Hey all, I'm new.

[Cal20]

Hey there everyone, I've just joined Chronicles a few days now. I'm a 17 year old aspiring writer and I could do with some help on motivation and writer's block. Sometimes I really want to write but absolutely nothing comes out of the pen, or if something does it's terrible! Any help is greatly appreciated

Cal20

[Mouse]

Hi! Welcome, you should find loads to help you on this site, I know I do!

If you aren't getting anything just leave it. I'm like that at the mo, I was on a roll but now everytime I go back to my work I just don't know where to go. So I leave it alone. It'll come to me eventually!

[HoopyFrood]

Hi Cal! Welcome to the Chron!

I know the feeling only too well...I have slumps that last up to a couple of months sometimes where I just can't find the motivation to write...all I can do is edit (and I hate editing! ) However, once I get the spirit back, there's no stopping me! So you just have to take the highs with the lows. I hope you find your Muse soon so you can get back to what I think all of us here love to do the most! (writing...yes, I mean writing, before anyone gets the wrong idea...*looks around suspiciously*)
Anyway, once again, Welcome! I look forward to bumping into you around the corridors, and perhaps you'll even post some of your work up in the Aspiring Writers section!

[SpaceShip]

Hi Cal - great to meet you. Join the "I can't think of anything at the moment" club - it'll come back and then there'll be no stopping you. Hope to meet you around the threads. Welcome!

[Dean F. Wilson]

Welcome aboard, Cal20!

Some initial advice:

1. Just write. Don't read over what you've written while you're writing it (i.e. get out of the "editor's mindset"). Most of my first writing was terrible, but the act of "getting it out of my system", as it were, helped me develop my skill and style, and, as someone once said, you're not a writer 'til you've written your first million words. Get going!

2. Read! I constantly come across people who think you can be a good writer while not being a keen reader. You need to see good writing (and bad writing) all the time. You need to be toying with words even when you're not actually writing, and reading is by far the best tool for this. It can also be extremely inspirational and can get those creative juices flowing. Movies and music are also good aides if you're a little "stuck". Changing the room/location where you write can help for larger blocks.

-D

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Dean F. Wilson

2. Read! I constantly come across people who think you can be a good writer while not being a keen reader. You need to see good writing (and bad writing) all the time. You need to be toying with words even when you're not actually writing, and reading is by far the best tool for this. It can also be extremely inspirational and can get those creative juices flowing. Movies and music are also good aides if you're a little "stuck". Changing the room/location where you write can help for larger blocks.

Well said! I've not run across any writer whose work is memorable that wasn't (or isn't) an omnivorous reader. And don't narrow your focus to just fiction, either -- the more you branch out, the more grist you get for the idea (and writing) mill; you'll be surprised where ideas will come from.

Also, if I may pick up on something else here, the "toying with words" ... do this literally: play with the words, sound them in your head, look them up and find their etymologies, how they interact, the slipperiness of them (so that, even at your most clear, the ambiguity is in the language itself). All of these will help you to build better sentences by constantly understanding better the relationships between words. And work at reading much more of the good than the bad, as both will have a tendency to influence your work on some level, if only unconsciously.

Also: write. Practice writing every day. Don't be afraid to write anything: stories, ideas, sonnets (or verse of any form), fragments, journals, nonfiction essays (or "sketches), critiques, laundry lists..... The act of writing itself, if kept going, tends to act as a lubricant at times; conversely, if you don't write, when you do have ideas, you may find it more difficult to put them down, or find yourself more harshly critical of what you attain when you do. And, as Dean says, just let yourself flow with it -- be "editor" only when you're going back over it later; at least until you achieve enough confidence that the one will no longer interfere with your doing the other (and most writers never quite get to that point, really; we can be an oddly insecure bunch, even the most hardened -- we have so many illustrious examples).

And keep something to write with and on with you at all times; you never know when an idea will crop up!

[dwndrgn]

Welcome to Chronicles Cal20! I've moved your post to the introductions thread so all can welcome you.

[The Technophobe]

All Hail And Welcome

[nixie]

welcome

[Nesacat]

Meowrr and Namaste. Just know that you are doomed, escape is impossible and you really should not believe anyone who tells you they are quite sane by accepted standards. Oh and while there is a rumour going around that there is no spoon, there are however, cats and possibly chopsticks and peanuts and oh yes ... now we also have cakes.

[Faceless Woman]

Greetings and welcome, fellow wannabe author. Listen to these people, they're smart. They aren't sane, but they're smart.
Relax. It'll come.

[Perpetual Man]

Hi! Welcome to Chronicles!

[Cal20]

Thanks so much to everyone for the great and reassuring advice, and warm welcomes! I will hopefully be putting the advice to practice and putting up a snippet of my work soon. Thanks again

Cal20

[Rosemary]

Greetings and Welcome to our Fantastic Forums, Cal

Better late than never I hope

[Tau Zero]

Greetings & Welcome!

(OK, here's the deal. They're all freaking mad around here except for me (by accepted standards) so trust me when i say you need to flee to save your sanity. So run. Run fast; run far. 'Cause They'll get you. They really will. And don't eat the Master's, uh i mean, Scalem's peanuts. They, well, do things to you.)