The Write Focus

5:15 / Defeat Writer's Block / Avoid These Mistakes part 2

When we’re browsing for information to help our own particular problems, we reach for the weighty titles, the ones that analyze to the nth degree and provide six or seven or thirteen examples. That kind of information scan would miss Judy Delton’s surprisingly valuable little guidebook The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.

My own bookshelf, physical and electronic, is scant on information about Writer’s Block. That doesn’t mean I haven’t suffered from it, the way many writers have.

Most of my earlier years when I plunged into Writer’s Block, I denied that I had it. It was the great “unmentioned unmentionable” such as Erle Stanley Gardner must have faced. … I, too, have looked for processes to spin out a plot or delve into characters. I haven’t gone as far as to create a 15-page outline or 7 Plot Wheels. Nor have I looked for a variety of information on Writer’s Block and how to overcome it.

I’ve simply prayed for the opportunities when my writing flows out so easily and hoped, after a stoppage, that I can return to that flowing. I have learned that writing every day prevents Writer’s Block.

If we don’t admit to Writer’s Block, can we overcome it? Most of us think we can, simply by ignoring it, keeping it unmentioned and unacknowledged … at least, that’s what we think.

The real, actual, only thing that we can do to Defeat Writer’s Block is act upon our Will to Write.

I’m not certain that Judy Delton’s little guidebook can be found. It’s not from a major publisher although Writer’s Digest Books is certainly well-known. An internet search turns up cached pages offering the book at used book dealers like Thrift Books and ebay, but the first two that I clicked only catalogued the book; it wasn’t in stock.

Anyway, on to part 2 of “Avoid These Mistakes” when attempting to find the impetus to Defeat Writer’s Block.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 03:05 Delton’s 5^th Mistake to Avoid
• 07:25 Her 21^st Mistake to Avoid
• 11:07 Bridge thru Guidebook / More Advice than on Writer’s Block
• 17:05 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time :: 19:23

 

LINKS

Delton, Judy. The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. Writer’s Digest Books, 1985.

Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/04/defeat-writers-block-avoid-these.html

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:14 /Defeat Writer's Block / Avoid These Mistakes

Writers read. In reading we are voracious consumers of anything that catches our eye.

We may also be hoarders, little dragons perched on a Keep-Forever Book Stack, surrounded by a myriad of smaller To-Be-Read stacks: This Stack First, This Stack Second, This Later, Helpful Stuff, I Wanna But Not Now, Maybe Later, I Dunno, and more. When we climb down from our hoard, we may stop and investigate those TBR stacks and do a little re-organizing.

And thus I found an unexpected gem which has a lot to say about Defeating Writer’s Block. The book is Judy Delton’s The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 04:28 Avoid Mistake #1
• 11:40 Avoid Mistake #2
• 18:25 Wilhelm’s Law of Ideas
• 21:00 Avoid Mistake #3
• 24:46 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time :: 26:52

 

LINKS

Delton, Judy. The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. Writer’s Digest Books, 1985.

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

 

5:13 / Defeat Writer's Block / More Techniques from Gardner

Here we are with More Techniques from Erle Stanley Gardner. We’re tackling Gardner’s solutions for Writer’s Block.

Look to the Show Notes for information about the nonfiction book that is the source for this information.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 01:11 Unmentioned Unmentionable
• 01:54 Notes & Rules on Work
• 07:30 Plotting Machines
• 12:20 Gardner, THE Plotting Machine
• 15:16 Flying Buttresses against Writer’s Block
• 17:10 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time :: 19:17

 

LINKS

Secrets of the World’s Best-Selling Writer: the Storytelling Techniques of Erle Stanley Gardner. Francis L. and Roberta B. Fugate. Graymalki Media, 1975. 

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:12 / Defeat Writer's Block / How One Pro Won the Battle

• 66,000 words per week
• 140 titles published ~ novels and short stories.
  • Of that number, 100 of them sold over one million copies EACH.
• Translated into dozens of languages
• Used pen names because he was so prolific he had to disguise his output from editors

Who is this great Defeater of Writer’s Block? Let’s try one more clue.

