I’ve decided to start doing “mini posts” on my website hopefully once a week. These posts will still be about writing, but less about the nuts and bolts types of topics.
In my post a few weeks ago about writer’s block, I talked about something else that plagues me continually – writer paralysis. For me, it’s when you have all the pieces of what you want to write about, but when you sit down in front of the screen, you can’t even pull together a string of words.
I think a lot of it has to do with perfectionism. I get all in my head about what I want my story to look like and I expect it to be perfect on the first draft, instead of just starting to write and editing after. That’s the hardest part, just getting your brain and fingers moving and putting words on the paper.
Writing paralysis is crippling. It honestly has contributed to the lack of me writing anything substantial in the fiction realm in a very long time. I spend too much time trying to build up my idea and iron out any potential details beforehand, that I never just get down to it. Then I just push it to the backburner since I can’t deal with it. While plotting and outlining is very important and is still considered part of the writing process, I feel like I use that too much as a safety net and to feed myself excuses as to why I haven’t written.
Doing the writing prompts like I mentioned in the writer’s block post is a great way to boost your confidence and get the ball rolling. However, there still will come the day where you need to sit down and begin writing the larger work (or whatever) that is causing you grief. Having it hang over your head won’t help you any.
Setting yourself small deadlines can be helpful. Don’t go into the project thinking that you need to bang out ten chapters in one sitting. Sit down and think, “okay, I’m going to write the opening scene.” Do that. Next thing you know, you haven’t written just the opening scene but the first chapter. Keep going with your momentum as long as you can. Just write and write, even if it doesn’t all fit together.
Making that first step is the hardest part.