Writer's Block

Some very nice people have weighed in with their ideas on how they get ideas.  Someone said something about me having writer’s block.  I don’t.  I’ve had that and this isn’t the same thing.

I’ve had it twice, in fact.  The first time was in the 80’s.  When I’d go to the typewriter I’d get a panic attack and I’d hyperventilate which made me feel as though I was going to faint.  Not exactly conducive to writing.  So I stopped going to the typewriter for a year or two or three.  When I went back I’d become Jack Early.

I published the last of my Laurano series in 1998.  I wrote one book between then and 2004.  The book in between those dates was rejected all over the place.  This was partly because I was doing something I always warn writers against.  I tried to write for the market and not because it was something I wanted to write or in the way I’d normally write.  It wasn’t a good book.  How could it be?

Over those 7 years I’d say I had a form of writer’s block.  I didn’t hyperventilate or faint when I’d sit down at the blank page of Word on my computer because I didn’t go at all.  Some of that was due to a clinical depression that went on for a full year until the right medication clicked in.  But some of it was because I didn’t want to write.  And I felt I couldn’t.

All of the above was very different from what I feel now.  I want to write.  I can’t afford to take time off.  The days dwindle down.  I don’t have a writer’s block, I just don’t have an idea.  Yet.

And I’m so glad people are leaving comments about how they get ideas.  I find it interesting and I might just try some of the suggestions.