Beth Barany - Overcome writers block

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Overcome Writers Block: 10 Writing Sparks to Ignite Your Creativity

A Self-Guided Creative Writing Class to Get You Writing Again

by Beth Barany

AMAZON EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:
BARANY PUBLISHING

http://www.BaranyPublishing.com

Overcome Writers Block:

10 Writing Sparks to Ignite Your Creativity

A Self-Guided Creative Writing Class to Get You Writing Again

Copyright 2007-2013 by Beth Barany

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Welcome! You have come to the right place to overcome your writers block and spark your creativity in unique ways.

This writing guide is written for writers, though all the suggestions can apply equally to other artists. Replace writing with your art, and go for it!

I believe we are all creative. Yes, even you, in your time of feeling most blocked. Creativity is our birthright! We are here to play and be 100% ourselves. In this I act as your guide, mentor, coach, buddy, and teacher. My purpose is to help you to reawaken your playful self in your every day writing sessions. Let me help you to bring play into your work. With courage and kindness, with joy and spirit, I guide you on the writers adventure. My specialty is storytelling via writing. My passion is book writing. A Certified Creativity Coach, writing teacher, nonfiction and fiction writer, and speaker, I am a communicator who writes and speaks to entertain, motivate and move others. I invite you to come play with me.

This writing guide offers a unique approach to writers block. Since I believe we are all creative, and writers have the unique tool of writing it all out, the way through writers block is a multi-pronged approach, with writing exercises, finding your passion exercises, and some good old-fashioned goal-setting thrown in there for good measure.

Read this writing guide from cover to cover, or jump randomly from spark to spark. Its meant to support you, ignite your passion for writing, and help you write again. As you are a creative being, the way out of writers block involves using your creativity in fun, unique ways.

Most of my suggestions and writing exercises can be applied in short 15-20 minute chunks of time while youre on a lunch break, sitting in the dentists waiting room, or have a few minutes before the work day. Experiment with implementing the sparks once a week to enliven your writing sessions and keep things fresh. Refer to the sparks when you are having trouble getting started on your writing project.

However you choose use this writing guide, know that you are a creative being here to express yourself.

Express yourself. There is only one you!

To grow the unique writer within, we need to look inward, and then take steps to cultivate our writer self.

As physical beings that are made up of atoms, molecules, elements and water, we are organic bodies of the earth. This we cant deny. Our creativity has roots in the earth and has grown organically from who we are and where were from. Who we are as writers has grown from our lived experiences, our passions, our frictions, and your soil. How weve fertilized, what mental and emotional weeds weve pulled, how weve cultivated the gardens of our minds and hearts all contribute to who we are as writers. Who we are is the result of our fertilizer, our weed pulling, and how we tend our garden.

Your writing wont be like anyone elses, nor will your career, nor will your daily routine. This may appear self-evident, but dont we all compare ourselves to others, especially the best-selling writers? We often want to be like them: successful, writing guide in the front of the store, and great storytellers. So we think we need to emulate these bestsellers, and their routine, stories, and style. But we are not them; we didnt come from the same root stock, soil or climatic conditions.

Use the following questions and tips as guides to look inward and take steps to cultivate our writer selves.

Consider where you come from. What is your background, family, education, your dreams, your cultural influences, that thing that happened to you, that thing you overheard, those family expectations, the whispers of your imagination? Be specific, be general, be wacky, be curious about yourself. Spill out the contents of your mind, and breathe. Stare off into space. Then look to see what youve written, and smile, or frown. These are your inspirations, your fertilizer, your individual quirks and quarks, interests, curiosities, knick knacks of the mind and heart. Your individual pattern, rhythm. Where you come from.

Examine your deepest motivations for writing. What kind of writing do you want to do and do now, and why -- what is your true motivation? Know why you write and dont take the first answer you come up with as the only answer. Dig deeper, listen harder, be truthful with yourself. The more you know your true motivation, the better your writing life, in that you can make excuses, but you cant lie to yourself anymore.

Knowledge is powerful. What is your voice, your style, and what are your strengths, your weaknesses as a writer? As above, be as truthful as you can with yourself. No one will know these things but you. You are on a voyage of discovery and affirmation. Accept who you are. You are beautiful.

Tip #1: Patience. The garden does grow itself. We dont stand by it every minute of every day and say, Go roses! Go lavender! Grow! It happens because of the proper conditions -- the soil, the sun, the rain, and the seed. We shape the garden by our hand. We watch out for the dangers or bugs, and over- feeding or under-feeding. We care. We nurture. Regularly. As with gardening, so with writing. Show up for yourself. Honestly, why do you write? Could you not write? Probably not. In that case, make peace with yourself, and write. But be gentle. Plants do not grow faster if you pull on them. That would kill them. The most you can do is write regularly, with compassion, with awareness (tracking), and dont give up.

Tip #2: Compassion. Above all, be gentle, have compassion for the writer within, the writer you are growing, especially if you are starting out. And especially if youve been at this for years. We tend our gardens day in and day out with care, giving the plants what they need, even if that rose bush has been there for years, or if you just planted it. Treat yourself no differently, especially if youre having a bad day, week, or month.

Tip #3: Trouble-shooting. Are there unhelpful pesticides -- other peoples ways, thoughts, ideas, beliefs that are not your own, or fatigue, overwork, not enough play -- invading your garden? What hobbies can you give up to give yourself time to write? You can change many things that affect adversely your writer within -- learn to say No. Yet the sun and rain, other people, world events, are factors beyond on our control. Accept that. If the soil needs amending, find the missing ingredients. Do you need to aerate -- get out and do something new, something to expand your heart, mind or soul? Do you need to move your body to counteract an overactive mind?

Happy Cultivating the Writer Within!

**You have it. Drive. Motivation. Inspiration.**

All great success comes with a plan, a structured series of action steps. It takes movement and an outpouring of energy. Action makes dreams and vision manifest. Its a beautiful and powerful thing to see ones dreams and visions in tangible, touch-me real form, whether you want to write plays, poems, novels, short stories, screenplays, or nonfiction.

You have it. Drive, motivation, inspiration, but just not today. Today you dont remember why you want to write that novel, screenplay, memoir or expert nonfiction book. Because when you sit down to write, your mind goes blank, or worse yet, the story is mapped out, but theres no juice. Theres no there there. (As an Oakland resident, Im entitled to use this. Attributed to Gertrude Stein.)