Tag: writers block

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – Dec 31/16

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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First, it’s the last day of 2016 and I want to say to all of you how much I’ve enjoyed writing these stream of consciousness challenge posts and, most of all, reading your posts, in 2016. There are wonderfully talented writers in this group and I look forward to continuing right on into 2017.

Next, I want to thank you for reading my writings and ramblings since I started this challenge. I also want to thank Linda for being such a fine host! This is a great challenge that let’s my writing just flow out of my fingertips and also allows me to get things off my chest. A real service on both counts. Too many writers, myself included, sometimes suffer from writer’s block, and I think stream of consciousness writing helps clear the cobwebs and sweeps writer’s block away. At least, it has worked that way for me. Writer’s block has other causes. I get so caught up in writing that I don’t read enough. Writer’s need to read and when I am really in a heavy writing period, I neglect reading. That is always a mistake. Right now, I need to read more of the genre in which I’m writing a novel which is the psychological thriller. If any of you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I also need to blog more in that genre when I am blogging fictional stories or flash fiction challenges. That’s one of my goals for 2017.

Last, I just want to end this post by telling everyone Happy New Year! I think 2016 was a hard year for many of us individually and for big groups of us collectively. A writer I greatly admire, and who pulls no punches, thinks 2017 may be harder still on a global level. I hope he’s wrong. At least on a personal level, I hope each and every one of you have a wonderful 2017, filled with many writing, and other, successes. #amwriting #amblogging #writing #Challenges #SoCS

Posted in Appalachia, Eastern Kentucky, history, Uncategorized, weekendcoffeeshare, Writing

#weekendcoffeeshare: 5/21/16

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Hello! I’m so glad you’re back for our #weekendcoffeeshare! It’s raining outside so bring your coffee and let’s sit on the couch in my office and chat. It’s so good to see you. Do you think the rain is ever going to end?

How has your week been? You’re suffering from writer’s block? That is so frustrating, isn’t it. What do you usually do when that happens? I need to know because it happens  to me too. So you leave your writing and do other things for awhile? I guess that’s one approach, but I’ll have to disagree. If I step away, I step away for a long time — too long. What works for me is to push through it. Instead of writing about topics in what is supposed to be my niche, I go outside my niche and write about something else I know about. After all, we all know about more than one topic, don’t we? Couple our knowledge with good research and there you have it. Suddenly, we’re writing again, though maybe about something new. Maybe we can sell this piece to a different editor or publisher and we will have a wider market for our writing.

I’ll tell you what I did once. I was having trouble finding topics in the niche I considered my own so I went far afield with my writing. I had always been interested in writing about Appalachia but I had never tackled any topic in that area. On the campus of the University here, where I taught for a long time, is a little piece of Appalachian history, the Cora Wilson Stewart Moonlight School. It was originally located next to the campus training school where I attended grades one through twelve. I did some research and wrote a piece on the Moonlight School for Preservation Magazine, having never written about historic preservation before. My writer’s block was gone! I also realized I could write about more than one topic.

Tell me how it works for you to step away from your writing? So you take a walk or go somewhere different or do some reading. You gradually relax enough to relieve the writer’s block. Sounds possible. What I would hope is that I could get ideas from a walk or traveling or reading or whatever else I would do that is different. That really might work if I could then have enough discipline to get back to writing. I will be going some different places this summer, taking a lot of photos, and getting some new ideas that I can turn into articles or into some sort of work. Really the same principle as your strategy.

It’s been so good to talk to you today for #weekendcoffeeshare. You’ve given me a great idea about getting rid of writer’s block and a lot to think about. Have a good weekend.