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!