The dreaded words no writer wants to hear....

That's right, this post is going to be about Writers Block.

All writers at some point or another have felt this much feared aspect to living a creative life.
Most blame TV, Movies, Books, our families or life in general. They say, it's a bad writing day, I'll just come back to it tomorrow. Or maybe it starts slowly with writing a little less each day until the writing stops.  However it comes about, Writers Block usually has nothing to do with the actual story the person is working on, it's usually not even an outside force. Rather it is a psychological blockage.

In my own writing life I have encountered Writers Block in a few forms.
Some of the worst Writers Block I had was when I was emotionally drained from a relationship I was in. It probably didn't help that I was also working 32+ hours a week, as well as attending college full time. I was so drained from trying to be everything to everyone that my personal writing sadly fell to the wayside.
The only thing that helped, and this was only one of the two good things that I took from my capstone professor, was an assignment to write 500 words 5 days a week. They had to be new words of fiction. Unlike the two stories we were supposed to write, they could be anything. So digging deep I unearthed a story idea that I had started when I was 16 but had stopped writing.

Ta-DA. I got so jazzed about this new project that completing my 2500 words a week soon became easy, and was actually enjoyable. I could easily hammer out my weekly word count in an hour or two.  It was me time. Time to escape.

Fast forward to now when I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. My chosen project is the third installment in the series, and while I may always hit my word count, my spirit was lacking. My heart wasn't really in it.

Finally earlier this week I had an epiphany.

I had been trying to figure out how to take the events needed to finish this series into books three and four. And I suddenly realized that this needed to be a trilogy and not a cycle.
I quickly started writing more and more this week. Each day getting close or over 2k words. My passion for this project is back.

Morals of the story?

Don't spread yourself too thin.
Make your writing sacred, and do not cancel your writing time, FOR ANYONE.
Do anything to get yourself excited about a project. Take the time to flesh out your characters. Write scenes or background that your audience will never see. Anything to get excited and passionate about your project.

The world deserves the story you're writing. Your story matters. You matter.
Take the time for yourself, and your writing will follow.

Happy Writing!

Scene

This is something that I just wrote, with little to no editing.
Enjoy!
 PS- Nairn is a dragon :)

“As you can see, we come with nearly a thousand warriors.”

“I only see half of that.”

Yaretzi, Chimalli, and Damien were all seated in Cisneros’ large tent with his two sons. He seemed to be letting the eldest son do most of the talking.

“What are talking about?”

“I mean, you brought men and women. Meaning that you only brought half of what you think.”

Damien sat back, his arms crossed over his chest; he noticed that Cisneros also had an amused expression. Clearly Ciccero had much to learn about women despite his being a grown man. Yaretzi stood from her crouched position.

“I would take ten of my best female warriors for every thirty of your males.” Her hips swung to the side, and her hands planted on them in a gesture that Damien was beginning to be familiar with. He was just glad that it wasn’t at him this time.

“Is that so.” Ciccero stood as well. His arms, while not overly large, were corded with lean muscle. He clearly had had practice swinging a sword.

“Yes.” Damien watched as Yaretzi’s eyes sparked. “I challenge you to a duel. First blood wins.” She shrugged, “Nothing serious. Nothing that you can’t handle, I am sure.”

Ciccero looked to his father, a questioning look on his face.

“Well, you’re the one who claims women can’t fight. This would be the time to learn.” Cisneros looked past his son to wink at Damien before sipping from his drink.

“I accept. First blood wins.” He smiled his teeth glinting. “I will try not to mar that pretty face of yours that my brother likes.”

“And I will try not to take your manhood away.” Yaretzi spun on her heel and left the tent leaving Ciccero with a confused look on his face.

Cisneros coughed, “She means…” he pointed down the middle of his son’s body until a look of understanding came across Ciccero’s features.

Without another word Ciccero stomped out of the tent, followed by Crosns, leaving Chimalli, Damien, and Cisneros.

“Well this should be interesting.” Chimalli stood and stretched before leaning to grab some nuts and fruit off of the table. “Better take some snacks.”

Damien followed after Cisneros, and blinked rapidly while his eyes adjusted to the bright light. When he could see again, he found a ring of people already around where Yaretzi and Ciccero stood. The young man stood with several of his mates, while Yaretzi stood alone, fastening her long handled blade together. Damien calmly walked up to her.

“Please go easy on him, we do want to make friends.” She smiled fiercely up at him before leaning up closer to him.

“He won’t know what hit him.” She turned and met him for a passionate kiss before she broke away. He walked out of the ring to where Nairn had wedged himself so that he could see as well.

‘She’s going to whoop him.’

‘Yep.’

‘Be fun to watch though.’

‘Yep.’

‘At least you got better, I was worried that you would never amount to much of a swordsman.’

‘Hey!’ He swatted at Nairn’s nose.

‘Well she was always beating you. Until you learned to read the ground and how people move.’ Nairn moved his head and nearly knocked over Chimalli. ‘Ooh it’s starting!’

The call of writing/NaNoWriMo

Founder Chris Baty delivering an excellent, inspiring speech!