[TheMissing]

Okay this is a bit abnormal but I feel like I cannot write anymore. I do not know what it is but it seems like all the ideas I want to write about... have been taken, I feel really bad about this and now have three stories on the go. I hope that I can find my groove and get into another story. Sometimes I feel as if I suck at writing but have been doing it since I was 11 or 12. Somehow I wish I could write a story like that.

[miriel361]

It's called writer's block and it comes and goes. My smut faerie for instance, left me for a whole 3 months! Relax, do something else for a while. Life isn't just about writing you know.

Yes, all the best story lines have been taken. But then again, it's not what you write but how you write it!

Chin up!

[Viv]

I totally understand where you're coming from. I was about halfway through writing an elf-in-the-21st-century story when I read a story on that very subject.... that also happened to be tons better than mine. So I stopped writing my story for a long time. But then I discovered something fairly important: fic isn't necessarily about originality. I mean, if we were all interested in creating something "new" we'd be writing original work for money.

So I'm writing that story again, and hopefully will end up making a different point from that other story (which is still intimidating).

Regarding the muse in general...

I think we've all had spots where our muses have gone on vacation. This is the trickiest part of writing, I think. The pro writers I've talked to have recommended just sitting in front of your computer at least half an hour a day and writing something. Anything. A letter to one of your characters, a scene from their childhood that will never make it into the story you're writing... any piece of crap you can think of. It doesn't even matter if it's any good; what matters is that you are training your brain to create something every day.

I suck at this technique so far, but I've heard the same advice now from over a dozen pro (that is, paid) fiction writers, so there has to be some merit to it.

[NancyBrooke]

Me, too! I've been stalled for several months now on what I thought would be a Great Work. Before, it was all I could do to get to my notebook fast enough when whole phrases and scenes would spring fully-formed and unbidden into my brain. I felt like I was in the story; now I'm not even a tourist.

I feel like my muse has deserted me; or said "I've given you all you need, now get to it!"

In trying to work my way around it, I have written a couple other good things ("Leaves on the Wind" being the best example), stories that came out of trying to see the stalled story from a different angle. Still it feels like a failure.

I keep trying to plug away at it, though. I'm hoping the TTEE and ROTK will be inspirational.

Nancy

[Haleth]

There is nothing new under the sun, but it can be very discouraging to discover that the idea you believed so original and fresh has already been used. Especially if the story is far better than what one could ever (supposedly) hope to write.

Which is a fancy way of saying exactly the same thing has happened to me, too.

It might be best to take a break or to try something completely original for awhile. Or it might be best to write something entirely for your own enjoyment. Often it's not the basic premise of the story, but how the tale is told that makes a fic unique.

Speaking only for myself, I know that writing was much easier before I bothered to notice hit counters. Entire scenes, complete with dialogue, would just appear in my head. All I had to do was to transcribe them.

There seems to be a balance between community acceptance and writing for the pure joy of writing. Some of us seem to find it naturally. Others (like me) have a more difficult time. Before the Net, writing was a fairly solitary pasttime. I wonder if this is a fairly new problem?

Does this make any sense?

[Leila]

Same here. Can't seem to come up with any ideas that I haven't seen written a dozen times. And I tried writting a second chapter of An Elf in Aglarond, but after I got done writing about a page worth I went back and read it. JUNK! I'm going to try to rewrite it tonight. *sigh* Back to the drawing board.

[Roisin]

Isn't there a saying that there are only about 7 original plots in the world? I think it's OK if something's been "done" before, just put your own spin on it.

Roisin

[NancyBrooke]

Yes, "Make It New" as they say. If you wrote about something pretty thoroughly new, nobody would get it. The trick is to write about something universally resonant, from a unique perspective. But again, that's putting pressure on the already pressurized.

I haven't cured my writer's block on the current story, but I got over an earlier one. I set the story aside for a while, kind of turning it over in my head, until I found a new way to tell the chapter that I was stuck on. Then it flowed. (specifically, instead of telling events linearly, I went non-linear - starting more or less at the end and then leaping to the beginning. It worked much better and helped me move on with the story.)

ALso, you might try asking yourselves questions about your story - what's most important here? What am I really trying to say? that might help illuminate things. Sometimes those scenes that spring fully-formed into our imaginations are great, but don't help tell the story the way it needs to be told.

Hope this helps.

N