• 271 TV episodes produced with his trademark character Perry Mason.

Have you guessed the writer? Erle Stanley Gardner.

To write 66,000 words each week and to publish 140 titles, Gardner had to have methods and techniques to Defeat Writer’s Block.

In his early days, before he became best-selling, Gardner had to learn story-telling techniques, all the craft skills of character, plot, conflict, and resolution (endings). He discovered practical methods and adapted them, and those served him well over his long career as a professional writer.

Let’s analyze the ones we can adapt to super-charge our own Write Focus.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 03:08 Writing Life Work Habits
• 04:38 Gardner’s 1^st Technique
• 07:48 His 2^nd Technique
• 09:05 His 3^rd Technique (& the most important)
• 10:30 Two Touchstones for Stories
• 13:40 These Touchstones Defeat Writer’s Block
• 15:03 Five Guides for any Story
• 20:05 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time :: 22:48

 

LINKS

Secrets of the World’s Best-Selling Writer: the Storytelling Techniques of Erle Stanley Gardner. Francis L. and Roberta B. Fugate. Graymalki Media, 1975.

Lester Dent’s Plot Formula (1^st episode) Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/322-short-narratives-part-1-mixed-miscellany-summer-series/?token=787f587776d16329864e1540c7138c9e

Video on YouTube https://youtu.be/jA6xHr44XMw

Lester Dent’s Plot Formula / printable pdf / https://mgherron.com/2015/01/lester-dents-pulp-paper-master-fiction-plot-formula/

Plot 7 (1^st episode) Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/504-plot-7-part-a-discovering-plot/

Archetypal Story Pattern / Greatest Plot Structure in the World (1^st episode) Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/stages-1-2-greatest-plot-structure-discplot-447/?token=1f886de066cbc760395ba4fc6edb7519

 

Link to Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/03/defeat-writers-block-how-one-pro-won.html

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:11 / Defeat Writer's Block / Pro Writers part B

We’re back with more advice from Pro Writers on Defeating Writer’s Block.

Let’s launch straight into business.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 00:48 Barbara Kingsolver
• 03:00 William Stafford (poet)
• 03:51 Scott McCormick
• 09:16 Philip Pullman
• 12:06 Charlaine Harris
• 14:34 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time:: 16:40

 

Links

None. Quotations came from a variety of internet sites.

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:10 / Defeat Writer's Block / Pro Writers part A

In the first part of this series, The Write Focus shared everything we had to say about Writer’s Block and how to defeat that three-headed monster.

When we research the topic, we find articles that claim 5 types or 10 types of Writer’s Block. Shudder. I don’t want even to contemplate 10 types. Yet I read the article—so you don’t have to. Guess what? Those 10 types are actually just an expansion of the 3 types we covered in our series—as were the 5 types.

And the solutions were exactly what we listed: breaks and escapes, switching projects, overcoming fears and learning new writing skills, pursuing a healthy lifestyle, regaining curiosity, and practicing creativity.

We can do this. We can DEFEAT WRITER’S BLOCK. (Shout it!)

In this segment, we’ll explore advice from other writers, pro writers who have to meet deadlines and are too professional to churn out boring words. Let’s explore what they say.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 01:53 Neil Gaiman
• 04:16 Ernest Hemingway
• 07:35 Hilary Mantel
• 08:53 Norman Mailer
• 10:00 Mark Twain
• 11:15 Neil Gaiman again
• 15:00 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 17:08

 

Links

Quotations came from a variety of internet sites

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, with all NEW information based on host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

 

5:09 / Defeat Writer's Block / Overcoming Type 3

Writer’s Block looms like a sharp-clawed monster over every writer. A daily discipline—No Day without Lines—is extremely helpful, no matter how many you schedule for a particular day.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea is our mantra, right?

We can overcome a simple refusal to write by maintaining discipline and side projects and our escapes when we’re overwhelmed.

We can defeat Procrastination by overcoming the Twin Fears of Failure and of Judgment. If our worries are failure and judgment, those problems are not with our writing but are inside ourselves. Root them out. Our writing is for us. Improve whatever weaknesses we see. When people point out weaknesses, consider these learning opportunities and keep improving.

