I feel like lately I have been riding the struggle bus when it comes to writing. I have a really weird dream that I want to write about, or a little piece of a scene will pop into my head, but it seems like I have writer's block and I can't even get a short story out of any of it. It's starting to make me a little frustrated, because I have all of this free time at work, and I would like to be able to write, but I can't. So where do you guys come up with ideas? And what do you do about writer's block?

Ideas for me just come from little things I see, being it something at work or on the street or a picture I saw on Pinterest, that sort of thing. I'll see it and for whatever reason it jogs something in my imagination and before I know it, my mind is twisting words around. Not all of them make it to my computer screen or pad of paper but some do.

When I get writer's block, and those words are swirling but refusing to cooperate, I just sit down and start pecking at the keys. I'll write anything that comes to mind, be it gibberish or something solid, but I'll keep doing it until my mind finally realizes that my fingers are more stubborn than it is. Then the words start to work.

So basically, just keep trying until it works, and it will happen eventually? I hope so. I feel like I'm struggling and that I haven't written anything of any real quality in a long time. I have several friends who are always working on a novel or something, and it's frustrating to watch other people just breeze through it, when I used to write constantly and just haven't been able to lately.

That's what works for me at least. Not necessarily for everyone but I found that if I "stubborn" my way through it, in the end my muse gives in and starts producing. Sometimes a break helps but usually I just go for it and don't give up.

For years, I didn't try to write proper stories. I just wrote down my concepts if I felt they were worth remembering, whether it was just a couple of inspirational words or a few inspired lines... Occasionally, they'd even make it to short story length. I got into the habit of not worrying about how far I could take a concept and instead just focused on getting the ideas down. Now I have tons of notes I can reference. I build upon the ideas, sometimes combining them and sometimes re-imagining them.

As for what inspired the ideas... Art, basically. Movies, music, photos, drawings, poems, stories. Whether it's a learned technique or something I do naturally, I often find myself imagining a different version of events or an elaboration of a moment, line, or image. In fact, my favorite movies and TV shows are favorites because my mind has supplied such an interesting idea of what's happening between scenes. If I'm not imagining extra "off-screen" things happening, then I'm not engaged enough.

So, in summary, my suggestion is: Get into the habit of noticing moments of inspiration and do not let them pass. Always make a note (mental or otherwise) and let your mind elaborate.

I'll give that a try and see what happens.

When I first started writing (like in middle school) I would carry around a notebook to write down ideas or snippets or something like that. I think that Stephen King does that and then eventually a lot of those ideas make it into his short stories? I'll have to start paying attention to things and see if anything particularly noteworthy happens.

Good luck! Remember, never give up. Never.

Thank you!!

I've heard something interesting about escaping writers block by making writing a fun process for yourself also. Personally, I can't write well if I'm too stressed or anxious about the final product, whether it's personal creative stuff or school essays. Remember that the quality of a first draft doesn't matter much - I know it's hard to stop comparing yourself to what your friends are writing, but you can always edit what you've written later, as long as you're not too busy beating yourself up to write in the first place! I'm not sure what you've tried, but maybe try something like this: I'll write snippets in my phone's memo app since it feels more casual and unofficial. Then you can always copy and paste everything into an email or whatever and edit it from a laptop.

I know what you mean about stress. That's why I can't write outlines for anything, even if it's a school thing or something like that, because then I just get really freaked out and end up screwing it up because I'm so stressed out about it. I like the idea of just kind of writing snippets of things, and trying to put it together later. I feel like there is less stress for you to finish something if you aren't just staring at a lot of blank paper or a blinking cursor.

Haha welcome to my life!! For outlines, I've found that if I just focus on structure, quotes, and gibberish, it really helps. Ex.

1. Intro _a. write some pretty imagery and bullshit to introduce concept _b. aesthetic: background info _c. [thesis]
2. [topic sentence 1] _a. "[quote from relevant source material]" - citation __i. explain how this supports topic sentence 1, generally a sentence fragment of a remark like 'and thats rly fucking nice bc what they talk about actually causes xyz to happen' __ii. [same as above if necessary] _b. [generally same thing as above, maybe not a quote tho] _c. conclude paragraph, but I have trouble concluding paragraphs without writing the next one first so i'll usually put something like TIE TOGETHER THESE PARAGRAPHAGLSKJDGLSDG so I don't think i've already finished editing

and so on. After I finish my completely bullshit outline, then I start making it look like a real human being wrote a paper.

And I haven't tried this yet, but if you like giving presentations more than writing writing, someone came up with the strategy of basically dictating your paper or whatever using siri/google voice while talking through your outline/notes/ideas.

I don't think voice to text is the way to go, really. Even with visual voicemail, it ends up getting something wrong lol.

meh, that's why you edit it!

My ideas come out of nowhere most of the time. They hit like a truck... or like a pillow, depending on what I'm thinking. Music has been a HUGE help, specially if you can find either instrumental pieces that fit your mood/scene OR a great lyrical piece that sums up things almost perfectly.

My only issue with my ideas is... I get them, I have amazing scenes and mental images in my head but the drive to actually /write/ is where it all falls apart. Sometimes you just have to force yourself to write, even if it's not always the best course of action. I like to just do blurbs, nonsensical pieces that usually loosen up my block or jump start my motivation.

Never give the blurbs any real meaning, if you just write for the sake of writing sometimes they can manifest into the things you ACTUALLY want to write about. :)

I do hope that makes sense and helped in some small way. Best wishes!

Thanks. :) I have that problem when I am trying to write, it never comes out like I saw it in my head and everything kind of tends to just fall apart and crumble. I'll have to start writing little blurbs about things and see how that comes together.

When I have writers block I play with stumbleupon or read the news

I get ideas from really anywhere, normally like something little I want to include or a set pace or a name of a chapter, although I like to put on some kind of cartoon, since that always gets me "inspired" and puts me in a good mood to write. Putting ideas together's the hard part.

I keep a dream journal because I have really long, cinematic dreams and I get a lot of good ideas for fiction from them. My current novel is about a particularly odd sci-fi dream I had last year.

I'm a high school teacher, so I get a lot of scenarios from my kids and my classes. Even better, I'm a science teacher, so we get into some fun situations.

I've also worked a range of weird and unrelated jobs (animal shelter, ice cream shop, event center work, airport linesman...) and have a knack for getting into strange situations.

So, 9 times out of 10...my ideas come from real life. Sometimes they get so odd that people believe they were made up entirely.

And as far as writer's block goes, I use Write or Die for sprints (10 minutes/600 words) and write short fanfiction drabbles with my writing partner.

I conquer my writers block the way I conquer my artist block. Go onto Subeta and use the Avatar Games forums. The boards set a challenge and there are many avatars to pick from! If I can't pick one, then I force myself to write at least one line about the latest user. If Subeta isn't an option, I take an everyday object and make a story about it. It can be as simple as writing about someone sharpening a pencil. Boring is good when you can't write anything!