The frustrating thing about writing, for me, is that I never don’t have anything to write about; I just sometimes don’t have it in me to write. I’ve mostly gotten over the fear of “ugly writing”, just throwing things on the page and trusting myself to fix them later, but sometimes I can string together movies in my head but can’t translate them to words and convert them into writing. It’s such a bizarre thing and I hate it so much. The ability to sit in front of a computer and string together amazing people and places in my head and then just hover my fingers over the keyboard because they won’t come out in coherent sentences is frustrating. This is probably due to the cognitive difficulties that I’m having at the moment, in terms of how frequent it’s happening, but is definitely something I’ve struggled with for years. It’s different to writer’s block, and arguably worse.

So, what do I do when this happens? … usually I play games, or read manhua … not the most constructive things to do, but they alleviate some of the stress.

So, this post is really:

What should I do when I have nothing to write about?

Now, let’s brainstorm a little.

Word Clouds?

If I can’t get them out into sentences, maybe I should just jot down the words that come into mind in a bubble, so I can try to capture what’s in my head, building some sort of word palette for the scene. I can do action words in order to remind me as well. That would be better than forgetting the scene/idea. It’s really another step down from “just write it!”; instead of just getting the sentences on the page, I just get the words on the page. The only reason I haven’t thought to do this before is because I’d hate how it looked and I sometimes (with this whole fumble brain thing) I just get so frustrated that I give up on what I’m trying to do. So this could be a great thing for me to start doing. I can pop them in my writing prompt notepad.

Writing Prompts: only a handful of words

One of my biggest problems with writing prompts is that I feel that I have to write something substantial for it to count. I need to just forget about that and do prompts, even if only a couple of sentences or words come to mind. If I can’t get the cogs running, I can at least start greasing them. I need to apply me “as long as you’re putting one foot in front of the other, you’re still moving” to my writing. “As long as you’re putting one word after the other, you’re still writing.”

Fan-Fiction

As much as this is a weird one to bring up, I think it would be better than doing nothing. I can always run away with fan-fiction and I have no regard for the quality of my fan-fiction writing and so am a lot more free about it: mostly because I don’t intend on sharing my fanfic, and so I am utterly shameless when I write it.

Read a Page, Read a Paragraph; for the Love of all that is Good, just Read!

I should apply some of the ideas from the first two to reading. One thing that prevents me from reading is sitting down and committing to reading, because I’m often doing four things at once on my computer, I feel like I’m not getting anything done while I’m reading … which is sad really, because I am still enamoured by books. Even if I’m only committing to a paragraph, I’m still reading, and it opens up potential to get hooked into the book. So this might be a great idea for me.

Review Writing

I keep putting this off and then I forget all of the things that I wanted to talk about. Branching off of the previous ideas, I can probably start a jotter notebook where I reflect on a book over a period of time so that I can put together a complete review of it. I definitely rush these kinds of mini projects when it’s not for school or work. Particularly when I really love a book, I want to work harder on writing a review that does it justice. I should also start writing short ones so that I can leave them on the relevant sites. Too long I have enjoyed novels in silence. I have always thought that my opinion on a novel doesn’t matter to anyone and so never bothered, but leaving reviews on books is actually pretty important, especially when they’re good reviews. This is a new project series I should start working on.

Model A and Model B

I used to not write notes down if I couldn’t think of the name of the character (which usually comes easy to me) but have gotten used to just putting “X” when I can’t think of a detail, so I can just move on to the next part. I was jut thinking of making two dedicated character models to write with when I don’t know enough about what I’m writing. Which sounds more like a comedy skit now that I think more about it and less like a helpful tip for when I can’t write. The idea was more leaning to having two characters readily available to put in any scenario, and so they can play it out for me when I can’t think of the finer details just yet.

The main reason why this actually won’t work for me is because characters come easier to me than other components of novels. But I’ve left this in the brainstorming section because there’s something about the idea of two nameless beings constantly being moulded to test scenes for me that sounds like it would be hilarious.

POST PLANNING

This is something that really shouldn’t be part of this brainstorming and just common sense but it’s something that I’m bad at and do infrequently, so I’m putting it in. I think I need to design my own template (or find a good one) for post planning. I need to stop thinking of posts as these urgent things I need to finish and actually commit to posts I start but haven’t finished. I think that’s why I try to bang them out in one go, because they often go into ‘drafts’ where I forget about them. I have an assessment planner that I used for my studies that I might be able to repurpose into a post planner.

Meditate

Here’s something that’s not directly related to writing but I think I need to do when I have those moments where I can’t write. It’s been a long time since I’ve actively mediated; I practice mindfulness, but not for extended periods of time like when I used to meditate. Meditation might help me clear up my mind and string together my thoughts into something cohesive. I’m not sure how meditation is for others, often hearing that the point is to make yourself a peaceful void, but I find that I can only achieve that distant feeling by losing myself in my thoughts … maybe that’s just zoning out … but if it works for me that way, that’s something. I don’t know if I have time to meditate today or tomorrow, but I’m going to try and dedicate some time to it this week, whether it’s to make up for not writing or not.

Write for Imaginary Others

I rarely write for others, in terms of specifically creating a piece for an individual. I used to do it in my pre-teens, writing children’s stories for my cousins or short stories for my siblings. Even if they’re imaginary (like a character or just a very specific ‘ideal audience’), I think it might be a bit easier to get myself to write. When someone needs me to write something, it’s easier to get into writing into it because I’m doing it for someone. I’ve not yet mastered imposing goals on myself, and so I don’t have any “obligation” to myself … which I really need to correct fast.

I think that will do for brainstorming today. More or less what I’ve learned is that I need to have more faith in myself and obligate myself to my profession as a writer. Though that sounds like nothing I actually wrote about, that’s what I learned about myself while writing this. I’ve dedicated myself to writing, but now I really need to dedicate myself to being a writer.