We’ve reached the slimy cave of that real Horrible, Terrible Monster than can destroy everything, not just our writing but our hopes and joys.

Type 3 Writer’s Block is Inertia, and Writer’s Inertia kills words and contentment, plans and dreams, grace and well-being.

Yet we can and must defeat Inertia. Here’s how.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 02:13 Writer’s Inertia
• 02:40 Healthy Habits Defeat Inertia
• 09:07 Avoid Stagnating Slime
• 13:36 Wrap-Up
• 14:20 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 16:25

 

Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:08 /Defeat Writer's Block / Overcoming Type 2

Defeating Writer’s Block is easy to say, not so easy to do. We writers have to discover the problem we’re having with those pesky little words.

1^st, we have to find them—and they do like to hide.

2^nd, we have to write them down—whether in a notebook or straight to the keyboard. That’s a whole problem on its own. We can’t count the Block as a simple disruption, a wholesale explosion of our writing time.

It’s the Desire and the Initiative to write that’s the problem.

In our diagnostic quiz, at the end of the Introduction segment, the weakness of our desire, the weakness of our initiative are driving factors that keep us out of our chair.

Type 1 of Writer’s Block is Writer’s Refusal, and I consider it the easiest of the Blocks to diagnose, admit, and defeat.

Type 2 is a harder Block to defeat. What is the Type 2 Block? Writer’s Procrastination.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 01:48 Writer’s Procrastination
• 07:05 Fear #1
• 09:35 Fear #2
• 11:47 Trolls
• 14:06 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 16:14

 

Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

 

5:07 / Defeat Writer's Block / Overcoming Type 1

Hey! Our claim is that Writer’s Block doesn’t exist? And you say, “I don’t believe it. I’m blocked. I’m suffering with Writer’s Block.”

Believe it or not, the truth is that Writer’s Block does NOT exist. Not. No way. Nope. We can write, but something keeps us from writing what we very well need to write.

At the end of our last episode, the introduction to this series on Defeating Writer’s Block, we classified 3 types. Knowing the type that’s affecting us, that’s part of the solution to any Writer’s Block . . . for we can make claims, we can repeat a mantra–but something’s blocking us.

The other part of the solution to Writer’s Block is our WILL–even if we don’t want to write, we MUST. We NEED to. We gotta!

The only problem with saying “MUST and NEED and GOTTA” is that I’m afflicted with bloody-mindedness. As soon as someone commands must / need / have to / gotta–my bloody-mindedness kicks in. “Oh yeah? I think NOT.”

That’s where WILL comes in—and that’s our focus this week. Overcoming Type I of Writer’s Block, classified as Writer’s Refusal.

[Did I shout enough?]

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 01:53 Writer’s Refusal
• 03:25 Overcome with Escape
• 05:45 Escape Exercise to Try
• 11:25 Overcome the Over-Schedule
• 17:15 When Numbers Help Words
• 22:45 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 22:51

 

Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. 

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:06 / Defeat Writer's Block / Introduction

 Can you name a phrase that every writer fears? Try “Writer’s Block”.

We writers all have a deep-seated fear when we hear those two words side by side. Writer’s Block—those should be forbidden to speak together.

We have quite a number of pro writers who claim there’s no such things as Writer’s Block, and I’m one of them—but I will admit that I find myself refusing to write or avoiding my desk or just stuck on a story. Distractions and disruptions occur, and before we know it, weeks—not days, weeks—have passed. With few words written, our writing plans are blown. Guilt descends—and the clouds of guilt and disappointment and dismay and more disrupters descend and . . . gosh, we don’t even want to think about it.

That’s the purpose of this series: we want to Defeat that Writer’s Block.

To do that, we have to look more closely at Writer’s Block than we want to. In this February month of love, let’s look at what prevents us from pursuing our love of writing.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Intro
• 01:46 Writer’s Block Doesn’t Exist
• 08:30 The Truth about Writer’s Block
• 13:55 Diagnostic Quiz
• 16:00 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 17:00

 

Links

Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)