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I've had days when I sit down to write and it all goes fantastically well. The words flow with ease and I'm on a roll. Time flies by. Other times I can sit down and nothing happens! I just look at the screen with nothing but a cursor flashing at me.

What do you do when you have days like that? Please tell me I'm not alone in this LOL. :)

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Um Dj Schmolli is good he does mixes of songs Streetlight Manifesto, Five Finger Death Punch, Dresden Dolls, I am ghost,3. If you're into rock that is, thats what I listen too when I read and write.

scribbler said:
I'm the way Kay is. You've given me something to test out now Sandra. Thanks for the suggestion.

Today is a perfect example. My neighbor had a chainsaw going all day trimming trees, and I mean all day. From 9am until dark I listened to that and it drove me nuts. I couldn't get a thing done. Perhaps that would work for me.

Do you or Viviana have any music suggestions? Viviana, I can't read with music going either!

Sandra Kitchen said:
Kay, the right music blocks all other noises out if you have a headset on, and at the same time it gives me the freedom, I need to concentrate on what I am writing. It is outside noises that distract me, like the TV or the dog, this way I do not hear those things.

Kay Elizabeth said:
You know what, I have a friend that does that too Sandra. I'm the complete opposite. I need silence. I can't write with the TV on or music playing.
Andrew, your post inspired me to relook at some of my own old unfinished work. I never realized I had so much in the pipeline until I moved it all into one folder. Thanks for the idea. :)

Andrew Kunz said:
I'm getting that right now, actually. At first I didn't do anything about it, I just went and did something else and completely forgot that I had been trying to work on anything, that was until my friend suggested that I go read anything I've written before, previously finished projects or essays, or magazines, or even the back cover of a book that I have in my room and it actually worked pretty well for me. I went back and read one of my older projects that I completed, got about half way through the prologue and immediately jumped back to the project I was working on with tons of ideas that I had no idea where they had come from.
I find that amazing that you can listen to rock and work! I assumed it would be something more tame. I know I'm getting old now. I didn't recognize one of those names and that's always a sign LOL. :)

Viviana Arteaga said:
Um Dj Schmolli is good he does mixes of songs Streetlight Manifesto, Five Finger Death Punch, Dresden Dolls, I am ghost,3. If you're into rock that is, thats what I listen too when I read and write.

Callie, there's not a writer in the world that hasn't struggled to find the right approach or words from time to time. Here's something to think about.

When Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997, Joanne Kathleen Rowling was a previously unpublished author. She had no publishing credits, no insider knowledge, no friends in the industry. So how did she do it? How did she go on, in the space of ten short years, to become the first billionaire author on the planet?

The answer to that question lies not in what she did in those ten years between the publication of the first book and that of the seventh, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The answer actually lies in what she did in the seven years prior to the first book’s publication.

So if you’re an author who is yet to be published, you’re actually in the best possible position. Because it’s in this time, before your book hits the shelves, that you can have the greatest influence on its success.

I think you'd like that article. It's at my site and gives some background to JK Rowling's success and how much work she put in to get there. It was anything but overnight! I bet she burned he midnight oil many times.

Callie Leah Dewees said:
I actually am right now. I'm in the middle of writing a novel and I can't think of anything for the middle to make it interesting. I hate when that happens. I just can't stand it. It's the most annoying thing in the world for someone who hopes to be a famous author one day. It makes me think about authors like J. K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer and I wonder if they ever suffered from writers block while writing Harry Potter and Twilight...
lol I know my friends are impressed that I do that and sometimes I watch Tv at the same time that im reading and listening to music. Sometimes I can do it and others I can't, ja ja I find my singing (horribly off key) while reading lol it so weird because I accidentally sing out a word I read lol!

And don't worry Kay, they are not much of main stream bands, but it also depends in where you live. I live in a small town and not that many people know about them. So your not alone!! lol
Kay Elizabeth said:
I find that amazing that you can listen to rock and work! I assumed it would be something more tame. I know I'm getting old now. I didn't recognize one of those names and that's always a sign LOL. :)
Viviana Arteaga said:
Um Dj Schmolli is good he does mixes of songs Streetlight Manifesto, Five Finger Death Punch, Dresden Dolls, I am ghost,3. If you're into rock that is, thats what I listen too when I read and write.

I am seriously impressed you can multitask like that, Viviana! I tried listening with headphones on today like Sandra had been talking about and am stunned that I could do it and work at the same time. I had relaxation music on and it was low enough not to distract me. I know that's a whole lot different from what you're capable of. :)

Viviana Arteaga said:
lol I know my friends are impressed that I do that and sometimes I watch Tv at the same time that im reading and listening to music. Sometimes I can do it and others I can't, ja ja I find my singing (horribly off key) while reading lol it so weird because I accidentally sing out a word I read lol!

And don't worry Kay, they are not much of main stream bands, but it also depends in where you live. I live in a small town and not that many people know about them. So your not alone!! lol
Kay Elizabeth said:
I find that amazing that you can listen to rock and work! I assumed it would be something more tame. I know I'm getting old now. I didn't recognize one of those names and that's always a sign LOL. :)
Viviana Arteaga said:
Um Dj Schmolli is good he does mixes of songs Streetlight Manifesto, Five Finger Death Punch, Dresden Dolls, I am ghost,3. If you're into rock that is, thats what I listen too when I read and write.

lol Thanks! Nah, but sometimes I do write or read with no music or any other distractions. Its usually because no one is home and I can read like that lol Sometimes I listen to relaxing music it depends on my mood so I listen to what my feelings are. Ja Ja! =D

scribbler said:
I am seriously impressed you can multitask like that, Viviana! I tried listening with headphones on today like Sandra had been talking about and am stunned that I could do it and work at the same time. I had relaxation music on and it was low enough not to distract me. I know that's a whole lot different from what you're capable of. :)

As a new writer, I've had writer's block many a times. I just take a step outside, breathe in a deep breath, and observe everything around me. A tree could make me write something about a couple sitting in or under a tree, having an easy conversation about...you get the point. When I'm thinking to add on to something that I've already started writing, I look for ideas in works that have that same theme or similar outline as mine and maybe take some twists and turns from their ideas.
Writer's block...hmmm. Stephen King used to say one thing and one thing only about it: just write. \
I had the opportunity to attend one of Kurt Vonnegut's lectures in Ohio and he said basically the same thing. Just write. Whether it be b******* or nonsense, the clearing of the mental colon is a good thing. God bless him, Kurt wrote a whole essay with the word "f***" as the only word in it. Look it up, you'll find it liberating.
I know that when I'm stuck in the quagmire of no-word-land, all I have to do is read. Hence, reading is a good cathartic as well. If you really want to get your juices flowing, reading something stodgy like L.Ron Hubbard's The History of Western Philosophy will make you crap your mental pants and set you to write out of sheer angst and spite.
The words will flow, my dears. No worries. Be good, clever and kind.

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