Narration provided by Wondervox

By Mark McNease 

I’ve always had a stubborn refusal to admit experiencing this dreaded thing called writer’s block. I worry that confessing to it reveals a certain creative weakness, even though I know that’s not the case at all. It sounds too much like a wall, or some obstacle I can’t overcome. I’ve preferred to use words like “stuck” to refer to the state I find myself in when I can’t get past the next plot point, or figure out where to take a story, or what the central building blocks are of something I’m writing.

At the same time, when I take out my trusty egg timer, set it to 45 minutes and start typing, something always comes out. It could be the outline of a next chapter, or story notes, or even working on a character biography in an attempt to understand why someone is killed in service to the story, and who killed them! Lately that’s been one of my biggest problems: until the last couple of books I always knew who the killer was and why the murder was committed. Now I find myself repeatedly stuck. But is this a self-fulfilling prophecy? Am I unable to move forward because I tell myself I can’t? And how do I get out of it? Let’s take a look at this thing called writer’s block, this goblin, this bogeyperson who always seems to be lurking in the doorway waiting to keep us from walking through.