Busting Blocks

PBW saw a movie made by Ben Joffe in Ireland and got banished from the country in a sad mood and decided to sleep it off which upset everybody, she made a giant leap across the ravine and as if it were a miracle she accidently tripped and smashed her face against a rock.

This cause for celebration was brought to you by Ben Joffe's Story Generator, which led me to DeAnna's weblog, Men Can't Live With Them, Can't Shoot Them in the Kneecaps. Amen, sister.

I don't have a problem with writer's block, but sometimes I think I get character block. There is a perpetual stone wall that stands between me and Reever from the StarDoc books, for example. Reever refuses to let me in, and during any siege he rebuilds his walls as fast as I tear them down. In the last novel, I used the fiction equivalent of nitro to blast him out of his emotional monastery, and damned if he didn't have ten feet of brand-new bricks and mortar already stacked and solidifying the second I started writing the new book.

I deal with Reever by writing pieces of his history before StarDoc book one. He really hates that.

Reever and I have been together a long time -- seven years now -- so his stonewalling me has almost become part of the process. With other characters, like the one I'm wrestling now (my crazy man from If Angels Burn, Thierry Durand) I don't have that kind of history. Thierry is tough to write, too, because he's not exactly sane and so is inclined to ditch redemption in favor of doing crazy man things. Which would be fine if he were the bad guy of the story, but he's not.

With Thierry, I'll just write through it and work it out on the page. I think that can help with whatever blocks you slam into with your writing.

It's also fun to play on the side. I take time every day to go surfing and find stuff for my ten things lists, or simply fool with some of the online idea/character/story resources out there, like the B-Movie Plot Generator, Dragon Name Generator, Fantasy Story Generator, God Name Generator, Persona Generator, Random Daily Prompt Generator, Random Name Generator, Story Generator, Story Recipe, and The Tarot-based Story Generator.