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Mark David Gerson
a book bubble about
Writer's Block Unblocked
Self-Help
Author Insight
New Rhythms, New Routines
In the decade before The MoonQuest urged itself onto me, I was a freelance writer and editor. Most days, I sat at my home-office desk and prepared articles, brochures, reports, speeches and advertising copy that reflected someone else’s thoughts and ideas, and I did it to meet someone else’s deadlines. With the creative awakening that ended that way of life, I found that the only way I could banish old associations that felt anything but free-flowing was to break all the patterns of my previous writing world. First I abandoned the computer, composing The MoonQuest’s early drafts with pen and paper. Next, I abandoned my desk, bound as it was to the soul-numbing words that had so recently comprised my livelihood. On those days when I needed a more dramatic break from the old to connect with my nascent story, I drove down to the ocean and let the crashing Atlantic surf tell me what to write next. A one-day change of habit and venue was generally all it took to put me back on track.
Book Excerpt
Writer's Block Unblocked
3. Challenge Your Routines
Human beings like routine. We like breakfast at a certain hour and a certain kind of pastry with our certain Starbucks coffee drink.
As writers, we often prefer to have set writing times and patterns: writing in a certain room, using a certain pen, sitting down at a certain time.
Rituals and routines, however, can turn into ruts. What worked yesterday may not work today...or ever again. Remember Rule #1?
If you’re feeling stuck, you may well be stuck — in a pattern that isn’t working for you anymore.
Try new rhythms and routines. Break existing patterns.
Go for a walk, do yoga stretches, take a shower or do something else unrelated to writing or to your current project. Drive to a scenic spot and write in the car. Write in the morning instead of the afternoon, longhand instead of on the computer, in a cafe instead of at home.
Find the rhythm and routine that works for you today, and be open to changing it tomorrow.
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