So, you want to be a writer? - Page 2

On October 17 2009 03:59 Mora wrote:


i came to the same conclusion which is why i gave you the benefit of the doubt.

After reading your previous blog posts, it was clear that i'd be wasting your time. I like to express myself but i would be audacious in calling myself a writer. I'd be delusional to call what i do 'writing'.

I hope someone takes up your offer (presuming that the writing and the critique get posted here on tl.net)

On October 17 2009 03:59 Mora wrote:


i came to the same conclusion which is why i gave you the benefit of the doubt.

After reading your previous blog posts, it was clear that i'd be wasting your time. I like to express myself but i would be audacious in calling myself a writer. I'd be delusional to call what i do 'writing'.

I hope someone takes up your offer (presuming that the writing and the critique get posted here on tl.net)

On October 17 2009 04:03 D10 wrote:
Chef, you must have a very methodical and boring writing style, I know exacly what the OP is talking about.

if you write seeking to pass something pre conceived, like news, or a pretty general idea like story about two marines drinking in the bar then getting attack then running away only to find more zerglings and die, its pretty easy to just put some time and thought on it and receive decent results.

But when you are trying to come with pretty original ideas and insights and are trying to add to the original plot on the fly (not only in what the plot is, but on how to transcribe it to the person) a Writer's block is pretty much a temporary inability to get inspired to the point where you need to brainstorm

Normally great authors dont need to brainstorm anything, they are the storm.

On October 17 2009 04:19 Chef wrote:

Hahaha, you're the best.


All the writers I've ever liked have led extremely interesting lives. I think that's what makes a writer good. Not having a magic talent brain that's better than any other.

On October 17 2009 04:18 Mora wrote:
i'm going to be honest: you said 'no causal writing' (when i don't even know the distinction between casual/serious/professional in this context) and you're writing ability/fluency with literature intimidates me.

If i had any constructed prose that i would not be embarrassed to show you, i certainly would.

On October 17 2009 05:15 Hot_Bid wrote:
Chef, your posts about writers seem to value life experience very highly, so how can you possibly think writer's block doesn't exist and say that its "bs and only for an excuse used by people who just don't feel like opening up" when you don't even know the many number of famous, brilliant writers who have had it? I mean, its just ridiculous to think how you can make such a blanket stupid statement and then defend it in this thread.

As for the OP, I bet you receive very few submissions because frankly, saying something like "I'm not going to provide credentials or evidence but trust me I'm good" is like someone coming onto this website, giving strategy advice, and being like "I don't play iccup but trust me i'm awesome at Brood War." Why would anyone want to submit their writing or get strategy advice from someone like that?

Do you know how many people try to write novels? Everyone. Do you know how many of these people would say "trust me I'm awesome at writing" (cough you, cough Chef) but actually have no idea exactly how bad they are at writing? To become a good writer, the first real step is to understand that you are not actually a good writer. Not many people are good enough at writing to realize that.

Remember the time you said "online dating is only used by virgins who can't interact in real life" when you had no experience or information about it?

On October 17 2009 05:15 Hot_Bid wrote:
Do you know how many people try to write novels? Everyone.

On October 17 2009 05:27 Chef wrote:

No.

I remember thinking Kennigit meant dating over the internet, not online dating services that set up dates with people irl. I don't remember saying anything about virgins who can't interact in real life either, but you're very good at misquoting me. I think your hate for me helps you to invent things about me.

Causes of writer's block

Writer's block may have many causes. Some are essentially creative problems that originate within an author's work itself. A writer may run out of inspiration. A project may be fundamentally misconceived, or beyond the author's experience or ability. (A fictional example can be found in George Orwell's novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying, in which the hero Gordon Comstock struggles in vain to complete an epic poem describing a day in London: "It was too big for him, that was the truth. It had never really progressed, it had simply fallen apart into a series of fragments.") [1]
Other blocks, especially the more serious kind, may be produced by adverse circumstances in a writer's life or career: physical illness, depression, the end of a relationship, financial pressures, a sense of failure. The pressure to produce work may in itself contribute to a writer's block, especially if he is compelled to work in ways that are against his natural inclination, i.e. too fast or in some unsuitable style or genre, and he or she is not willing to adapt. In some cases, writer's block may also come from feeling intimidated by a previous big success, the creator putting on him/herself a paralyzing pressure to find something to equate that same success again. The writer Elizabeth Gilbert, reflecting on her post-bestseller prospects, proposes that such a pressure might be released by interpreting creative writers as "having" genius rather than "being" a genius [1]. In George Gissing's New Grub Street, one of the first novels to take writer's block as a main theme, the novelist Edwin Reardon becomes completely unable to write and is shown as suffering from all those problems. [2]
Recently, the writer and neurologist Alice W. Flaherty has argued that literary creativity is a function of specific areas of the brain, and that block may be the result of brain activity being disrupted in those areas. [3]

Notable blocked writers

Well-known writers who have suffered from block include George Gissing, Samuel Coleridge, Ralph Ellison, Joseph Mitchell and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Writers who overcame block and published new work after a hiatus of decades include Harold Brodkey, whose novel The Runaway Soul appeared some 30 years after it was first projected, and Henry Roth, whose first novel, Call It Sleep, was published in 1934; his second, Mercy Of A Rude Stream, did not appear until 1994.

On October 17 2009 03:33 Chef wrote:
I don't understand writers block. If you have something to say, just write it and perfect it. If you don't have something to say... Go experience life until you do.