Tag Archives: writer’s block

Aug 1 2013

My Need to Stop “Wanting”

I need to stop “wanting” to do something and just do it.

I went on Instagram the other day and captioned this Michael’s inspirational photo with this spiel about how I need to be more creative, and/or write more. Ask me what I’ve done so far. Go ahead, ask. Better yet, why don’t you guess. That’s right … nothing.

I’ve got this huge mental block that’s a mixture of procrastination and utter fear and it’s making me freak the f-ck out. My ultimate goal in life is to be a creator — in multiple senses of the word and I find that my creative process is just not what it used to be. And that scares me. Have I lost it? Have I lost my ability to create?

Most nights I feel as though I’m sitting the dark, waiting for the muses to speak. A soft whisper, whimper, anything in my ear. And I just can’t find it. I can’t find the words or the will to start. Am I going deaf, or are they just not talking anymore?

“I want to…” is how I preface sentences these days. I don’t like it. The only way to make it stop is to be proactive and my normal surges of artistic, innovative energy are just NOT there.

I swear, this is why some of the more creative people throughout history had to smoke opium, or drink heavily in order to produce masterpieces. This damn pressure to make something out of nothing. It’s insane!

But I’m rambling…

I saw a lady today and I tried to craft a hint story about her:

“She reminded me of mocha and chocolate, but looked nothing like it. Pouted lips and tiny wefts of hair she struggled to contain with a pin.”

Then after a minute of thinking, I found that I didn’t like it. And it was a word over. But in the back of my mind I congratulated myself, stating that at least I tried. I wanted to craft a hint story and I did. Failed technically, but I went after it.

Where has the inspiration gone? Am I going insane? Am I slowly but surely going out of it because I’m over-thinking and over-analyzing the situation at hand? It should be pretty simple to just do something — to just get up, and push myself to write something or craft something. To just do, instead of wanting to do.

Is this quarter life crisis just kicking my ass in more ways than one?

GRRRRRRRRR!

In the past, when I wrote, it was almost like an out-of-body experience — my thoughts just floated onto the page and came alive on their own. I was a vessel and the story, its characters, the emotions … everything just came out of me just like Ray Bradbury said about all his best stories. They wrote themselves and he was just the person, the vessel they used to come into existence. Sigh..

Well, at least I wrote today. That’s better than nothing.

May 16 2013

I’m Making a Triumphant Return! Maybe…

Hello all!

I have to admit, I am utterly ashamed of myself. By not writing to you all (on a consistent basis), I’m failing myself. So, I make a resolution (once again) to jump right back into being a more frequent blogger. Lord knows it’ll take some time, but I’m going to work hard towards it. Even if I have to write about things that do not pertain to my several unfinished novels (which I intend on working on).

First on the list, the book I am currently reading: The Left Hand of Darkness by  Ursula K. LeGuin.

So if you guys know me, you know that I have sort of a soft spot for science fiction and fantasy.  I stumbled upon the book after hearing it referenced in that movie The Jane Austen Book Club, which was also based on a book. I figured if one of the main characters made such an argument for his love interest to read it, then shoot, I should read it too.

I will not lie — it took me a minute to get into it. Not knowing that this book was a part of a larger series, you can imagine the numerous questionable looking expressions on my face when I fell on weird ass city names, species of humans and the word kemmer which is like one of the MAJOR themes of the book.

Nonetheless, I continued to read and found myself getting increasingly immersed in it — especially because I had never read a book about an androgynous race of people. They are not androids, they’re not “aliens” in the sense that we know them, they’re a race of hermaphroditic beings that mate once a month almost on a menstrual cycle!

Consider my MIND #BLOWN. Add the fact that a person can be either man or woman at a different cycle?!?!?!? Could you imagine that?!

And this is why the people of their world  believe that there is no cause for war; there is no imbalance of hormones to create a feeling of superiority. At the same time, it’s awkward because there is no gender, the society is just a mass of the same people.

