Raindrops falling onto the Surface of a Pond. (Credit: Keith Carreiro, May 2016.)
I tried a wide variety of writing techniques, even psychological ones, to fix the impasse of my not knowing what to write next. No luck. Nothing in the well. No matter what I did in terms of what are called prewriting strategies‡ (e.g., formal and informal outlining, brainstorming, clustering and branching, mind mapping and even more freewriting), I could not summon another shred of a word. A sentence would have been good, but I couldn’t even wring a prefix, suffix, syllable and/or morpheme out of me.
The idea for The Immortality Wars arrived in pieces, or threads of thoughts that popped into my awareness based on questions I was asking myself and my students about the future. Once the existential questions were brought into play and percolating, I started recording the various responses I was receiving.
I tried writing as though I was also the cinematographer of my own story, and as such, I needed to storyboard the plot in the same way a filmmaker would go about doing it in a similar fashion.
A screenshot showing two paragraphs of narrative that were written based off of the five bullet points shown directly below the last line of the narrative. (Credit: Keith Carreiro, May 2016.)
By blocking out the storyboard ideas, I was able to block out the writer’s block.
A Saucer magnolia (Magnolia × soulangeana) blossom on the Bridgewater State University campus. Harrington Hall is in the background. (Credit: Keith Carreiro, May 2016.)
I was able to sustain the edge of storytelling I first established. I set a goal of writing 144,000 words. I surpassed that goal by writing a total of 168,000 words, instead. Not only did the story and my writing fiction fully blossom, but my confidence in myself as a creative artist flourished, too . . .
†Please refer to the blogs listed below:
December 31, 2015: “Beginnings . . . ”
January 14, 2016: “Preparing – Part I . . . ”
January 21, 2016: “Preparing – Part II . . . ”
January 28, 2016: “Storytelling . . . ”
‡For more information about prewriting strategies, please see the links listed below:
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2 comments. Leave new
No surprise, you even have a creative way to unblock creativity. I continue to be amazed at what you are accomplishing … You are inspiring me.
Hi, Barbara: Thanks for your comment. It took me a bit to figure out how to approach this particular post. Unblocking a block seems awkward, at first; but it is like unlocking a lock (even rhymes!).