.  You don’t seem as bummed as I am when we both go out on auditions, and you don’t get the part you wanted and neither do I.  I’m heartbroken.  You seem like you expect to fail and you don’t really care if you succeed.  Why are you so disconnected?  What is it you really want?”

“To eat Jell-o,” she replied, giving him a simple answer to his complex question.  “I don’t want to be rich or expensive or whatever.  I just want to eat Jell-o and live simply.  It’s okay if I don’t get a fancy acting job.  I have got by okay just working odd tourist jobs and living cheaply with lots of girls.  Working with you seems like a dream come true.  You’re always so calm and fun.  I like that.”  As she talked, she realized that she actually only thought of him as flavored goo.  Balloons and Jell-o, that was what they thought of each other.  “We’re going to have a good time, and we can practice our jokes.”  

The last class they had taken together was an improv class.  She had loved doing it, but she felt he was better at it.  As far as she was concerned, being an actor didn’t suit him well either.  He was going to be a stand-up comedian, and she was excited to see what his future would be.

There had been headlights that passed from time to time, but nothing could really have prepared Lindsay for the truck that pulled up behind them.  At first, she thought it was a tow truck and then she thought it must be some sort of emergency vehicle, but did they have headlights shaped like parentheses?  At any rate, why did they have their brights on?

“That’s Gavin,” Oliver said, trying to open his door with his left hand and failing at it.  

Gavin opened the door for him, said something messy Lindsay couldn’t quite hear, deflated the air bag and helped Oliver out.  He had an umbrella and he escorted his brother around to the passenger side door of the truck before coming back to the wreck of a car.  

Lindsay couldn’t open her door, so she scooted across her seat and into the driver’s seat.  The side view mirror was practically blinding her when Gavin came back to help her.  He had a flashlight in his hand and it blinded her further as he shone it in her face.  She leaned down and found the release for the trunk and pulled it.

“What are you doing?” the man with the flashlight asked.

“Opening the trunk.  My bag goes where I go.”

“I’ll get it,” he said as he grasped her upper arm in his and lifted her to her feet.  

“What are you doing?”

“Helping.”

“You’re hurting me!”

He let go and without the support, she suddenly found that her bruised legs didn’t give her much to stand on and she fell, knees first, into the wet grass.  He caught her again, but only so she didn’t fall further.  Dropping the umbrella, he put both arms around her and lifted her back onto her feet.  Her head was swimming.  

“You don’t have to,” she wheezed.

“I think I do.”  Gavin picked her up the rest of the way and carried her gingerly to a seat in the back of the over-sized truck.  He turned on the cabin lights and looked at her, but all Lindsay could do was blink at the light and cover her face with her hand.  “I think you’re right about the hospital,” he said to Oliver.  “That will have to be our first stop.”

See what I mean?  See?  Exactly like that!  That is the first chapter of a book that is doomed to blockage.  There are more chapters, but… boo… boo… boo...