Anyway, I’m starting to enjoy the book because of its shift in narration — and because this book was published in like 1969. It’s pretty freaking amazing that this was around at a time where social constructs were being challenged, but at the same time remained very much rigid.

I’m at a point in the book now where POVs are about to converge and I’ll finally get to see them interact once more. I have to say this book is not necessarily an easy read, but some of the metaphors are beautiful and some of the quotes make me want to highlight them for forever.

—

As for everything else going on? I’ve halted on the period piece, despite the fact that I have the entire plot mapped out. Finding the words to move the plot can be so hard to do sometimes, and I don’t really want to force it. And my fantasy novel (pfft), I haven’t looked at the in a while. My novella is on hiatus BUT I intend to make a triumphant return and finish at least ONE this year … maybe … no, I have to. I just have to!

Mucho besitos!
-Alja

Aug 3 2012

Update…and still ashamed

Hello Darling Followers,

This update comes from a rather not so happy and doleful place. I’ll get straight to the point:

I haven’t added anything new to what should’ve been the novel I “completed in a summer.” It seems that while I may have the entire plot mapped out to perfection, the words just aren’t coming to me. And though I hate to make excuses, I find that nothing is moving forward because I really don’t have much time to breath, with everything else sucking up all my energy. I know, I know – “if you want something bad enough, you’ll make time for it,” but this everything around me is just like a sinkhole of concentration. I intended on selling some of my hobby pieces this summer and that is constantly being pushed further and further into the future as new circumstances are constantly arising and because of this, the writing aspect of my life which I want to become vastly devoted to is taking a dive because of it. *sigh* I could stay up late and write until the crack of dawn, but I get so bogged down mentally, that nothing happens.

I was supposed to go to a place not too far away for a day of relaxation and pure typing, but that didn’t happen. If I have my way, I’ll go soon…if…

I spoke with a friend the other day who told me that I should release some of my work, over a course of time, bit by bit to gain an audience and feedback and while I’ve started that with this post, I haven’t got much of a response which obviously has left a bad taste in my mouth. Is writing really for me?

Anyhow, I will try to continue on…and I’ll be doing so with a bit of “Erotic Fan-Fiction” but not on novels or T.V. shows or anything like that. Nope, just on men. Men, will be the source of this fiction- famous men…or at least men I find incredulously handsome and would love to get my hands on but know (in the front of my mind) that I never will. I got the idea from Tina (of Bob’s Burgers) cause she does the same…but with her friends…and zombies.

I’ve always wanted to do it, but thought that in a world with so much social media and googling and shiz, people would think that it was a real story but, now I don’t really care. I’ve been dreaming of these guys too frequently to not indulge in a little fantasy and well…get some writing done.

The first of these Fan-Fiction pieces will be called “The Elf & His Princess,” a mock interview piece that I wrote in high school about me and Orlando Bloom (when he was hot off the LOTR circuit). It’s long…and it’s out there, but it was based on like a four-part dream I had for several weeks so…yeah.

w/love

-Alja

Jul 15 2012

absent and ashamed

Darling followers,

I would first like to apologize for my lack of posts. When I first started this blog, my intention was the write and post as frequently as possible, giving you an insight to my writing style (that you hopefully grow to enjoy). Unfortunately, I’ve been bombarded by bouts of confusion, blockage and (downright) laziness, that I haven’t been able to provide you with anything new.

But it hasn’t just been this blog – I haven’t been able to do anything new. My design projects are happening mostly in my head partly due to lack of energy, and my writing efforts on this novel I imagined I’d have finished by the end of the summer, aren’t going well either. I guess, you can say that I’ve once again stumbled on that dreadful thing called writer’s block. *ugh* Despite the fact that I’ve got the plot for the story all mapped out, and I know how I’d like to play out the ups and downs of the for my characters, the words, the damn words aren’t coming to me.

BUT, I have to say that something else has popped into my head (which is usually the case when I’m stuck on one story – hence all my unfinished stories). It was a dream actually, and it involved a retelling of Snow White.

In the dream, Edward Scissorhands made an appearance (lol), but with him taken out, it’s a very modern take on it. I guess that Grimm marathon with my sister and my anticipation for season 2 of Once Upon A Time has finally got to me. It has some aspects of Cinderella, but in my dream it was meshed together so well, that I don’t think you’ll really notice it. I’m pretty torn between writing it to be honest. I mean, how many re-telling of classics can people endure, right? But then I thought, this could be…the thing that showcases my talent?! AND I’ve been clinging on to this idea of a steam-punk retelling of beauty and the beast too…so I don’t know… *scratches head*

Sometimes I fear that I’ll have compiled nothing but scraps of paper with the beginnings to so many stories and have only a small fraction of them actually completed and like zip published…*sigh*

In other news, my sister has created an idea for a children’s book and has graciously granted me the task of writing it! HA! She called me yesterday to ask on the progress of it as well…so I need to get cracking on that.

Hmm…this is turning out to be one hazy summer. Yikes.

I promise to give you a progress report, hopefully better than this one.

Thanks for listening,

-Alja

Jun 4 2012

Muse is Sickly…

And so, in trying to keep with documenting my success in finishing a novel by the end of Summer, I am here to inform you that my muse is sickly. Not only is she sickly, but it seems that she’s got laryngitis as I haven’t heard a peep from her in some days. A few times during showers she may muster up some form of plot development, but aside from that, I haven’t added much to what I’ve already got, which is okay because I’ve mustered up something in the 10-11 thousand word range. But, considering that I need to be somewhere around the 80-100 thousand range by September…it is a bit worrisome.

Nonetheless, I shall prevail. I think my sudden blockage may be due to the fact that I need a good book to put me in the frame of mind of the time. With that being said, I’m looking to read a good copy of  ‘Jane Eyre,’ preferably on a beach soaking up some sun and much needed relaxation time. I am hopeful that I will procure my copy of the book soon, though I’m not sure if I want to borrow if from the library -which I haven’t been to in MONTHS- or if I should just get the bloody copy from a Barnes and Nobles and hold on to it in hopes that it’ll be one of those books that I read every Spring or something. It can be added to the ‘classics’ section of my personal library which already includes such books as “Mansfield Park,” “Little Women,” “This Side of Paradise,” ” The Jungle,” “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Frankenstein,” “The Awakening,” and “The Jungle.” None of which I’ve actually read yet. Jeez-Louise I need to get better with my reading.

Well, that’s all I have for you so far. I will be posting up excerpts of what I have AND I will also be posting up some poetry and short stories as I started in the past. I need to make this blog thing a little more lively, then hopefully people will like me enough to actually want to read more.

W/love,

-Alja

Dec 28 2011

Day 14

My efforts to write more creatively are putting me in a perplexing place. While I’m racing to finish one of my many incomplete stories, I’m finding that I can not organically come up with plot lines that are clean, crisp, new and out of the box. It’s gotten to the point where I’m actually on the verge of scraping some of my unfinished works and just working on what I already have. But in the back of my mind, I know that I started something and thus must finish it. That is the order of things, now isn’t it? You start something, and you must finish it. That’s our nature as human beings, to start life and then to finish it, even if it ends in such a way that you otherwise did not intend.

Anyhow, I can say that I’ve added on a couple pages to a chapter in my fantasy novel. And I’m working (in my brain, of course) of two more chapters to add on, with mostly background material. My greatest problem in that is putting it down in a voice that is cohesive with the way everything else is written. I am proud of myself for adding on something, but if I’m to achieve my goals of being published in 2012, I just have to keep going. Was it ever this hard for Austen or Hemmingway? Argh! If only I had my own group of writing intellectuals to bounce ideas off of…

w/love,

-Alja